Ask HN: Best isolating headphones for hacking? - <AUTHOR> On my new job I'm sitting in a room with eight others, including some guys that have a near constant flow of visitors. Behind me is a kitchen area where chatty experimentalists seem to be cooking and talking all day.
Ask HN: what are the best non in-ear headphones that isolate you from your surroundings even when you're not listening to music? <comment><USER2> The bible for purchasing headphones is here: [http://www.head- fi.org/a/headphone-buying-guide](http://www.head-fi.org/a/headphone-buying- guide)

I personally dropped $38 on the Superlux HD668b Evo, and could not be more pleased. They are semi-open, so not _as_ closed, but they're still pretty isolating - I can't hear anyone unless they're yelling into my ear. And the sound quality to price ratio is astounding. They are far superior to the pair of Bose on-ear headphones I had a while back.

<comment><USER3> Being semi-open, don't the headphones leak sound to whomever is around you?

<comment><USER4> I have the Superlux HD681, which are pretty close to the HD668. They sound great. The amount of sound they leak is modest, but they are definitely not great as far as isolation goes. In general, I'd go with in-ears if isolation is important to you. If you can't tolerate in-ears, a good pair of closed headphones like the ATH-M50 will do well, but you'll have to pay more $ for the same sound quality (at least in my experience).

For some extremely comprehensive comparisons, see [http://www.head- fi.org/t/478568/](http://www.head-fi.org/t/478568/) (in-ears) and [http://www.head-fi.org/t/433318/](http://www.head-fi.org/t/433318/) (portable headphones).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have a bunch of expensive headphones (Bose QC2, multiple inner ear), and the best solution I've found costs $28 and allows me to listen to music comfortably on a Mac at 0.5 tick!

I use a pair of earphones[0] covered by industrial ear muffs[1]. For comfort reasons, it's important that the earphones are not pressured by the surrounding ear muffs. I haven't found any inner ear headphones that meet this constraint. Sometimes I'll swap out the earphones for ear plugs for double ear protection / white noise.

I'm not a fan of open office plans, but this combo lets me tune out everything. Coworkers have gotten used to pinging me or waving to get my attention.

Edit: Drowning out distractions by turning up the volume leads to hearing damage. A better alternative is to eliminate ever hearing external noises. However to prevent incoming noise, ear muffs create a tight seal around your ears. My wife is uncomfortable with the pressure for extended periods of time. I wear them hours daily, and especially love them for sleeping on planes.

[0]: JBuds J2 affiliate link (the white color is $7):

[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001GS8FZC/ref=as_li_ss_tl?...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001GS8FZC/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B001GS8FZC&linkCode=as2&tag=willting-20)

JBuds J2 non-affiliate link:

[http://www.amazon.com/Premium-Noise-Isolating-Earbuds- Headph...](http://www.amazon.com/Premium-Noise-Isolating-Earbuds-Headphones- Chrome/dp/B001GS8FZC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1384959694&sr=8-1&keywords=j2+bud)

[1]: 3M Pelter H10A Optime 105 affiliate link:

[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00009LI4K/ref=as_li_ss_tl?...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00009LI4K/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00009LI4K&linkCode=as2&tag=willting-20)

3M Pelter H10A Optime 105 non-affiliate link:

[http://www.amazon.com/3M-Peltor-H10A-Optime- Earmuff/dp/B0000...](http://www.amazon.com/3M-Peltor-H10A-Optime- Earmuff/dp/B00009LI4K/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1384959824&sr=8-1&keywords=3m+ear+protection)

<comment> B-Con I have those exact earmuffs and have used them for the last 4 years. (I bought them because they had the best dB rating (31, IIRC) I could find within a reasonable price range.) They definitely do eliminate surrounding sound very well. I wear them when I want to isolate myself from my environment and focus on something.

I'll echo that that they aren't as comfortable as headphones. Headphones typically try to be light and have a soft fit around the head. These are a little heavy and definitely a slightly tighter fit, like you said. If comfort is extremely important, I'm not sure they'll be appreciated for extended periods of time. I rarely wear them for longer than 20 or 30 minutes.

<comment><USER6> I do the reverse setup: I use these earplugs [0] (or similar) and then put sennheiser hd280 (or whatever over-the-ear headphones $EMPLOYER gave me) over them. The former claim 20dB reduction, and I guess that the latter give another ~3dB.

I can take the earplugs onto airplanes a bit easier than earmuffs, but if I were to sit nearer to the coworker with the model M, I might switch to earbuds-under-earmuffs.

[0] [http://amzn.com/B0015WNZ9K](http://amzn.com/B0015WNZ9K)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I recently bought a high-end pair of industrial noise reduction earmuffs [1] and a jar of cheap foam earplugs [2].

For me, the combination has been great. I work in an open-plan office that I generally like, but some fiend put a chunk of common space in the middle, and people end up doing large meetings or small parties there, right next to my desk.

The high-end earmuffs, which were only $30, are much more comfortable to wear than the earmuffs I had worn previously. Several hours is no problem. And the combined noise reduction of the plugs and the muffs is amazing.

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CPCHBCQ/](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CPCHBCQ/)

[2] [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001J4HB1C/](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001J4HB1C/)

<comment><USER8> I'll be looking at a pair of the ear protectors as we call them in the UK.

Can you not swap your desk with someone who is on manager schedule and nearer the edge of the room? I got myself moved away from the door and network printer in a large open plan office. I'm now over by the back wall. Much less travelled area.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I use a pair of Bose active noise cancelling headphones (Quiet Comfort 15, over ear). I work in an open plan office with many people using the phone or talking across the room. I'm fairly distracted by this and these help, but it doesn't exactly silence outside noise. In fact, for some people their voices seem more pronounced when the noise cancelling is on. However they're pretty good quality, comfortable to wear and can truly deaden the sound of air conditioning and keyboards.

Major downside is that you have to turn on noise cancelling to listen to music - which is powered by a single AAA battery.

<comment><USER10> I second these and also recommend the new QC20's. Neither offer the best sound quality, but hands down the best noise canceling capabilities. The QC20's are in-ear and much more wearable outside of the office.

<comment><USER9> I've been thinking about switching back to in-ear buds - are they any better at blocking out voices? Also does that battery pack(?) on the QC20s get in the way much?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Sennheiser HD-380 Pro headphones have excellent isolation and are circumaural (enclose your ears, rather than sitting on your earlobes) which makes them very comfortable for long sessions. They also sound great. Only downside is they're not that portable, but if you just need headphones for your desk then I highly recommend them.

<comment><USER12> +1 for these too, I've had mine for over a year now. At first they were a little un-comfortable on my ears in terms of listening but they're now perfect.

The best part is that you can get any spare part for them from [http://spares.sennheiser.co.uk/pro-audio- headphones/hd-380-p...](http://spares.sennheiser.co.uk/pro-audio- headphones/hd-380-pro) . You could probably build a pair of headphones from the spares site alone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I've worn headphones at work for years. I started when I worked in bullpens in the middle of cubicle farms, and continued when I shared offices next to break rooms or conference rooms.

I've gone with fairly cheap, over-the-ear solutions. I'm not an audiophile, though I can detect poor quality encoding and have had my share of "wow" moments when I've heard something subtle in a good recording. In short, I consider myself an "average" consumer in this regard.

Currently, I have a pair of Sony MDR-XD100s which you can get at Amazon for about $33. They're quite comfortable, the sound quality is decent, and the cord is nice and long if you need to roll back from your desk to get something. If you're looking for at least a starter set of headphones, I would recommend these. If they don't meet your expectations, you can always move up to the more expensive solutions.

</comment><comment><USER14> Using foam earplugs along with an ordinary set of headphones playing white noise (or rather brown—not as harsh) has changed my life. Combining the two was the critical factor; neither worked very well by itself.

I keep the volume at the lowest level that still eliminates outside distraction. Normally that is very low. If there's something particularly noisy going on, I just turn it up a bit.

I used to feel extremely vulnerable to ambient noise and get thrown off by it many times a day. I basically never have that problem any more. Curiously, after using this solution for a few months I found that I didn't need it as often. Frequently it's enough to just remember that it's available if I need it.

(Earphones covered by industrial earmuffs sounds like kind of the same solution, just inverted.)

</comment><comment><USER15> You have two real options here:

In Ear: On in ear, you should spent the extra money for custom ear molds. This will allow for all day comfort: [http://www.sensaphonics.com/](http://www.sensaphonics.com/)

If the headphones you are considering are not on this list, then I would not consider them. I like shure, but you can also get etymotic research.

Over Ear: Beyer Dynamic DT 770. Velour ear pads (for all day comfort and isolation)

I have owned: Shure E2C, E4C with custom molds, Shure 840, Beyer Dynamic DT 770, Bose TriPort (previous lightweight champion, but lacking on sound)

I have tested extensively: Audio Technica m50 (more base response), beats (too much bass), All kinds of sennheiser under $150, and various other brands under $200.

<comment><USER16> I second the recommendation for Beyerdynamic's DT-770. They are standard equipment in recording studios because of their superb sound, good isolation (they are what's called a closed design) and ruggedness. You can also get a lot of replacement parts, should they break (I doubt that they will in normal office use). I wear glasses and the "part of the glasses that goes to the ear" [what's that called?] fits below the earpads easily.

One word of caution though: They are available with three distinct impedances (32Ω, 80Ω, 250Ω), and for usage with notebooks or an iPad I recommend the 32Ω version which is suitable for devices that have limited voltage available.

I own the 250Ω version and for comfortable listening levels on my mobile phone (Samsung G S2) I have to crank up the volume all to the maximum. Of course that could also be considered a hearing-saving pressure level limit ;-).

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I use Ultimate Ears Triple-Fi 10, which have apparently been replaced with the UE 900[1]. They have great isolation with Comply Foam and surprising quality for IEMs. The replaceable cord is also a great feature, so when it inevitably gets a kink that kills stereo, you can replace it without spending $$$ on a new pair. The only problem I've had is that one of them has gotten loose where the cord connects so it sometimes falls off, but usually they're good through the day. This may have been fixed in the newer version.

1\. [http://ue.logitech.com/en-us/product/ue900](http://ue.logitech.com/en- us/product/ue900)

</comment><comment><USER18> They're $400 but I've found that these snoring earplugs - [http://www.earplugstore.com/snproinwhnom.html](http://www.earplugstore.com/snproinwhnom.html) \- plus any kind of over the ear hearing protection/headphones for shooting - do the trick and can fight almost anything. For me it's airplanes that I usually need them for. The most common thing I use them to fight is loud flight attendants, esp if you are sitting at the front or the back of the plane.

</comment><comment><USER19> It seems like there's a lot of high-end kit flying around this thread. I'm sure everybody's recommendations are quite good, but this isn't a problem on which you need to spend a ton of cash to solve.

When I had this problem I went to Best Buy and picked up a $12 pair of earbuds which used memory foam instead of silicone. They might've been skull-candy brand? They came with three sizes of memory foam. For me the medium-sized one made the best seal, but wasn't so tight that they were uncomfortable to wear for a full 8-hour coding session.

Personally I work best when I listen to music which I can easily tune out. Sometimes that's music without lyrics (techno, classical guitar, or other random stuff like Explosions in the Sky or The Section Quartet), sometimes it's catchy upbeat pop songs which I've heard a million times. If you don't want to listen to music, download a white (or pink) noise generator. Between the seal formed by the memory foam buds and the white noise (which your brain will _very_ quickly tune out for you) you won't hear a thing.

Another tip: I also find that if my screen is in a position where it faces the crowd, it negates some of the benefit of wearing headphones since I can't tell who's looking over my shoulder as easily. It's not that I usually have things on my screen which I feel I need to hide, more that I'm kind of a privacy nut. This would probably still be the case even if I were to get one of those privacy filters, just because I'd periodically feel the need to look over my shoulder to see who's there. Maybe one of those C.H.I.M.P. mirrors from Think Geek would solve that, however.

<comment><USER3> I've taken a pair of earbuds and replace the foam with actual earplugs. Does wonders, especially on airplanes. They can be a bit awkward to get in and out, but great if you plan on settling in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm trying out loud white noise in a moderately loud environment. For about 30 minutes I"m able to concentrate. Not sure how long this will last though.

<comment><USER21> This can be dangerous, white noise is hard to modulate volume wise, and does the exact same amount of hearing damage as playing death metal or (insert type of music here).

<comment><USER20> I did not know that. Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Your colleagues might give you weird looks but hey...

[http://www.homedepot.com/p/Ryobi-Tek4-Audio-Plus-Noise- Suppr...](http://www.homedepot.com/p/Ryobi-Tek4-Audio-Plus-Noise-Suppression- Headphones-RP4530/100671268#.Uo0QzXDTuE4)

[http://www.howardleight.com/ear-muffs/sync](http://www.howardleight.com/ear- muffs/sync)

</comment><comment><USER23> I use fairly high-end Sennheisers with semi-open backs and big ear cups at home. I find closed backs too isolating in most work environments, and these are not actively anti-noise, so these won't work without music playing. They are also too big and too expensive to carry around.

When traveling or at customer sites, I use MEElectronics IEMs. These are reasonably priced, so I'm not worried about breaking or losing them. They are great on airplanes. They are small and often go unnoticed. The over-the-ear memory-wire configuration stays securely in my ears. I also use Comply foam tips and keep some extras with me in case the headphones end up on the airplane floor or some other place I don't want in my ears.

</comment><comment><USER24> The company that I work for purchased these for me a few days ago: [http://www.amazon.com/Bose%C2%AE-QuietComfort%C2%AE- Acoustic...](http://www.amazon.com/Bose%C2%AE-QuietComfort%C2%AE-Acoustic- Cancelling%C2%AE-Headphones/dp/B0054JJ0QW)

I'm pretty happy with them. I'm fairly easily distracted by noises: Heavy walking noises, talking, laughing, phones ringing, folks rustling potato chip bags... It can all mess up my concentration if it comes at an inopportune moment. I'm the only programmer here so most of the folks here do not understand how easy it can be to derail someone that's coding when you catch them in the middle of a thought.

Anyway, now I feel like I work in 'silence.' I have my music playing at a much lower volume than I used to and cannot hear the office antics.

These specific headphones fit over and around ear (they provide a fairly good seal which muffles out a decent amount of sound even when they're not turned on.) Once turned on, most noises disappear. Sometimes I can still hear voices but they sound like they're very far away. A little music at low volume tends to filter out the remainder of the "very far away" voices.

The battery life is about 36 hours of active use time. The headphones have a switch on the side to turn them off. Music cannot be played through the headphones when they are 'off.' The headset takes 1 AAA battery, so I just keep some rechargeable batteries on the shelf behind me.

These have their pros/cons like pretty much anything.

My apologies for rambling. :)

OH! I will add, if you have these things on your head and switched 'on' but do not have any sound playing.... you'll feel... odd initially. I felt slightly disoriented when I first put them on my head sans music. I guess it was a mild sensory deprivation thing.

 _edit_

Also, if you just happen to not like Bose, check out the amazon link anyway. The top most customer review compares the headphones to similar models from two other brands and lists pro/cons of those models as well.

<comment><USER25> I have a pair of these also. I wear them most of the day in the office. The noise canceling feature is great, but I also can't emphasize the importance of the "over-the-ear" ear cups vs. "on-the-ear" enough. Over-the-ear makes a huge difference if you are looking for isolation.

EDIT: forgot to mention one minor annoyance I have with over-the-ear headphones is how some ear cups fit over my glasses. With these Bose it's not much of an issue since the ear cups are soft enough, but has been much more annoying with other headphones. Something to be aware of, at least.

<comment><USER24> The glasses angle is something that I had not considered. The QC15s fit nice and snug around your entire ear (not in an uncomfortable way) so glasses could potentially be an issue. They are fairly soft, though, so I suppose it could be worse.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I use Bose QuietComfort 15 (noise cancelling). Link: [http://www.amazon.com/Bose%C2%AE-QuietComfort%C2%AE- Acoustic...](http://www.amazon.com/Bose%C2%AE-QuietComfort%C2%AE-Acoustic- Cancelling%C2%AE-Headphones/dp/B0054JJ0QW/)

I got a pair for my wife and I used them constantly, so I got a pair of my own. I absolutely love them. I often use them just for the noise cancelling (i.e. when travelling) without any music playing.

I'm not an audiophile and haven't tried every pair out there, but I'm very happy with these. If you're married these really come in handy. If you don't get it, you will.

</comment><comment><USER27> I'm deaf, so I don't have quite the same needs in headphones that most people do. That said, I do sometimes like to listen to music and need isolating headphones (so they don't leak sound and annoy my coworkers) that fit comfortably over a behind the ear hearing aid.

Accordingly, I've been using a set of Beyerdynamic DT-770 Pro over-the-ear headphones and I've been really happy with them. I have to adjust them a bit funny to fit over the hearing aid without causing feedback, but they're generally pretty comfortable.

They're a bit more expensive at around $175 to $200 depending on where you shop, but might be worth a look.

</comment><comment><USER28> I'm very happy with the Bang & Olufsen H6 ([http://beoplay.com/Products/BeoplayH6](http://beoplay.com/Products/BeoplayH6)). They're the only headphones that I've had that actually feel like they're worth the money I paid for them, unlike the Bose headphones I've had which felt somewhat cheap. They're not going to be the best for cancelling out noise (although they helped me a lot at my last job, which was an open-plan office) but if you're after a pair of premium headphones, I wouldn't recommend anything else.

</comment><comment><USER29> I'm not a fan of over the ear cans, so I've gone with in ear monitors (IEMs). Specifically, Westone 4Rs which are spendy. I've used Westone UM2s as well as assorted Shure models. In all cases, the tips matter for proper fit and noise isolation - almost all will ship with different types and sizes. That said, not everyone likes having something in their ear canal.

A discussion on tips -- [http://www.avforums.com/threads/iem-tip- comparison.1690650/](http://www.avforums.com/threads/iem-tip- comparison.1690650/)

</comment><comment><USER30> I used to use a pair of in-ear monitors, a Shure SE210 set. The problem was that, after a few months of continuous daily use, I started to suffer inner ear impactions. Not fun at all.

I still have them, but I save them for travel now due to their size vs. sound quality. Otherwise, at the office, I use a $20 pair of Sennheiser over-the- ears that does _okay_ (but I don't care if something happens to them), and at home, my Shure SRH440 are a great middle ground between quality and price.

</comment><comment><USER31> I am huge fan of Bose headphones, I work in a very crowded environment and these headphones pretty much save my day. It has a great sound quality and is comfortable to wear all day long.

It is a little expensive but worth the money in my opinion.

[http://www.bose.com/controller?url=/shop_online/headphones/n...](http://www.bose.com/controller?url=/shop_online/headphones/noise_cancelling_headphones/quietcomfort_15/index.jsp&color=SI)

</comment><comment><USER32> If you don't mind having to get an inner ear mold made and spending ~$700 the Sensaphonics 2X-S are awesome. Since they are molded to your inner ear they block out near 100% of sound without using audio noise reduction. The sound quality is pretty top notch as well, their usual purpose is as in ear monitors for musicians on stage.

[http://www.sensaphonics.com/?p=328](http://www.sensaphonics.com/?p=328)

</comment><comment><USER33> I bought a pair of 1964 Ears quad-driver in-ear monitors for my band, and I ended up using them EVERYWHERE - when at work (open-plan office, ugh), when traveling (plane, motorcycle, etc), even when mowing the lawn. They're incredible, with the best sound quality I've personally ever experienced. All the other noise just... goes away, and I don't pick up anything that doesn't come through the IEMs.

<comment><USER34> so they are worth the $525 USD? I am looking for a solution that deadens everything so I can work and maybe sleep better at night too.

Did you send them custom ear molds, etc?

<comment><USER33> IMHO, worth the money and then some. I occasionally sleep in mine, they are quite comfortable (I got the 'soft tip' additions because I do some singing too). They do require the custom ear molds, but I got those for $10 at a nearby audiologist.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Check out www.reddit.com/r/headphones

They were helpful when I was looking and have a weekly stickied thread where you can ask for recommendations (just fill out the simple form).

You'll need closed or IEMs. I had a pair of Sennheiser Momentums which were comfortable and sounded good but work from home so have since changed to the open HD-650s. Best of luck! You'll probably want something that doesn't need a DAC/Amp.

</comment><comment><USER36> Sennheiser HD-280 Pros. Run about $90 on Amazon ( [http://www.amazon.com/Sennheiser-HD-280-Pro- Headphones/dp/B0...](http://www.amazon.com/Sennheiser-HD-280-Pro- Headphones/dp/B000065BPB) )

With music playing through them, you'll never hear the darkness creeping in.

Without music playing through them, the screams in your head will be louder than they've ever been before.

Highly recommended.

</comment><comment><USER37> Shure 315s will block out most things, one thing you need to watch out for is that most IEMs are a pain to put in/take off. So if people are prone to ask you questions and you keep having to take them off that could be a problem.

For this reason I've been using the new style Apple headphone recently, they off some noise isolation but are a lot easier to take off.

</comment><comment><USER38> A couple of coworkers have these: [http://www.asus.com/ROG_ROG/Vulcan_ANC/](http://www.asus.com/ROG_ROG/Vulcan_ANC/) They're really quite impressive considering the lowish price. Apparently there's a new version, the Vulcan Pro... probably has the same noise cancellation circuitry.

</comment><comment><USER39> Disclaimer: This is not what you have asked for.

If you do regular meditation ( Seven Pranayams ), then you can concentrate on your work easily. Little chat and your surrounding will not be able to disturb you any more. That may sound unbelievable but I do this and I know this is one of the many benefits I got from meditation.

</comment><comment><USER40> I use Sennheiser HD25s - not noise cancelling, but if I have music on I can hear absolutely nothing going on around me.

It's actually a little bit spooky (and often makes me jump) if I'm working and someone comes into the room behind me then comes into my field of vision, or someone taps me on the shoulder...

</comment><comment><USER41> Commented here in the past on this subject, I think the best solution is a combination of headphones and two other things: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4802700](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4802700)

</comment><comment><USER21> Really, by far the best solution is IEMs. But, if you must got with active noise cancellation, the PSB M4U 2 is about the only decent one of I have auditioned... most active noise cancellation phones absolutely sound like muddy crap.

</comment><comment><USER42> Here's a good write-up on The Wire Cutter: [http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-noise-canceling- headph...](http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-noise-canceling-headphones/)

</comment><comment><USER43> Sennheiser's HD25-1? You can browse reviews at headphonereviews.org .

<comment><USER44> i have these, and they're great (sound good and have reasonable isolation; they're also pretty much indestructible, and reasonably efficient, so perfect for travelling) BUT they're not active noise cancelling. if you care more about peace than music quality you probably want something active (and if you care more about music than peace you may want something open - these are a compromise, which is a good thing when that's what you want, but be aware of that).

tl;dr - if you're willing to give up _some_ isolation (compared to active) for better music, these sound good, last forever, and won't bother coworkers.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks to everyone for their input, lot's of great feedback from people that are in a similar situation and have found solutions to that issue. That's what I like about HN.

</comment><comment><USER45> Sony MDR-1R came 'free' with the Xperia Z phone. Lovely sound, very comfortable and good isolation. If you can find some, might be worth an audition.

</comment><comment><USER46> I've bought an expensive pair ($100) and a cheap pair ($20), both have a nice fit. I didn't really see a difference between them.

</comment><comment><USER47> I use the Etymotic HF3s with Comply tips.

"The world is dead to me" \- sums it up nicely :P

</comment><comment><USER48> Etymotic hf5: 35-42 dB isolation + good frequency response and accuracy

<comment><USER49> ER-4 with custom molds here. Customs give you almost complete isolation but there is a warming-up period. They actually hurt for the first week or two that you wear them. Recommended if you can put them in and keep them in but not if you must be interrupted regularly.

One more thing to be aware of with Etymotic products: the microphonics. Lots of noise from the cable hitting stuff. It looks super dorky but the cable clip fixes a lot of that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Shure 425's. Lovely sound

</comment><comment><USER51> Shure SE215s</comment>


Ask HN: How do you pass behavioral interviews? - <AUTHOR> I've been working as a UI engineer for the last 5 years (2015-now). I've been at my current company for over 3 years now and I feel like I've hit a plateau. I'm not growing or learning much. Over the last 6 months, I've been trying to land a new job, however, it's been surprisingly tough. I've interviewed at several companies (FAANG, some startups, and everything in between) and the technical rounds have always gone well (with the exception of Google which was particularly hard!). However I've somehow managed to fail at every single behavioral interview.
Part of that is that I haven't done much to talk about. I've done fairly standard work for the last few years: completed what was asked of me, but haven't sought any challenging work. No side projects either. I never thought that would be an impediment to my career. For now, it's still okay—I have a stable, well paying job, but I can see this becoming more of an issue in the years to come.
I'd like to know what I could be doing better, what interviewers expect from a behavioral round, how I should approach my work. It's usually tough to get feedback, but when I've got any feedback (once or twice), it's usually been that I talked too fast and rambled a bit. I'm working on that too, hopefully a bit better at that now. :)
If you are doing behavioral interviews, what are you looking for in a candidate? Or, if you've been particularly good at these types of interviews, do you have any tips? <comment><USER2> I have conducted a large number of interviews from the other side of the desk. The questions I ask myself are.

\- Is this guy a habitual liar? Can he give a straight answer or he is a horrible communicator? If I am in a jam, can I rely on him to help me or he will wind up wasting my time? \- Does he know what he is talking about or he just memorized a bunch of interview questions? If I ask an open ended question, does he tell me exactly what was going on in his mind and all the minutiae & surprises that happened to him? \- Do I trust him? Will he make work life easier? Will he pro-actively talk to the right people and figure out what the real ask is? Will he pro-actively try to figure out a solution and handle it himself? Or will he dump everything in my lap and consume more of my time when I am already at my wits end?

</comment><comment><USER3> > " _I 've done fairly standard work for the last few years: completed what > was asked of me, but haven't sought any challenging work._"

You have the answer to your own question right there: go out and learn something (preferably several things), either technical or business related, that improves you professionally and point to that during your behavioral interview questions. Go out and find some way (again, preferably several of them) to improve your team's or your employer's success that was not "asked of you" or take on challenging work and point to that during your behavioral interview questions.

I'll add that the sentence you wrote would be viewed as serious red flag by a FAANG interviewer, IMO.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's fair. I've been a bit confused as to what would be directly helpful, there's potentially a _lot_ of side projects that I could do. I realize though that over analysing the situation doesn't help. :D

Right now, I'm trying to write an interpreter following a book [1].

[1] [https://interpreterbook.com/](https://interpreterbook.com/)

> _" I'll add that the sentence you wrote would be viewed as serious red flag > by a FAANG interviewer, IMO."_

Which sentence? The one about challenging work?

<comment><USER3> > " _Which sentence? The one about side projects?_ "

The sentence from you quoted in my original post. Take a look at the Amazon Leadership Principles, for example: [https://www.amazon.jobs/en/principles](https://www.amazon.jobs/en/principles) ; all of the FAANGs have something similar. Contrast your sentence with "Bias For Action", "Ownership", "Invent And Simplify", "Learn and Be Curious", etc. and you can see why it would be viewed as a strike against you.

> " _there 's potentially a lot of side projects that I could do_"

External side projects are nice but they're unlikely to be weighted as much as projects you do to help your employer. I personally don't attach much weight to external side projects unless the candidate's previous job was completely non-software development related or they're a new graduate or the side project is directly related to something they'll be doing on the job that I'm interviewing for.

<comment><AUTHOR> That makes sense. Part of the problem is that the team I'm working with doesn't have too much challenging work. We're usually stacked with work, tight deadlines, write a lot of code, and move on to the next thing really quickly. I've talked to my manager about finding work that helps me grow, but I've only got generic responses. In the last 12 months, I've also tried to contribute to the backend, written APIs in Go, but again, that is surface level work that I cannot really talk about (that is I have some experience, but no proficiency). Now I'm back to working primarily on the UI and my scope is limited to basic things like writing standard React components.

I feel like I'm stuck in a bit of a catch-22 situation. The current work isn't challenging enough but I cannot get out without doing some challenging work. How do you seek out challenging work in your existing org? FWIW, the company I work for employs about approx. 2000 people so it might be possible to change teams. I'm also considering that option.

> The sentence from you quoted in my original post. Take a look at the Amazon > Leadership Principles, for example: > [https://www.amazon.jobs/en/principles](https://www.amazon.jobs/en/principles) > ; all of the FAANGs have something similar. Contrast your sentence with > "Bias For Action", "Ownership", "Invent And Simplify", "Learn and Be > Curious", etc. and you can see why it would be viewed as a strike against > you.

Thanks for that link! That looks really useful.

<comment><USER3> > " _the team I 'm working with doesn't have too much challenging work_"

I'd suggest making that part of your sales pitch: " _I 'm applying to your job because I'm eager to learn but there weren't a lot of growth opportunities at my old job for me. Here are some of the things I tried do to grow: ..._" You can attempt to point your interpreter side project but you'd better be prepared to talk about it in deep detail.

I'd also suggest asking your management about whether training budget is available and, if so, asking to use it to learn something work related.

> " _How do you seek out challenging work in your existing org?_ "

I don't really have any advice to provide for that; the problem in the places where I've worked tends to be avoiding being drowned in challenging work. That being said, surely there's some form of automation, security evaluation, code analysis or some other common industry tooling or practice that your organization could be using but isn't? I've yet to meet a software team that was doing everything optimally.

<comment><AUTHOR> That definitely sounds like things I can do, I'll try them! Going to think harder about the areas where I can try and make improvements for the team. Thanks again! :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm no expert at taking interviews but have blown my fair share of them.

One of my worst was when I was called by a head hunter to interview for a position I applied for 2 years before. I also may have embellished my resume a bit when I applied, then 2 years later I was sitting infront of 3 people all reading my resume and me not knowing what the heck I put in the thing. So yeah thats an important one, when they say that your application will be kept on file, sometimes they do, so best to be honest.

Another time I guess I was nervous or maybe a bit under the weather but for some reason I started sweating profusely, unfortunately that day I was also wearing a silk shirt and before the interview even started I had huge pit stains, my hair was a mess and I looked like I just came off a three day bender. The interviewer was nice and didn't bring it up but I know I made a terrible impression. So I would say put some time and thought into your personal grooming and apperence.

I would also say it is important that you have answers ready for the most common questions that you know they are going to ask. Eg. So you say you have been with your company for 3 years, why do you want to leave? Probably best not to say, I just dont feel like im growing or learning much anymore (even if thats true, Im sure you can come up with a better way to put it that is both true and positive!) Eg. I have learned and grown a lot working for xyz and have enjoyed working for them but I feel your company is offering me a great opportunity to showcase and build upon my skills and past experiences.

Doing well in an interview comes down to self confidence, chances are you would be a great employee that most companies would be lucky to have. Just keep telling yourself that, having hired many people myself I can tell you that if you can do what your asked to do without arguing, show up on time and get along with your co-workers, then you are already in the top 90% of all candidates, so keep your chin up and You will do fine on the next interview!

Finally if you have been told you rambled or that you talked too fast, a lawyer once told me to count to 5 in my head before answering any question. Sometimes when you are nervous giving yourself a short pause before opening your mouth can be just what is needed.

Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER5> Sit up straight. Don't play with your pencil. Swallow your gum.

Seriously, though, the best thing I learned to do in interviews was to relax. Don't emulate the Big Labowski, but try to channel his essense. Unless you're the godword in your field (or one of the other candidates), they're going to take time to think about it. You have to be the one they see themselves working with. Best o Luck

<comment><AUTHOR> > You have to be the one they see themselves working with

This is a really good point, thank you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> You are the director of your side project idea. Employ the fresh talent or an unemployed to work on it. Guidelines come directly from you. Experience the behavioral science.</comment>


Cable TV's plan to kill "over the top" internet streaming - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/backchannel/big-cable-s-sledgehammer-is-coming-down-2c6854e8bea9#.g30nbcv3y <comment><USER2> To me the obvious solution is to make it illegal for ISPs to get to get into a conflict of interest. So they should only be allowed to sell Internet access and not do anything else, especially not sell content. Given that they are running some of our countries most important pieces of infrastructure I think that's perfectly reasonable.

<comment><USER3> Let's say you pass that law. Comcast splits off Xfinity as a separate company to sell just internet service, with low data caps. Comcast and Xfinity enter a deal to exempt Comcast's streaming service from the caps in exchange for some millions per year. Comcast gets some billions per year in subscriptions, because Xfinity customers can binge on all the Comcast "Stream TV" they want. New high-bandwidth services, like a young Netflix competitor, can't afford to pay off the ISPs, so they never get to compete with the incumbents. The situation is no better than if Comcast wasn't split up.

<comment><USER4> You've identified another target for regulation: ISPs should not be allowed to exempt traffic from data caps. This is part of a larger concept called net neutrality [1].

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> New FCC rule: Bandwidth may only be marketed as the true sustainable rate over a month. So a 300 GB/mo plan can only be described as a 1 Megabit/s connection.

DSL will start looking good.

<comment><USER6> That's not a practical metric, though. I'm on a campus with a 100Mbit/s connection, I frequently download large files (media _and_ Linux ISOs), and still don't go above 200-300 GB/month. The 100Mbit/s figure is useful for informing me how fast a particular YouTube video will buffer, for example, but by your proposed metric, sustained 100Mbit/s would have to be advertised as 30TB/month. "20 Mbit/s with a 300 GB/month cap" is more informative.

<comment><USER7> I'd like to see the bandwidth measured from my computer to the wider Internet, not from the ISP's speedtest server hosted before the traffic sees the Internet.

At least on my ISP in New York, I can run a speedtest to the auto-selected server and see 330Mbps, but switch to a speedtest server farther away (requiring actual Internet transit), and see the rate drop to 10Mbps. So it's all very impressive that I am paying for a 300Mbps connection to the ISP's colo. But it would be better if I was paying for a 300Mbps connection to the Internet.

(Having a speedtest server hosted by your ISP is a great debugging tool, so I'm not asking them to stop doing that. It's great for figuring out if the bottleneck is my local link layer (WiFi, broken switch?), my Internet connection (broken router? squirrel chewing through a cable?), or simply the ISP's peering choices.)

<comment><USER8> Looking at these two comments, perhaps we may be reaching an agreement. There are only a relatively few numbers that really matter, although there's tons of complexity. Bandwidth should be a number giving sustained symmetrical throughput over a month + burst capability + download cap, all using the same units. All of those numbers should be 5+ hops away, and should be over a backbone to a server owned by somebody else besides the ISP. In addition, there would be some QoS to show that things like the burst number actually exists for the user 5%+ or more of the time (or some different metric). Heck, there could probably be a bunch more detail you'd add under there, but 3 numbers + access_to_wider net probably covers it.

So in the college example, they're getting (perhaps) .1/100/300

I think if we could just agree on a way to advertise it, we'd be ahead of the game. Net access is becoming like buying PCs: full of jargon and product differentiators meant more to confuse the buyer than assist them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> My wife and I are planning to move next year. It might sound nuts, but we've scratched off a lot of potential places because of a lack of unlimited internet connectivity.

Municipal fiber is very important to us and it's resulting in us focusing on places we didn't consider before.

<comment><AUTHOR> It is not nuts at all. Over 20 years ago I bought a house in the Berkshires. The town I am in has no broadband, and probably won't get it for years. If I were buying a house now I would NEVER consider this place, which I otherwise love. What's more, it might be impossible to sell.

<comment><USER10> Is your town participating in this project?

[http://wiredwest.net/map-of-wired-west-towns/](http://wiredwest.net/map-of- wired-west-towns/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> In Russia a decade ago all the consumer internet was billed on usage. Like 40 kopecks per megabyte. Sometimes uplink was free and downlink was metered, sometimes more crazy schemes.

Guess what killed it? Competition. If you allow cables to be slung on top of rooftops / utility poles then soon you'll have a lot of cheap operators.

<comment><USER12> I was in Australia a few years ago and was flabbergasted that many ISPs were still operating on a complicated set of caps and on-peak / off-peak rules. I blamed the de-facto monopoly created when the copper got privatized and all sold to a single company, Telstra.

<comment><USER13> Telstra is the privatisation of the old government postmaster general (well after the split from mail post). The government department owned the copper, and telstra retained it as part of the privatisation.

As part of this agreement Telstra had to provide equal access to its network, and had to charge the same price for all users, so that the cost of calls was the same for people in regional areas (even though maintenance cost more).

Most of the issues relating to Austrlia's internet relate to the cost of overseas transit of information. There are only a few cables between Australia and the rest of the world, and that is the large driver of cost or at least it was in the early 00s

<comment><USER14> Oh, the irony! Malcolm Turnbull _paid_ Telstra for the copper networks so that the government could own them again. He did this so that nobody else could get fibre to the home.

I feel a bit sorry for him. He was forced into this by Tony "Shirt-front" Abbott, who knew nothing about technology (or how to run a country, for that matter). Now he's stuck with it - a millstone around our new Prime Minister's neck.

I guess the intense destabilization and white-anting now going on in the LNP will distract from this.

<comment><USER15> Is there any evidence at all that he was forced into this? Are there anecdotes of Malcolm arguing for an all-fibre NBN in the party room, only to be smacked down and forced into MTM?

<comment><USER14> There aren't. I concede that I could be projecting what I want reality to be, in this case.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Usage-based-billing turned out to be not a complete disaster in Canada. ISPs were no longer incentivized to use deep-packet-inspection to interrupt or throttle connections. Regulations required incumbents to grant access to last- mile networks to smaller ISPs to encourage competition. Users had more choice -- plans differentiated on both speed and on bandwidth caps, so if you needed a small amount of data in a month but you needed it quickly, you could still save money by picking the right plan. ISPs were encouraged to build out their networks more, since increased speed led to increased usage led to more recurring income: if you wanted the fastest speeds now and could pay $200/month for it, you got it; if you didn't, you could get Internet faster than the average American "high speed" connection for something like $30/month.

<comment><USER17> >$30/month

thats what unlimited 250/20 cable costs in civilized world, goes to show how "Usage-based-billing turned out to be not a complete disaster"

<comment><USER16> You have to keep in mind that Canada has _terrible_ population density compared to Europe/Asia. It's about the size of the US, but with 1/10th of the population.

<comment><USER17> oh, so you have good competition, low prices, high speeds and no data caps in big dense cities, right?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Every time I find myself thinking maybe the Internet Service Providers (whether cable or mobile or DSL) are not evil monopolistic assholes doing everything in their power to provide worse service for more profit, I simply have to remember that the Internet was invented in the US, but we have among the worst consumer internet service among developed nations. The US is ranked 14th or worse (depending on how you measure and who you believe, but we're not in the top ten by any measure) in consumer broadband, in terms of speed and cost. The US is also much worse than leading nations on mobile service cost and quality. There is no scenario where the world leader in tech innovation should trail more than a dozen other nations on the most important piece of the tech puzzle, and yet we do.

This is the legacy of our telephone and cable monopolies. When monopolists "compete", they do it by using every crooked trick in the book. The telcos and cable companies have a significant number of politicians and regulators in their pockets. All to keep services cheap to provide and expensive to buy.

And, we're losing ground. Things aren't getting better for consumers, despite the new spectrum opening up; our government made huge amounts of low frequency spectrum available to telcos (at a price, of course), on the assumption that they'd use it to improve service and lower costs. No mobile provider offers actually unlimited data anymore, at any price. I used to have _two_ unlimited mobile data plans at $45 and $55. Now, I have two plans that cost more and are capped at ridiculously small amounts of data. Land line providers have also now imposed caps, and have, with increasing regularity, tried to sneak through legislation allowing them to regulate the Internet to their own advantage.

Imagine a situation where a cable company can rate limit NetFlix to the point of unwatchability...or maybe just enough so you can't get a nice clear HD picture. Conveniently, cable company will be happy to sell you HBO, which includes HBO Go, and they'll generously provide unlimited access to _that_ data. This isn't a paranoid theory, this is actually what the legislation they've been pushing every year or so is all about.

And, it's been going on for longer than most people have been aware of the Internet. My first company built web caching devices for independent ISPs, back before the telcos and cable companies used their monopoly to utterly destroy the independent ISP market in the US. They used illegal and anti- competitive practices on a massive scale, but when you destroy your competitors fast enough and thoroughly enough, they won't have the money to wage a legal battle to stop it.

Not that I'm bitter or anything.

</comment><comment><USER19> This is exactly why Google is developping Google Fiber, Facebook has some crazy scheme involving building their own planes to provide bandwidth, and they are both spending fortunes in lobbying.

</comment><comment><USER20> Worth pointing out that this is largely only an issue in countries without proper competition. To get away with a low cap in a competitive market you have to compete on price.

Unpopular opinion: I'd be happy to be capped at 10GB "fair usage" for a substantially reduced fee. Otherwise I'm just subsidising much heavier users.

<comment><USER21> I'd be ok with that if they would be required to charge a true fair cost... but then 10GB would probably be basically free and cable companies would not like that. They are only doing caps to increase profits, not because the network is overloaded.

<comment><USER20> Nobody should be required to charge a true fair cost. Competition should exist that makes that the workable choice.

<comment><USER21> That would be an even better solution (to stop forcing monopolies) but I'm not sure which of the two would be more likely to happen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> My concern is that the incentives are not aligned with ever-increasing bandwidth. If my ISP can provide 100mbps and then milk that deployed infrastructure with data usage caps, they'll do it, unless competition appears.

The EPA mandates fuel economy standards for cars. Imagine if your ISP were held to a similar, ratcheting standard.

"Imagine if your regulators were not held powerless by those they supposedly regulate?"

Ok. It's hard for me to hold on to hope here.

</comment><comment><USER23> The article strongly implies that widespread 300GB usage would not strain providers' capacity. As a consumer, I would certainly like it to be true. Is it?

<comment><USER24> Yes, for ground-based networks the capacity limitations are largely a question of expanding capacity at interchanges rather than any kind of actual network capacity.

If you are asking 'bout wireless....no, that isn't true.

For instance, TWC is quite profitable in my market with no cap and I've got a 100mbps in real-world usage most of the time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> > Why did this happen on the mobile wireless side? Because no one stood up and > complained early enough in the game. And there's no real competition to > prompt better behavior.

Its also a technology question...until the past couple of years, the caps on the mobile wireless side were needed because they simply didn't have the capacity.

</comment><comment><USER25> > But it's not that simple. The "cable" lane traffic (let's call it Lane 1) > includes not just traditional pay TV but also a host of data services — > which today could be Stream and tomorrow could be telemedicine, business > conference services, or anything else. And Lane 1 uses the internet > protocol! This means that data packets are routed around independently, both > upstream and downstream, and all that efficient internet magic is happening. > From the user's perspective, when he or she interacts with these things it > will "feel" just like online, internet services are responding.

I think this definitely violates the spirit of net neutrality even in its current form. However, I don't see how they can move from streaming services which are sourced much further down the line than any internet traffic to dynamic traffic that needs total contact with the internet proper. From what I can tell, Comcast is arguing this service doesn't violate FCC regulations because it essentially works the same as on-demand cable. The media available for streaming is located close to the customer so it can be downloaded once from the internet proper and then streamed on demand without incurring any of the more valuable bandwidth further up the chain. I don't even think they need to prioritize the streaming traffic over regular traffic, since it is only eating into the much more plentiful local bandwidth.

If this distinction evaporates (as it would for telemedicine, business conference services, etc.), then they'd clearly violate the letter of FCC's net neutrality regulations. The fact that they used IP seems irrelevant; using anything but IP would require huge investment in custom hardware, so I don't see that as evidence of a future general internet services Master Plan (past the current streaming media Master Plan coming to fruition). To be honest, I'm somewhat on the fence about closing this loophole (though more towards the side of closing it) because it really is just like on-demand cable. It's clear that the data caps are being used in a predatory way, but I'm not sure that is the way to attack it.

I'm intrigued by the author's proposed solution, but it seems like something of a moonshot.

</comment><comment><USER26> This is a HUGE problem. Addressing even a small part of it would net a fortune. Yes, others are already working on it. Yes, I know it will be difficult. That's what makes it exciting, right?

So, anyone want to kick around some ideas?

</comment><comment><USER27> Barring anti-monopolist regulation or real competition, the only way to defeat these yoyos is to get serious about grassroots mesh networks that disintermediate them entirely.

<comment><USER28> Is there any serious indication a mesh-network can handle common network traffic and video?

<comment><USER29> No, not really.

The right way to solve the problem is how Chattanooga, TN and other such places have solved it: either install fiber optics and maintain and bill them as a utility, or open the _existing_ fiber lines and maintain/bill them as a utility. [0]

This solution is _so_ good that incumbent telcos have successfully lobbied to make it illegal in _oh_ so many places.

A second, decent solution is how -IIRC- either the CR or Romaina did it... string up a communally-owned _wired_ network from building to building, expanding the _wired_ network until you get enough "customers" that you can pool the cash (and have the influence) to get a good link to the Internet.

[0] This was more-or-less what the telcos were supposed to do back in the 1990s with the tax breaks and other incentives they were given. As you can see, they failed to live up to their promises.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I forgot that there are countries that, unlike Australia, actually don't have quota caps on internet plans. Honestly it's not the end of the world so long as you have ISPs offering reasonable quota-exempt content (Netflix + iiNet <3).

That said I do see that huge, gaping conflict of interest between cable providers and content distribution.

<comment><USER3> Netflix streaming wouldn't exist for you to <3 if ISPs had prohibitive data caps when they were new. Do you want to freeze the internet as it is today, blocking out new entrants and innovations, so long as you get your Netflix?

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Usage based paying is fine and in fact very very appropriate. It does not make sense to charge one person who uses 1000GB the same as someone who only uses 20 or 30 GB to check emails.

The real problem is that there needs to be more competition.

<comment> jon-wood For you and I its fine, but I don't think most people have any concept of what uses their bandwidth cap. I regularly speak to people who are baffled that they're using all their mobile data allowance early in the month only to find out they do things like using YouTube videos as a music player when out.

Either data caps need to be _way_ higher, or they need to go away. I find it bizarre that mobile operators can still get away with 0.5-1GB plans as the standard.

<comment><USER32> The battery usage tracking features built into Android have come a long way to make it easy to track down which apps are chewing through that limited resource - perhaps it is time to include the same functionality for bandwidth (technically data transfer)?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Caps or pay per bit should be OK but only if the price per bit falls over time. Provider cost per bit surely is dropping. But lacking competition they may try to pocket the difference.

</comment><comment><USER34> I once again ask - why not price internet like electricity. 5$ per TB. Pay what you consumed.

<comment><USER3> Because "internet" isn't a physical resource like electricity. Nothing is being consumed when you send 0s and 1s down the wire that's already been laid and paid for. When you load this webpage, it hasn't cost your ISP any additional money, so why do you want to pay them additional money?

ISPs' costs are a combination of fixed costs (hardware, labor, facilities, etc) and peak bandwidth capacity. They bill us in pricing that's a combination of a fixed base cost, and upgrade tiers that correspond to different peak bandwidth capacity. That's closer to "pay what you consume" in reality.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Brian Roberts [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_L._Roberts](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_L._Roberts)

Look at him, smirking because he's got millions of people by the balls and there's nothing anybody can do about it.

He'd be one of the first people in the guillotine if there were ever a revolution. Which there won't be because he also owns a large news and media empire that keeps people pacified or angry about the wrong things.</comment>


Server APIs Project - <AUTHOR> https://swift.org/server-apis/ <comment><USER2> Great. Great great great. A thousand times great. We've been slowly converting our iOS projects over to Swift over the past year and the results have been tremendous (a ~40% drop in LOC from ObjC, among many other benefits). Really the only language-level feature that feels missing for server development is first-class support for asynchronous/concurrent operations, but that's coming.

Swift is truly a 'best of most worlds' language. Typed, but without the boilerplate seen in a lot of typed languages. Syntax that makes sense and is consistent. Immutability strongly encouraged, but not required. OO if you want it. First class functions. Etc, etc, etc. It's truly a dream to work in, can't wait for server-side to get a little more mature.

<comment><USER3> I think most languages thatare popular today are 'best of most worlds' for their users. For example, Scala has all the features you specified and has an even larger ecosystem of libraries for the server side.

I am still happy that this has been done as I know having a common API to program against does ease development and creates a great ecosystem as evidenced by node.JS.

<comment><USER4> The problem with Scala is not that it has all the features of Swift, it's that it has way more. Scala developers see this as an advantage, everybody else sees that as a liability.

Swift and Kotin manage to capture the perfect amount of "a few new features but not too many" of all languages I've played with these past ten years.

They are both the perfect example of languages that hit the right compromise in many dimensions.

<comment><USER5> I am terrified of working with experienced Scala developers.

The code they write is less about implementing some business functionality in the most elegant way possible. But rather it's an exercise in who can use the most obscure parts of the language.

And unfortunately there are far too many obscure parts.

<comment> premium-concern I have never seen this.

<comment><USER5> The levels of enlightenment: [http://www.scala- lang.org/old/node/8610](http://www.scala-lang.org/old/node/8610)

Most Scala developers are in the A bracket. The experts are in the L. The code written by either is so different they could almost be different languages. You don't get this sort of split in Swift, Java etc.

<comment> premium-concern This is more of a split between techniques for programming-in-the-small vs. programming-in-the-large.

All languages have this. You could write more or less the same list for Swift or Java with minimal changes.

Again, do you have any actual experience with this, or is this just your assumption? Because I have never seen this issue in the wild.

<comment><USER6> I have absolutely seen it in the wild, but at least in my case it seemed to be more a case of _" People who wish they were writing Haskell, but found more commercial opportunities with Scala"_ compared with _" People who found Scala to be an improvement over Java"_.

At the extreme of the first group you'd have people for whom it seemed like every problem was best solved with a higher-kinded-type. And while it might well have been technically (and mathematically) elegant, the rest of the team was left scratching their heads trying to understand it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This looks like a very organized project with well defined goals, both of which are points that will help it succeed.

It seems there's a bit of a trend back toward compiled languages (Go, Rust, Swift) that don't rely on the JVM or .NET CLR to run. I think that these are all great languages, though I almost wish for something like a better, more modern, cross-platform COM to easily share libraries among the languages.

I've only had to work with COM very, very occasionally though. If I'd had to work with it for any extended period of time, I probably wouldn't be wishing for it, or anything like it. Perhaps sharing functionality between languages is better accomplished by separate services communicating via something like 0MQ.

<comment><USER8> OS/2 had its own version of COM, called SOM.

The best thing about it, was that it also supported metaclasses Smalltalk style. So one could go crazy with OO metaprogramming.

Sadly it died with OS/2.

Then there was the other multi-platform OO ABI project from Apple, Sun and IBM, Taligent. Also not that successful.

COM is ok to work with, when done from .NET or now UWP point of view. C++/CX and the recently announced C++/WinRT are still ok, even if a bit more wordy.

The real pain starts increasingly with C++ WTL, C++ ATL, C++ MFC or for the real masochists pure C with COM related macros and the COM IDL compiler.

Then there was that other thing called CORBA, which makes the initial versions of Java EE feel like being in heaven.

<comment><USER7> I've mostly used COM from .NET, and as you said, it's fairly painless.

At one point, we were having issues with a COM DLL we were using from .NET, so I thought it might be fun and useful to dive in and learn more about COM. I bought Don Box's COM book, and tackled _COM in Plain C_ : [http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/13601/COM-in- plain-C](http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/13601/COM-in-plain-C)

It was somewhat less fun than I'd hoped it would be.

XPCOM seems to be (somewhat) alive and kicking: [https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Mozilla/Tech/XPCOM](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Mozilla/Tech/XPCOM) ; Firefox and VirtualBox are the only apps I've seen that use it, though I imagine at least a few others do as well.

<comment><USER9> I still go back and dip into _Essential COM_ now and again. I bought my copy because I was involved with a project to build a COM/CORBA bridge and needed to get my head around COM's infrastructure. Also back in the day I used to write a lot of code that ran under Microsoft Transaction Server (MTS) and COM+.

Another interesting book by Mr Box and co-authored by Chris Sells, purely from a historical perspective now as it's fairly ancient, is _Essential .NET Vol. 1_ [0]. Sadly they never got around to writing a second volume.

As a humourous aside, who remembers Don's lecture he did from a bath tub?:

[https://blog.mattmags.com/2011/05/19/don-box-the-bathtub- lec...](https://blog.mattmags.com/2011/05/19/don-box-the-bathtub-lecture/)

[0]: [https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0201734117](https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0201734117)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> My team at Apple is hiring in San Francisco. [https://jobs.apple.com/us/search?#location&ss=47424189&t=0&s...](https://jobs.apple.com/us/search?#location&ss=47424189&t=0&so=&lo=0*USA&pN=0&openJobId=47424189)

If you're interested, please email email@example.com with [Swift Server] in the email subject line.

<comment><USER11> FYI the job description says Seattle, Washington

<comment><USER10> Thanks for pointing that out. We're hiring in SF, Seattle and London for this role.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Sweet to see an official push from the Swift project behind server-side use- cases (and of course in a cross-platform way, as is Swift already [0]). Looks like this spirit is taking hold community-wide too, with projects like CocoaPods tinkering with Linux support this week [1]. The future looks bright for Swift!

[0]: [https://swift.org/download/#releases](https://swift.org/download/#releases)

[1]: [https://twitter.com/segiddins/status/790326153051447296](https://twitter.com/segiddins/status/790326153051447296)

</comment><comment><USER13> What editor is everyone using for Swift?

Last time I played with Swift I stopped after XCode crashed 2 times in an hour for me. It is also very slow. But none other editors seem to support auto completion which is a deal-breaker for me. Without it it's hard to consume all the APIs.

I hope Apple can follow Rust's path by making a language server[0] for Swift, if Apple is serious about providing cross-platform support for it. This will enable better support in editors such as find definition, refactor and auto completion.

[0]: [https://internals.rust-lang.org/t/introducing-rust- language-...](https://internals.rust-lang.org/t/introducing-rust-language- server-source-release/4209)

<comment><USER14> Last time I messed with Swift, I was using a vim plugin based on SourceKitten[1] but it was a couple months ago over a weekend and I honestly can't remember how well it worked. If you were inclined, it seems like it'd get you most of the way to a language server.

[1] [https://github.com/jpsim/SourceKitten](https://github.com/jpsim/SourceKitten)

<comment><USER15> The SourceKit daemon _is_ a language server. I wonder if anyone will adapt it to support the MS protocol.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I have been following Rust's push into server-side development and can tell it is still green. There is a great foundation with the hyper library but quite a bit of fragmentation with frameworks and the async side of things.

It will be interesting to see where swift goes with all this. I know Rust has a lot of traction now with cross-platform support and language features, but I think swift is poised to offer a much different experience for server-side development.

<comment><USER17> The async side is all coalescing around Tokio and its various sub-projects.

I too am excited to see where this goes; Swift is a great language.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I like that they are taking the same sort of mantra as Node.js by providing the core building blocks and letting the community develop web frameworks. This was something that Ryan Dahl got absolutely right with Node, minimal functionality, sugar on top of system calls.

</comment><comment><USER19> Having spent 10 months working in Swift, this is probably the last thing on earth I want to see right now.

Pretty much every part of the entire toolchain has been a pain, from Xcode being Xcode, to compiler bugs and crashes, crappy package management and bad language design.

Having built servers in Java/C#/Scala/Haskell, I'd pick Haskell over those options and Swift every single time.

<comment><USER20> What is it about Haskell? I'm currently heavily invested in Rust and have very briefly looked at Haskell, but find it to have some oddities that I can wrap my head around.

<comment><USER19> So I only know a minimal amount about Rust, so if there's things which are the same there, then I'll probably be blindly ignorant about them.

First thing is that with the build tool Stack and now with recent versions of Cabal the process of having a nice repeatable consistent build is pretty smooth. I also used a tool called ghcid to get sub-second feedback on my changes as I make them.

Haskell has started at the opposite end of the spectrum to most programming languages, as in "How do I represent functions mathematically?" rather than "How do I flip this bit in the accumulator register?". Which is probably somewhat to your point about oddities, for me coming from an OOP background there was a huge mental shift that had to happen to "get it". I've found that things tend to just slot together so much more easily as a result. Curried functions for example was a revelation for me, being able to pass (== 10) to a list filter isn't some special case syntactic sugar it just falls out by default.

Now much more people have gotten to grips with it there are amazing things like the servant libraries which allow you to define a HTTP service(url, query params, request method, etc.) with a type. You can implement a service against that type and get all the appropriate checks, which is great. But then the incredible part is that you can get it to create functions for each endpoint in that service totally automatically at compile time: [https://hackage.haskell.org/package/servant- client#readme](https://hackage.haskell.org/package/servant-client#readme)

<comment><USER21> Minor nitpick: "(==) 0" wouldn't be syntactic sugar, but "(== 0)" is. But I agree it's a very natural consequence of the way the language is designed.

<comment><USER19> I'm not sure I understand, is there some special casing going on with "(== 10)"? As I'm admittedly not aware of it.

<comment><USER21> Not anything major. It's just syntactic sugar for "\x -> x == 10".

<comment><USER19> How is it syntactic sugar? It's just applying "10" to the first parameter of "==".

<comment><USER22> Without parentheses, == is infix. (== 10) is an "operator section", and applies 10 to the _second_ parameter of ==. (10 ==) would be the first parameter.

<comment><USER19> Ah yes, very true.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I hope they will look at Erlang/OTP instead of Java EE for inspiration.

<comment><USER24> I've seen people try to recreate Erlang/OTP in Java. See OpenCloud Rhino. They never really get there. It's kind of sad to watch.

I mean, it's useful if you absolutely have to use Java, but it's expensive and a pale imitation of Erlang/OTP. I'm confident that it will remain so until it dies.

<comment><USER25> Trying to emulate Erlang/OTP on JVM is just a form of a cargo cult :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Some future server APIs should include database connectors, machine learning libraries, & image/video processing.

Standardize on these before everything gets out-of-hand.

<comment><USER27> But maybe that is what they suggest should be handled by web frameworks.

Is like asking WSGI api in Python to handle all those things. It just handle raw connections and is an interface for web frameworks to worry about content and not low level stuff. Maybe database connectors would be a good inclusion as well, but in Python I believe it is not part of WSGI

On the other hand, Apple has libraries for handling image and video for macOS and iOS, are written in C but Swift interfaces so easily with C, but I don't see them releasing that stuff.

<comment><USER28> His point is probably more concerned with hardware-accelerated machine learning and the like. Much like eg. OpenCL for machine learning.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Dumb question: I'd love to learn more about Swift and try out writing Swift code, but is development still limited to XCode/macOS?

<comment><USER30> You can play with swift on linux via docker too. [https://github.com/swiftdocker/docker- swift](https://github.com/swiftdocker/docker-swift) I'm one of the maintainers :)

<comment><USER31> I usually start learning a new programming language making various GUI programs, maybe using a library like SDL if needed. But I can't seem to find anything like SDL for swift on linux! Most beginner resources assume you're using XCode on a Mac.

Or does Cocoa work on Linux too(last time I checked this is highly not plausible)?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Does the inclusion of Vapor members mean we can finally declare Vapor the "winner" over Perfect?

</comment><comment><USER33> I wonder what happened to the rumors that Google was planning on supporting Swift on Android officially [0].

Also, are there any good tutorials/courses to get started with Swift & iOS development? (having programmed in other languages, I can pick up fast, and I've lost interest in tutorials that start out very slowly and take time to get to the point.)

[0] [http://thenextweb.com/dd/2016/04/07/google-facebook-uber- swi...](http://thenextweb.com/dd/2016/04/07/google-facebook-uber-swift/)

<comment><USER28> I guess it would make more sense to support Kotlin officially, but then again it already works fine on Android.

<comment><USER34> As far as I understand Kotlin is reliant on Java Standard Library and is dependent on Java infrastructure(maven, jvm, xml and friends), which makes no sense for me as an iOS developer and can only benefit Java developers as it was mentioned earlier.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Is there anyway to build on Linux yet? Having to use a Mac to build and deploy is really inconvenient for some continuous integration setups.

<comment><USER36> Swift has had Linux support ever since it was open sourced.

<comment><USER35> Just not with Xcode projects? I was looking for something like xcodebuild that I could run in a docker container and never found anything. Can you point me in the right direction?

<comment><USER30> I'm one of the maintainers of this [https://github.com/swiftdocker/docker- swift](https://github.com/swiftdocker/docker-swift) :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Has anyone here made a living/killing selling compiler modification services? I want to contribute to Rust/Swift/Some other language with a view of selling consulting services. Can anyone here comment about their success in this regard?

<comment><USER17> [http://integer32.com/](http://integer32.com/) is the first Rust-focused consultancy I know of.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> So what makes Swift better than Java/C# for server-side development? I'm getting tired with some languages and I'm looking for (fun) replacements. Yesterday I was reading about Elixir. Why and when should I adopt Swift?

</comment><comment><USER39> Amazing. Instead of talking about Swift server APIs, gaps or features desired, this thread gets hijacked by Scala enthusiasts.

</comment><comment><USER40> No mention of multicore, threads, or asynchrony. I would hope that is part of this.

<comment><USER41> Those are already coming in Swift 4.

<comment><USER42> This is now unexpected to be in Swift 4 :(

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Thank goodness, I just made an app last week and it was surprising how difficult it was to actually make an http request and handle the response.

<comment><USER44> Making an HTTP request would be part of the client (Cocoa?) libraries, this is discussing Server APIs?

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Nice, but I prefer a language which runs both on client and server, because that means I can share code, and e.g. I can do prerendering on the server and stuff like that.

<comment><USER46> But Swift does run on both the client and the server. Not when the client is web, but when the client is an iOS or macOS app.

<comment><USER47> Good luck pre-rendering a UIKit app on your server, though.</comment></comment></comment>


Tell HN: Front-end Wingman (or woman) Hacker Wanted for side projects - <AUTHOR>

I am a Rails dev that has a few side-projects ("for funzies") that I would like to build.
I run 5KMVP.com and build projects for clients. But I have a few things I would like to roll out (specifically products that some of the HN crowd may like).
I would rather release a semi-polished, simple MVP than a hacked up looking prototype.
So, if you are interested in being my Robin, please feel free to leave a link to your portfolio and contact info. You must be able to produce designs with similar sensibilities to these: https://sprint.ly/ & https://simple.com/
Ideally, I would like for you to just give me the HTML, CSS & jQuery, then I will take care of the rest.
Familiarity with (or willingness to learn) Git & Github are major pluses.
Honest communication is a must - I don't require a specific time-availability, but if you tell me you can do it by X date, I expect at least the courtesy of a heads-up that you are running behind by X days. But I do expect eventual delivery.
These side-projects won't be paid, they will be attribution only (a nice way to build up your portfolio). If we work well together, and the project takes on legs, then we can figure out a way for us to work on it together (for longer), if you are interested, that makes sense for both of us.
I know it sounds like a lot of strings, for no compensation, but I have had my share of people interested in working on a project and not being realistic about their time management and project delivery capabilities.
I am reasonable and upfront, so I expect you to be the same.
Thanks. <comment><USER2> Hi,

I am a junior front end developer who is trying to pickup rails and I'm interested in working with you. I don't mind working for free if I learn while working.

I know Git and Github. I also worked with Heroku (here is my rails project: <http://qasite.herokuapp.com/>). I'm confident that I know CSS, jQuery and HTML.

Please find my contact informations in my website:

saharjafari.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi Sahar, I am looking for a different style of design.

I really need someone that is a designer first, that can also produce HTML, CSS & jQuery....as opposed to the other way around.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Not going to work for free unless the code is open source</comment>


Compilation of suggestions submitted for Arc - <AUTHOR> http://www.archub.org/arcsug.txt

<comment><USER2> It'd be really great if PG would consider doing an alpha release of Arc sometime. To me, there appears to be a mini-Lisp revolution going on right now, largely thanks to PG & reddit. It'd be a shame to let that energy dissipate as people grow tired of waiting for it to come out.

I know the excitement that I have for Arc isn't as much the "100 year language" issue as much as the need to have strong leadership for a Lisp. I think that this is evident by the difficulties the various CLs have when introducing new functionality to the language vs. a package, or the whole R6RS fiasco that's been driving the Schemers mad.

<comment><USER3> I would second that. At the risk of hyperbole, the "mini-lisp revolution" could be one of the more important things to happen to the state of the art. Lisps just have so much going for them, but common lisp can not be the answer. No idea about arc, but at least there is some potential for leadership to be shown. People need to just start using stuff for "hobby" projects. Its possible that lisp could become very popular, due to "language oriented programming" - which is just a silly name to attract people (notice how "DSLs" are now so popular, well lisp is nothing if not a platform for creating a DSL which solves your problem for you). heh, its not anything knew, I think words to that effect are mentioned in the SICP notes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I had an interesting chat with Emmett last week here at justin.tv. I was whining about having to use Python instead of some kind of Lisp, and he pointed out that the language choices at jtv have been made because of some very important libraries, much more than language features.

If Arc wants to succeed it will need to come out-of-the-box with some great libraries, and it will need to address the issue of how new libraries get "blessed" and made available. Just my humble opinion of course...

<comment><USER2> I agree ten-thousand percent about libraries, which is part of why I think it'd be just peachy to have an Arc alpha. I think it's ridiculous to expect PG & co. to be able to create a ton of libraries (or any) because they're doing so much work on the language.

At least with an alpha, all of us excited kiddies can start poking around and filling in holes.

Otherwise, we may all have to resign ourselves to the possibility that Perl 6 may actually release first ;)

<comment><USER5> Cant they just write a macro that automatically turns any scheme or lisp library into an Arc library?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'll add one more suggestion to the pile: shipping is a feature.</comment>


Show HN: Material Dashboard React – MIT License Dashboard with Material-UI - <AUTHOR> https://creativetimofficial.github.io/material-dashboard-react <comment><AUTHOR> Hi guys,

We spent the last weeks building the Material Dashboard React over the popular Material-UI framework([http://www.material-ui.com/#/](http://www.material- ui.com/#/)).

Please check the live preview here: [https://creativetimofficial.github.io/material-dashboard- rea...](https://creativetimofficial.github.io/material-dashboard- react/#/dashboard) and if you have any issues or want to contribute on Github here: [https://github.com/creativetimofficial/material-dashboard- re...](https://github.com/creativetimofficial/material-dashboard-react/)

It is under MIT License, so feel free to use it in any personal/commercial projects.

</comment><comment><USER2> Why are you hijacking scrolling on mobile? It feels super slow and janky because of that. Otherwise, it looks decent.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the feedback. Actually we didn't do anything on purpose, it seems there is a bug and we will fix that ASAP :D</comment></comment>