Ask YC: How do you get the word out about your product? - <AUTHOR>

Even great products like the Macintosh had an evangelizing effort behind it, and from talking to people at Startup School it seems like the "TechCrunch" effect just gives you a peak that dies out quickly, with low conversion rate.<p>Does a compelling product just do the magic by itself, or do you need a marketing plan?  What strategies do you have to "bring the good news"? <comment><USER3> I'd say this is a good recipe (Not speaking from a lot of experience, but the theory seems sound to me :/ ):

1\. Make it so good people want to tell others about it. It can't be an "hmm, yeah I guess that might be useful later. I'll bookmark it". It has to be a "Woahhhhh I've been looking for this exact thing for years. So have my friends I bet. I need to use this now, and tell my friends what I found". (A hard ask, but it's nice to aim for that 'wow' factor).

2\. Make the base product free, and politely refuse donations. Ask people to simply tell their friends about it. I think people kinda feel guilty about having a cool product for free, so they become evangelists for it, and help you sell it.

Having said that, it's good to get something to start off. Look at websites/domains that are related, and have been neglected... Send emails, make an offer, buy domain, get traffic. It's not a sure fire thing - <USER2> people still believe domain names to be worth millions whatever they are. But you can pick up some real gems. More likely to be sustainable traffic unlike tc/reddit/etc mentions.

<comment><USER4> > "Woahhhhh I've been looking for this exact thing for years. So have my > friends I bet. I need to use this now, and tell my friends what I found"

\- That sounds more like Facebook!

Are you sure that the "hmm, that might be useful" -reaction is not good enough?

<comment><USER3> Just speaking from my own experience. If I say to myself "Yeah that might be useful", I bookmark it, and probably never get around to looking at it again.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Make it so good that people tell their friends about it.

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm sure there are people who can shout louder than everybody else, but this may be one of those cases where the best way to achieve something, is to do something else first. [I hate stuff like that. ;)]

If you want to date a girl, you could just approach one after another until one finally says yes (e.g., "My name is George. I'm unemployed and I live with my parents."). Or you could improve yourself by learning how to cook or play music, getting in shape, etc., so you have something to actually bring to a relationship. At that point you'll either be turning them away, or you'll have a life and won't care (which can also be an attractor).

Same approach in the technical world. Do you have a blog? Or do you participate in open source projects, or attend conferences, or anything else to demonstrate how you bring value to others?

Another common path is consulting, which basically accomplishes the same thing. Prove your worth to others, and your goal of introducing a new product becomes much easier.

I think sometimes we may care so much about the end product that we have trouble switching from the techie role to the business role. But you have to save some of that energy for marketing, and it may be better to take a more dispassionate view of the finished product (or risk never releasing anything).

</comment><comment><USER7> Forget about marketing for a second. Is your product compelling? The first thing I always look for when developing something new is whether or not it gives me an "ohhh" response once I see the initial concept in action. To be specific, as you are working on your project have you had the moment where it does something unique and you suddenly see that your idea has real potential? Or conversely, have you spent a lot of time working on your idea but you haven't had that moment of realization? If so, then unfortunately your project might be dead on arrival.

I am working on something right now that started as an idea that popped into my head. I took 6 hours writing the core part of the app, then let it run for a couple days. As I started using it myself, I had that "Ohh!" experience. To me, that's what tells me this can be a very compelling experience and why I'm pursuing further with it.

So if your product is compelling, then you've already gone 80% of the way there. The last 20% is the hard part. Find the audiences that will use what you're building. Demonstrate it for them. Free access, full-on support to your initial base of users, etc. Devote yourself to answering people's questions. You will find that word of mouth happens very easily when people are excited about what you're doing.

When you have introduced it to your core audience, which will be very small to begin with, then look around at media outlets. These days media outlets range from popular forums about the niche you are filling, to blogs and related mass-media publications. Getting on Techcrunch is cool. Its a good way to get some exposure. Hacker News itself is becoming a good place to launch, because the community is still very small and much more devoted to trying new things. I used to get hit occasionally by Slashdot and Digg, and that traffic was good for big spikes, but I would only see about 1-2 percent overall traffic boosts after that overally. However, that was an extra 2 percent I didn't have before.

Now, once you are established and have a small but active user base then you might consider bigger venues for advertising. Buying ads on popular sites like Digg and Techcrunch can help. Its very targeted, which is what you want. If you want some Google juice, oddly enough doing press releases can help. I started a company in the beginning of 2007 and we were paying about $150-$200 for press releases a few times a month. We didn't see huge amounts of direct web traffic, but it was really good for getting the word out. People in the financial industries (who pay more attention to press releases than the rest of us) were talking about us and daily I was seeing our name being talked about in the niche circles we were targeting. The co-founder was invited to interview on a few radio shows, which helped after that. (Sadly the company is defunct now. That's how startups go. However that was not because of the advertising and word of mouth.) Don't spend a ton of money on press releases. If your target audience is general web users, then releasing a press release 4x a month will do bollux for you. If you're targeting businesses, then press releases can be more helpful. But still be careful.

The last thing that I can suggest, is remember your users are "customers" and NOT "consumers". You can always tell a marketing shill versus a true entrepreneur by how they refer to people. Everyone forgets that before the 20th century, consumption meant you had tuberculosis. Then that term got morphed to refer to "the dirty poor masses that buy the rotten horse meat we sell them as hot dogs." I am a customer, a user, not a consumer. Remember that if you treat your potential audience with respect, _your_ users, then they will respect your product and that goes much further than any dollar spent on marketing.

<comment><USER8> I agree 100%. We recently validated that there is a need for our product and it is an amazing thing. So much so, that one of our best clients wants to start promoting us to collect a commision on every new signup once we launch.

Its amazing that if you put yourself in the right place, or talk to the right people about your valuable product, then its like the virus from "28 days later", it spreads quick.

Chris Co-Founder, Property Stampede LLC

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The purpose of advertising is to get people look at your product. The product itself is what determines who sticks around as a user and who wanders off to look at something else. I don't seem to have any advice beyond that.

</comment><comment><USER10> Make sure you have a great blog that exudes passion and excitement about your product. Thats a start. Also, treat every user like how you would treat your mother.

</comment><comment><USER11> As Marc Andreessen said, make it so good that people can't ignore you.

<comment><USER12> I was surprised he said that. People can always ignore you. Marc himself emphasizes that the greatest product in the world can still lose if the market isn't good.

Some might reply, "How many great products can you name that people ignored?" I can name very few, but there's massive selection bias at work; the great products that people ignore are _ipso facto_ ones that most people haven't heard of.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> be as natural as possible.

Most natural (word of mouth) Least natural (spam)

most success is probably somewhere in between</comment>


7 Things I Wish I Knew Before Starting at a Developer Bootcamp - <AUTHOR> http://truss.works/blog/2016/5/19/7-things-i-wish-i-knew-before-starting-at-a-developer-bootcamp <comment><USER2> This list is exactly why I think developer bootcamps are crap. Touch typing? Really? That is something anyone who uses a computer regularly should already do.

Sorry, this is not a useful comment on the article. I am so tired of hearing the 'learning to code' crap. Don't learn to code. Code to learn.</comment>


How to fork the whole Android operating system's code? - <AUTHOR> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15323055/how-to-fork-the-whole-android-operating-systems-code

<comment><USER2> He'll be one of the other 500+ who forked it.</comment>


Baltimore Museum of Art Will Only Buy Works by Women Next Year - <AUTHOR> https://www.npr.org/2019/11/19/780935457/baltimore-museum-of-art-will-only-buy-works-by-women-next-year <comment><USER2> > the museum will only purchase works made by female-identifying artists.

For men artists, the potential hack in this kind of situation would be to start identifying as female from now on? How would they deal with that?</comment>


Six years at Lightbend - <AUTHOR> http://eed3si9n.com/6years-at-lightbend <comment><AUTHOR> Apparently layoffs underway at Typesafe/Lightbend

Scala contributors, no less.

[https://mobile.twitter.com/jamie_allen/status/12480198428771...](https://mobile.twitter.com/jamie_allen/status/1248019842877145089)</comment>


RUB researchers compile the largest astronomical image of all time. 46 gigapixel - <AUTHOR> http://aktuell.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/pm2015/pm00143.html.en <comment><USER2> asdf</comment>


Disqus 2.0: New Plugin, New Interface, And Local Comment Backup - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/08/12/disqus-20-new-plugin-new-interface-and-local-comment-backup/ <comment><USER2> [http://venturebeat.com/2008/08/12/disqus- version-2-addresses...](http://venturebeat.com/2008/08/12/disqus- version-2-addresses-concerns-and-improves-capabilities/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Is there a way to put Disqus into a custom Python web app, and still get the SEO cred?

<comment><USER4> Yes, after our API gets better documentation over the next few days.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> i made comments using my email without registering and some months later when i created an account for that email address the comments where never claimed to me

<comment><USER6> <http://disqus.com/claim>

<comment><USER5> thanks

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> But Arrington still won't use it.

<comment><USER8> What's Valleywag using?

<comment><USER7> Icky linear format because the tech team works really slow or something. Oooh we can do disemvoweling now!

<comment><USER9> Still, they have wonderful content creators and a number of their blogs (Deadspin, Gawker, Jezebel, io9) have very large and active communities. It's not the smartest thing to rock the boat unnecessarily.

<comment><USER7> It gets pretty unwieldly on the bigger sites (Gizmodo, Gakwer, and LifeHacker) when there are hundreds if not thousands of comments. The position now is basically the attraction isn't the discussion of the posts but the posts themselves. Things might change soon though.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Deadly parasite turns Bay Area honeybees into zombie slaves - <AUTHOR> http://www.mercurynews.com/top-stories/ci_19666381

<comment><AUTHOR> There's some interesting science about a serious problem (bee colony collapse > pollination problems for agriculture >$billions$ in economic losses), but I have to admit I got a chuckle from the headline.</comment>


Muslim women 'sterilised' in China detention camps, say former detainees - <AUTHOR> https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/uighur-muslim-china-sterilisation-women-internment-camps-xinjiang-a9054641.html <comment><USER2> Looks like the article went out of their way to reference France24 and Nikkei Asian Review as the source to the source to the information but didn't link to what that source is.

</comment><comment><USER3> Arent they simply following developed world? [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/18/canada- indigen...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/18/canada-indigenous- women-coerced-sterlilization-class-action-lawsuit)

<comment><AUTHOR> And what is the likelihood of a lawsuit against the Chinese government even being allowed to occur?</comment></comment>


Obama: "It is unacceptable that the U.S. ranks 15th in the world in broadband adoption" - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/07/us/politics/07radio.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all <comment><USER2> I know, let's create some government-sponsored enterprises, like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but for promoting broadband rather than home ownership!

After our big access push, the _broad_ band intertubes will be a publicly- owned resource, like the _broad_ cast airwaves. And we better not subsidize indecency or insensitive content with _broad_ public resources! So content and corporate ownership structures can require FCC review, like over-the-air TV, rather than that messy anarchy that rules over books. (People can print anything in books and we can't fine them!)

Don't worry, though -- the FCC is always balanced, with 3 commissioners from the president's party, and 2 from the opposition party. All viewpoints are represented!

Remember, net neutrality for packets is only truly acheived when we have neutrality, equality, and justice for all people. Packets which contain hate speech, pornography, content inaccessible to the handicapped, political campaigning beyond the spending limits of the FEC, or an insufficient proportion of underrepresented viewpoints are _not_ neutral. We won't allow them on our public nets!

Australia, China, the UK, and Saudi Arabia are all innovating in making their national networks serve national priorities -- the U.S. must not fall farther behind!

<comment><USER3> Aussie Aussie Aussie - Oi Oi Oi! We're leading the world in something for once....

oh. wait.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Here's what change is about: Knowing that infrastructure includes not just roads and bridges, and mass transit, but laying fiber too.

<comment><USER5> Amen!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> "Mr. Bush and other Republicans have resisted such an approach in part out of concern for the already soaring federal budget deficit, which could easily hit $1 trillion this year. Borrowing hundreds of billions of dollars today to try to fix the economy, they argue, will leave a huge bill for the next generation."

Anyone besides me find that paragraph a little ironic?

</comment><comment><USER7> Hopefully lessons about the first Great Depression, such as how the policies of the New Deal actually lengthened the depression, will be learned this time.

<http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/GreatDepression.html>

<comment><USER8> I've heard this so many times recently. The exact same argument used for exactly conflicting points of view. And every time it's brought up it is presented as an uncontroversial example of how X (or Y the exact opposite of X) works:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_deal#Conflicting_interpreta...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_deal#Conflicting_interpretation_of_the_New_Deal_economic_policies)

The New Deal is a Hung Jury.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> While I'm all for improving the state of broadband and internet access in general, I think 15th out of 190-odd countries is decent. It's certainly in the top 10%. In fact, according to international studies, it's better than we do in education.

I think the internet is wonderful, but the US will lag in broadband over densely populated, urban nations. The US has a huge rural population and I really do hope that wireless broadband improves our ability to serve them, but sometimes there are limitations.

Plus, I don't actually think the statistics show the US as having a bad adoption rate. (<http://www.internetworldstats.com/dsl.htm>) That's what I found quickly searching. The US comes out on top of Germany and Japan (both countries that are very urban and densely populated). I think one of the keys is also that we are decently close to the leadership. It's not like the leaders (1-12) have 70% adoption and then there's a steep drop off to us at 20% adoption.

I'd bet that this is more of a state by state issue. Densely populated states like NJ, RI, and MA probably have broadband adoption rates that would be much better than the country as a whole - and seeing as though many of the countries doing better than the US are the geographic size of (or have a populated center the geographic size of) one of our smaller states, that might make for a better comparison. Out of the 18 countries beating the US, only Canada, the UK and France are of any size. Comparing the US to a country like Denmark isn't really fair. We're talking about comparing 31 people per km^2 to 127 people per km^2. And the countries that have lower population densities often have the majority of their population in a few urban centers.

Lastly, there's a methodology problem. We're comparing broadband connections to the number of people. That doesn't tell us what percentage of people have broadband. I live with several other people and we have one broadband connection for the house. We all have access, but it will look like we have a 25% adoption rate. As European families usually have fewer children, that might create a bias in tabulating. With a US family averaging over 25% more children than a Swedish family, there might be an uncorrected bias that skews results against the US. Of course, if the US has more split families, that could skew in the US' favor.

I just think this is one of those cases where a politician is grandstanding without facts being behind them. OMG IT'S UNACCEPTABLE!!! No, it's pretty acceptable. Yeah, we should improve, but you can't expect the US as a whole to be able to match a country with a much denser population and a much smaller geographic area to cover. We're doing really well that we're so close.

Stop making everything unacceptable! It just means that people don't listen to you because you've shown an ineptitude at interpreting data.

<comment><USER4> I live only 100 miles north of Boston, in a fairly "wealthy" state (New Hampshire) and my only option is satellite. That's just a sad state of the infrastructure.

Furthermore, broadband speeds vary from country to country:

[http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/Images/commentarynews/bro...](http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/Images/commentarynews/broadbandspeedchart.jpg)

It's not just penetration that we lag behind. It's speed too.

As for density, Canada's a fairly big place, and they have a bigger, faster broadband (see my link and yours) even as their GDP is 10% of ours: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_>(nominal)

<comment><USER10> "That's just a sad state of the infrastructure."

Why is this sad? It seems pretty logical to me. I don't think it would make sense to build expensive (roads/sewers/cable/etc) to every far out node.

<comment><USER11> That's why government intervention is being discussed. It may not be economically feasible for everyone to be connected to the internet at affordable prices. But there is a big public benefit to be gained if everyone is connected and online.

Now die-hard "anarcho-capitalists" will say that government has no role in the economy whatsoever, but the history of most of the technological systems that make our society what it is say otherwise. Postal Service, Railroads, mapping, electricity and telephones were all limited in functionality and restricted in geographical reach until government intervention supported near-universal adoption.

<comment><USER10> "But there is a big public benefit to be gained if everyone is connected and online."

Is there?

Seems to me 90+ odd percent would be good enough.

<comment><USER11> eh, there's something to be said for near universal participation; I mean think of the problems we would have if only 90% of doctors went to medical school; or if only 90% of drivers licensed their motor vehicles.

In this case the difference between being able to assume with near certainty that someone you need to do business has at least potential access, versus a 9 in 10 chance that the person whose attention you need for your business to survive is online.

Of course if your business doesn't depend on people who use the internet, you're fine with less than full participation, and it being a second class mode of business for another decade or three...

<comment><USER12> > In this case the difference between being able to assume with near certainty > that someone you need to do business has at least potential access, versus a > 9 in 10 chance that the person whose attention you need for your business to > survive is online.

You're assuming that lack of internet access is randomly distributed, that 90% internet access means that Donald Trump is 90% likely to have internet access. It isn't. 10% internet access is more than enough for some biz. 90% is more than enough for most biz.

To put it another way/use your own example, the fact that less than 100% of people go to medical school doesn't imply that there aren't enough doctors.

Note that "access" isn't enough - they have to be willing to use it AND willing to let you get to them via the internet. I have access yet often refuse to tell biz how to reach me.

<comment><USER11> The way I see it we're talking about two different things; you're talking about the quantitative difference between say 90-92% of people have access if they want it. Whereas I'm talking about the qualitative difference between even a large percentage of the population having some degree of access and 100% of competent adults having at least a minimal level of access.

Obama is not the only politician pushing for universal access, if local governments could act with confidence that moving basic tasks like title transactions, judicial proceedings, public records, etc. to a completely electronic format would not create a vast set of support issues coming from the 8% or so of people who have no access; they could streamline operations and save taxpayer money. The point I'm trying to get at is that Universal Broadband may be one of those rare government initiatives that does pay for itself. And as an infrastructure investment, it makes for a better environment for any company reliant on the internet.

<comment><USER12> > The way I see it we're talking about two different things; you're talking > about the quantitative difference between say 90-92% of people have access > if they want it.

No, I'm not. There are many biz that work if only 10% of the population has broadband, as long as it's the right 10%.

> Whereas I'm talking about the qualitative difference between even a large > percentage of the population having some degree of access and 100% of > competent adults having at least a minimal level of access.

You're assuming that the 10% who don't have broadband access would be a significant difference to an interesting fraction of biz. That's unlikely. Heck - it's unlikely that the 30% who have access but choose not to particpate would make a difference. (If someone is unwilling to spend $30/month on broadband, how much money do you think that they'll spend if they had broadband for less?)

> Obama is not the only politician pushing for universal access

That's not exactly an argument that suggests confidence. After all, these are the same folks who thought that 0 down mortgages were a good idea.

> if local governments could act with confidence that moving basic tasks like > title transactions, judicial proceedings, public records, etc. to a > completely electronic format would not create a vast set of support issues > coming from the 8% or so of people who have no access; they could streamline > operations and save taxpayer money.

You're significantly overstating the number of transactions.

I use such services about once/year but that's only because I'm somewhat of a nut about verifying that my property tax was properly credited - the vast majority of people don't bother. Not many people have "judicial" proceedings to observe and most of them are served by lawyers. As far as the rest, how often do you check that your house/car title is correct? (I've never checked either one.)

Yearly car registration payment is about the only common transaction that can be done online but it only costs about $1-3 to do by USPS. (Shipping stickers costs about the same but the reasons for having such stickers are not affected by on-line payment.) Even if payment costs were free online, that "savings" doesn't buy much infrastructure. It can be done by dial-up and a significant number of people already do it online, so the generous assumption is that at most 30% of the population could be moved to use on-line registration and they don't have that many cars.

And then there's the "I didn't get the e-mail telling me to renew my license" problem....

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The US is not a small country. The economics of broadband penetration are different.

It is not the job of the federal government to pick a winner in methods of distributing TCP/IP packets.

<comment><USER14> The government ensures that everyone gets postal and land-line telephone service if they want it. Considering how TCP/IP packets are used, are they really much different from those other services?

In this case it's not about picking a winner, it's about making sure people have access to resources. Once there's choice the monopoly can be disposed of, like we did with Ma Bell and the postal service.

<comment><USER13> Fiber could cost billions, and in the end, wireless might be a much better option. This is clearly a make-work project, and that is simply a waste of my money.

<comment><USER15> It may be a poor investment, but it is not make-work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I think the bigger issue is the lack of choice/competition.

<comment><AUTHOR> there is competition, the problem is that since the whole broadband thing is just starting out, they companies are focusing their efforts on the big cities.

I mean think about it..why would the companies put all that effort and resources into laying fiber to and around a town of 10,000 people, if for only a little bit more they can lay down the fiber in a city of 10 million

<comment><USER5> I think you're mistaking the word "competition" for "oligopoly." Let me introduce you to 99% of the broadband market, their names are Verizon, Comcast, and AT&T.

By the way, they don't let municipalities build their own infrastructures. It's "anti-competitive." Any company that is profitable enough is acquired, otherwise they will charge you an arm and leg just to use their cables.

The focus on "wealthy" neighborhoods is called redlining. These three guys I just introduced you to don't care about poor people. They only want to charge as high a price as possible for the people who can afford it. They're not too worried about actually building a good network (ie fiber optics, instead of their 100-year old coaxial cables designed for telephones).

Just thought I'd chime in and clarify that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I think it would be good for the government to take the initiative in improving connectivity across the country. At the moment, media companies seem more concerned with limiting the download capacities of users rather than improving the infrastructure.

<comment><USER18> Sometimes getting Government involved in areas makes thing worse.

<comment><USER19> And sometimes it makes it better.

<comment><USER18> Government in general is really inefficient. Way less efficient than, say, Comcast, Microsoft, or Fedex. So unless there is some good reason it must be Government solving a problem, why not have someone (anyone) else do it?

Having Government do our broadband is very dangerous. Besides "fiber optic cables to nowhere", and outages and delays in major cities, there is the possibility of "packet shaping", blocking access to certain websites (e.g. The Pirate Bay), listening to our conversations (in case we're terrorists), requiring the installation of DRM software to go with internet access, and not allowing the use of cryptographic protocols granting anonymity or privacy. Why should we trust the Government to do those things less than companies that at least need paying customers and have less power?

<comment><USER20> As inefficient as is might be, there are still some things that only government can build. There are plenty of places even today that the US mail goes to that FedEx does not. (I lived in one of them).

Sometimes you've just got to suck it up and swing that sledge hammer at that gnat, because there's just no private incentive to make a fly swatter.

<comment><USER18> Yeah, sure, but why is broadband one of those things?

Is it broadband _to rural areas_ that only the Government would do, because there is no profit in it? If so, I'm not convinced that's the best use of taxpayer money.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> _"They estimated that each billion dollars spent would create up to 40,000 jobs."_

Not sure who is doing the math here, but if you divide a billion by 40k, you get $25k per person... and nothing left over to spend on materials. So the workers will either get significantly less than $25k a year for these jobs, or the concrete and bulldozers will be free.

Far more likely, I'd guess, is that the 40k jobs figure was pulled out of somebody's backside.

<comment><USER22> Not that I necessarily agree with their logic, but presumably they are estimating that the net economic benefit of the things created with the billion dollars exceeds a billion dollars.

<comment><USER21> Ah good point. For some reason I was reading as "a billion dollars will fund 40k people".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> "Borrowing hundreds of billions of dollars today to try to fix the economy, they argue, will leave a huge bill for the next generation."

Iraq, Bailout..borrowing billions is the Bush strategy except the give it to private banks and large corps in the form of tax payers with absolutely no return back to Americans.

</comment><comment><USER24> Someone above already said 15 out of 195-ish countries is pretty good, but more specifically, it's actually kinda on par for the US.

While its easy to assume the US is #1 on many metrics due simply to having the largest economy, it's not in the top 10 in areas such as quality of life, quality of education, press freedom, crime, and so on. The US's biggest asset is its _diversity_ and I doubt the US will ever be #1 in most of these areas while it retains the power of its diversity.

</comment><comment><USER25> I blame it on corporate greed, and stupidity.

</comment><comment><USER26> "It is unacceptable that the United States ranks 15th in the world in broadband adoption," Mr. Obama said. "Here, in the country that invented the Internet, every child should have the chance to get online."

Why did I read that as "... every child should have the chance to download porn at a high rate"? Sigh, does anyone really believe that internet access is going to make a serious difference in the lives of those children who are struggling educationally or whose families are on the economic margins? All it will do is drag them down further in a wasteland of social networking sites (Facebook, Myspace) and (usually) much worse.

<comment><USER27> Just because 99% of children are "in a wasteland of social networking sites" doesn't mean _everyone_ is, or will be. The internet is a vast, valuable resource. It is the only reason I am as competent a programmer as I am today. I'm entirely self-taught, thanks to the internet. As I was growing up, I usually skipped school activities (and sometimes school) in favor of learning programming on the internet.

So please don't deny people like me the opportunity just because most people around us misuse it.

<comment><USER26> So we should embark on a huge government-funded program to widen broadband availability so 1% of children can benefit from it.

<comment><USER27> I don't know. You certainly bring up a good counterpoint, that it would be very costly and would benefit a disproportionally small amount of the population.

There probably is no right answer. I would personally like to ensure future children the same opportunities that were afforded to me.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Long Beard's Revenge - <AUTHOR> http://sheddingbikes.com/posts/1286998492.html <comment><USER4> In agreement with what Zed is saying, you would be shocked by the number of companies, YC companies especially, who use Orbited (www.orbited.org) but never ever mention it, contribute a patch, offer me a job, or really add anything of value to the project.

Great, that's their prerogative... its MIT licensed software. But I can tell you, after this sort of interaction for years, I no longer invest my time in Orbited, and instead I bill $250/hr to share my expertise with consumer facing internet startup companies.

One _actual_ data point to add this discussion anyway.

[ edit for spelling ]

<comment><USER4> Couple of quick responses:

pquerna, gridspy, thanks for your responses! I didn't mean to sound _quite_ so cynical. Mainly I am venting my frustration at the lack of a dedicated developer to maintain the project, especially after I've seen so many success stories.

wrt AGPL: In orbited's case -- b/c it is a socket proxy -- the AGPL would really have _no impact_ whatsoever on users. No one would be linking any of their code in-process, and so there would really be no requirement for them to AGPL any of their custom back-end logic. Besides, I don't really believe in trying to force users down a particular path. My hope is always that freedom and choice helps build trust with your user base, which ultimately results in the healthiest community.

Yet, when I started Orbited 3-4 years ago, I never intended to be married to the project forever. My hope has always been that some people/projects/companies that are depending on the Orbited would be willing to commit substantial engineering resources to fix bugs and implement new features, and from those contributions some new core committers would emerge. Unfortunately, my work still accounts for about 95% of the 0.7.x branch which is the last stable release.

I feel like Orbited is far behind, considering I haven't been involved in a release in about 2 years, and no one else has really stepped up. I am always shocked, truthfully, when I hear success stories and see people building applications with it still. The code base has remained unchanged through about 10 browser releases.

<comment><USER5> Yes, I noticed this inactivity when I started working with Orbited. However, I always assumed you had reached a natural conclusion and stopped.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Another possibility is simply that people are contributing less because both the upfront and long-term cost of making a profit themselves on their code has gone radically down.

Optimizely launched today. Normally A/B testing is simply a framework feature someone (or rather many people, typically independently) implements and puts out there. Instead, with a little more work and very little upfront capital you can turn that feature you would've put out as open source into a revenue generating product. For lots of people it's not worth turning into a product if your servers are going to cost you thousands of dollars a month from day one but if it's just 20-50$/month then the economics change entirely. From the community you lost all the people who would give something away for free simply because it would've been too big a hassle and risk to turn it into something profitable.

Another good example is <http://directededge.com> . An adaptive recommendation service seems like the ideal fun project to hack on as an open source API/library. But now it's a subscription product too. I'm sure many others can be found.

<comment><USER7> That's actually another good way to say it, and is sort of what I said. But, not everyone has the same risk tolerance so it can't be the sole cause otherwise people would have done it sooner than 2009. Another contributing factor is corporations taking advantage of the commons. Combine the two and you get our current situation.

<comment><USER8> For the newer/younger readers, I believe that "commons" refers to this:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I don't know where Zed gets the idea there was an "unwritten contract" between FLOSS developers and industry. In my experience, businesses have freeloaded and withheld recognition whenever it was remotely possible.

If you go back to the Transmeta years, even Linus Torvalds was doing the kernel only part-time for a while. Full-time FLOSS development has always been rare.

There's an undertone of anger in this post that there is no suitable industry job out there for the developer of Mongrel. Maybe that is a shame, but I just don't find it as surprising as Zed does, I guess.

There is a crying need for some other way to fund infrastructure software projects.

<comment><USER10> I couldn't decide whether to vote you up or down.

Agree that there's crying need for some other way to fund infrastructure software projects.

Disagree that Full-time FLOSS development has been rare since since Linux became what it currently is through a lot of full-time, paid work.

Etc...

I'm pretty damn impressed with the directions and comments of Zed. He's by far the "realist" person in the industry.

<comment><USER11> > I couldn't decide whether to vote you up or down.

My policy is when a post or comment has one grain of insight or new ideas amongst a bushel of wrong-headed chaff, I vote up. After all, I have a fully- working pattern-match filter built into my brain, and so does everyone else. The world is a better place when people are encouraged to make positive contributions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Couldn't the decline just be more or less the shredding of the economy in the past 2-3 years? Fewer companies with extra cash around to have people spend time contributing back to OSS projects.

<comment><USER13> That is possible.

It is also possible that Ohloh's tracking is not perfect. They can't track things that haven't been reported to them, and that process can take time. So I'd expect under reporting of recent changes. (Not necessarily as much as we see though.)

<comment><USER7> Their tracking is probably imperfect, but it seems like a reasonable indicator. I'm still waiting to see if their data has some flaw, or maybe if github has more.

However, that data wasn't the point, just an indicator.

<comment><USER14> <http://www.ohloh.net/p/numpy>

Numpy must be stealing from other projects, as they have -150KLOC

<comment><USER15> To make that clear to others - like me - that didn't see it first time, that's _negative_ 150K lines of code.

<comment><USER16> This is weird :) We recently moved to github (where recent is a few days), so I wonder if that's linked

Also, numpy is not mainly written in modula-2.

<comment><USER17> Hmm I don't see a denial of the "Very few source code comments" analysis... ;)

<comment><USER16> Nope, nor does it need one. Source comments are weakly correlated with code quality :)

Moreoever, you have to be careful about numbers of lines-based statistics for numpy and scipy, because a lot of code is generated or 3rd party libraries (that are integrated because no distribution has them packaged, not even debian). Also, cloc gives me vastly different numbers, with a lot of comments and all (but again, not very meaningful because of generated/integrated code). ohlo stats are not very reliable in my experience, at least for the packages I am involved with.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I think there are two things driving any perceived slowdown in OSS. One is the economy, and the other is platform changes.

A down economy has unusual effects on free time: the less-competent are first to go and most likely to stay unemployed, while the best and brightest will be retained and overworked. This would deprive OSS of much of its premier talent.

We are also seeing a major platform shift on lots of fronts; from traditional desktop computing to alternate form factors(phone, tablet), from big iron to commodity computing, and from C, C++ or Java console or WIMP-style apps towards modernized browser apps, which have an increasingly rich set of options for UX. All of this causes a huge upset in the very gradual process of open-source development and encourages a gold rush of low-tech apps that exploit the new platforms.

I don't think this leads to a "Long Beard's Revenge" scenario, though, as the next thing that's going to hit the browser, now that it's getting more capable, is to make webapps that are client-heavy and cheap on the back-end. Open-source stacks will correspondingly start building up more heavily on the JS end of things. After some time, we'll see more open-source JS apps. And then who knows what will happen?

OSS is perpetually underfunded and overexploited; it's a commons good, after all. And when OSS authors "put themselves out of business" by writing excellent software, they've essentially fulfilled their economic destiny.

But I don't think industry is to blame for the particular bias Zed discusses. It goes back to the state of the economy: Income inequality locks people out of open source, as fully participating in it is a luxury of self- actualization, one which takes lots of time and effort. At the same time, if most of the money in the world is sitting on a few rich people, the best way to get their attention as consumers is to make slick toy apps.

That is, if things were right with the world, our apps would be extremely boring-looking, very useful and functional, and mostly open-source, because that would mean nobody is feeling pressured to monetize their software.

<comment><USER19> Alternative hypothesis is that many highly qualified technically but not adept at office politics (or other soft skills) people might be let go. These highly skilled people might just stay in "basement" and produce FOSS because of their idealism and lack of other options.

In other words, instead of kissing ass in the office they would rather produce kick ass software on their own.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> It's not only about the "Long Beards" in backend programming.

Let's look 10 years back: To become a popular "web company" you've probably had to invest _a lot_ of cash in advertisements. Today strong social networking (blogging, twitter, HN, fb, linkedin) in theory allows the developers/builders/creators/"marketers" direct access to the market without having a middle men and for a few bucks.

So it's all about "full stack self promotion": You've to sell AND deliver awesome quality on a daily basis.

Some good and hard-working will be able to make bigger profits themselves _if_ they learn self marketing skills (=> 37signals, peldi/balsamiq, amyhoy … ) and actually WANT to sell. Many of the old school OSS developers don't want to sell themselves as an "ego brand" on a daily basis. They just want to do cool technical things and get enough money for a living. They are awesome brains but often have autistic-like social/selling skills and a completely different motivation.

<comment><USER7> Bullshit. They may promote some illusion of quality, but having seen both internet startups and massive banks I can tell you they're huge liars. They're all about the illusion of quality and selling it, and not any actual quality.

Banks collapsed because they had crap IT. This is why Bear Stearns has a 20000% increase (yes, percent) in failed trades in the last two days of their life and didn't know about it. Bad IT also let them create these derivatives and have no idea how much risk was actually in them, hell, how much money was in them.

Startups are going to go through the same thing. They're lack of attention to detail of the total product quality while promoting their "full stack" as if it were high quality is already starting to bite them. I know a lot of these exits you're seeing would have been higher if they had better operations than they do.

So this myopic view that it's all about sales at any cost and "user experience" only does nothing for the industry.

<comment><USER21> "Banks collapsed because they had crap IT. This is why Bear Stearns has a 20000% increase (yes, percent) in failed trades in the last two days of their life and didn't know about it. Bad IT also let them create these derivatives and have no idea how much risk was actually in them, hell, how much money was in them."

I think you have a good point, but you're stretching it a bit here. Bear Sterns was dead before the last 2 days of their life.

<comment><USER22> I read those two sentences as independent assertions, but you seem to be conflating them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I think a better explanation for this is the tragedy of the commons. Do companies want open source software contributions to keep up? Yeah. As long as those contributions are made on someone else's time.

<comment><USER23> The tragedy of the commons is a myth. It doesn't exist. If it's truly "common" the companies that have an interest in it contribute and, guess what, that's exactly what they're doing: IBM, Oracle, Redhat: everyone pays to have Linux developed.

The problem is that a lot of these "product people" don't perceive themselves as being part of "the commons". To them a lot of open source software is simply something that for some reason exists and can be had for free, not something that took effort to build.

To illustrate that the tragedy of the commons really is a myth, consider the recent complaints against Ubuntu: they were found to be freeloading on the commons of desktop Linux and were reprimanded for it by the other contributors and users of that commons. What did emphatically not happen is that other contributors followed their example. Red Hat continues to develop Gnome, for example, even though they know their work will be profited from by Ubuntu without Ubuntu contributing something back.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> My start-up contributes to open source (mostly the route-me framework for iPhone mapping).

We see it as good business. We are known to be route-me experts, which has helped us sell our platform for mobile map dev (and dev devices).

<comment><USER7> Well then thank you. I mean it's not my project, but it helps other people.

<comment><USER24> I guess I see it as a duty to some extent, plus I get a kick from contributing code. But honestly, the main reason is business. We want other companies to use our mapping platform, which uses route-me. When you get introduced to someone as a "route-me expert," it makes closing the deal about 1000X easier. Companies like Red Hat and CloudMade were built on that principle.

I also think the death of open source is greatly exaggerated. It's natural that contributions would fall off, as FOSS gets more mature, and just requires polish. As it turns out, it's not nearly as fun to polish software as it is to write something new. And there's endless polishing work on all software.

This may be the single reason why open source isn't more dominant - <USER2> you actually have to pay guys to do the dirty work at the end, or they'll go back to hacking something more fun.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> > Consumer internet companies however are just not bothering with this. They > frequently will use software and then slander the author of it claiming it's > "crap".

I seem to remember a certain Debian article along those lines.

<comment><USER7> I do _not_ use Debian. I have Ubuntu on a laptop to support my user base who use Debian, but I run ArchLinux, Fedora, FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OSX on all my other computers and servers. I also don't make money on these systems, or I pay for them, and I contribute back extensively. So don't compare me to the likes of Meebo and Twitter.

I also consider Debian to be exactly like these companies who take _my_ work, butcher it, then pass the support costs and blame on to me. Considering I am a prolific contributor to the open source cause, and _I've_ never butchered a Debian package when they've butchered my software, I'm completely justified in criticizing them for their actions.

<comment><USER26> Respectfully, it is better not to criticize open source developers and maintainers publicly if you want more/better open source software. Everyone gets frustrated and at a certain point people take their toys and go home.

<comment><USER25> Criticism is fine, as long as it's respectful and constructive, which were two things that were in very short supply in Zed's Debian rant.

Also, Zed writes:

> I also don't make money on these systems, or I pay for them, and I > contribute back extensively. So don't compare me to the likes of Meebo and > Twitter.

Debian makes no money on its systems, and contributes back extensively too in many cases. So comparing it to the likes of Microsoft and asking for people to "attack" it was really uncalled for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Zed's right, but SaaS providers will have to start taking the "back end" a lot more seriously as they become more mission critical.

Virgin Blue's hosted airline reservation system recently went down, costing the company $15-20 million by their estimates. ([http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/Virgin- pd...](http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/Virgin- pd20101011-A52GE?OpenDocument&src=srch))

I wonder if Navitaire-Accenture, now facing one of the biggest IT lawsuits in Australian history, wish they'd had a few more long beards around...

</comment><comment><USER28> _A web framework let you work on the back-end, but had the interesting quality that anyone who used it pretty much had to admit it or contact you._

I wonder about this. Seems like there are plenty of rails / django / joomla sites out there, but not sure how many proudly display the "Powered By" badge, or contribute back.

<comment><USER20> On how many sites do you see a note (not even in the html source or http response header) on what it's built?

It was the motivation for me to build <http://IsItRails.com/> because in general so few sites tell something about the used technology stack.

From time to time I'm receiving mails telling me to remove a listed site because of some "company policy"… wtf.

<comment><USER29> IsItRails.com; Error 503 Service Unavailable. So I guess it is rails.

<comment><USER20> had to reboot the system because I've added more RAM to the VM (because 'gem mirror' uses _A LOT_ )

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I agree with most of the points in the article, but I'd point most of the blame on the rise of the Mobile Apps. Those who would have been the next generation of open source programmers are instead releasing closed source apps. Some of the reasons are the same as Zed points out (lower bar for 'making a company out of it') but some of the direction comes from the corporations backing the App Stores and selling the mobile devices.

For many common tasks, there are a plethora of Apps out there the do pretty much the same simple thing, in a mostly functional but considerably klunky manner. In the open source world, one of these would take the lead, incorporate the best features of the competitors, and then developers would pitch their efforts behind the winner increasing the lead even farther. Instead, every week there's a new closed-source work-alike.

It feels like a regression back to the pre-open-source days of shareware. Instead of a pooling of efforts, everyone is duplicating the work that's already been done. Instead of building a solid foundation, there's a glorification of throwing something together in an afternoon from "premade parts" and "stock libraries" --- perhaps they grow on trees --- and putting it out there for sale.

Android is considered the more open environment, but on my Linux based Android phone, I don't know if there are any open-source Apps that I use --- maybe the Camera is stock? In contrast, on my desktop (also Linux) I can't offhand think of any programs I use regularly that aren't open source (I guess Flash, if you count it as a program).

I don't think this is by accident. Why for example does Google have such a lousy closed-source email App? I feel certain a forked open-sourced version would be vastly improved within weeks, and anyone who didn't think so would still be free to use the original. Believe it or not, it's actually reasonably common practice to disassemble an App like this to byte code, and then try to patch this and reassemble it into a working App. (<http://code.google.com/p/smali>)

At one point I thought it was the phone companies that were setting this course, but now I'm not so sure. Microsoft tried to kill off open source through FUD and marketing, but surprisingly they didn't have the clout. But now Apple and Google might just kill it off by creating a thriving business for 99 cent Apps --- because who's going to release the source for a whole afternoon's work when someone might just steal it and put a closed-source version up on the App store and maybe become a millionaire?

<comment><USER31> If you're talking about the Android email app, there actually is a fork, called K-9, and it's significantly better.

<comment><USER30> No, I'm referring to the Google Gmail app. Although Google owns Android, there is a large distinction between the open-source Android base and the closed- source Google apps. K9 sounds like a fine improvement over the stock email app, and an example of what would happen if Google would release the Gmail app as open-source. Yet they choose not to --- why?

<comment><USER32> So people can't get the functionality without Google being able to data-mine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Put it in your contract!

I modify every contract I sign to include stipulations for open-source software.

Most companies couldn't care less about releasing bits and pieces of their code base as open-source projects.

Business schools have been preaching to students for decades about how marketplaces have become consumer focused and not product focused. They already think that the really important part of doing business is to focus on finding out who wants what, regardless of what the product is.

As a developer, it is your prerogative to ask! If you run in to any hesitation from the higher-ups, just work on it for a little bit... it probably isn't going to run against their "big picture" objectives.

<comment><USER34> Could you clarify more on this? What stipulations do you add? To me it seems like there is a lot of legal risk to giving an employee the ability to release code, so they just put everyone under a blanket clause that says no to open source.

<comment><USER33> For one, I list open-source projects that I contribute to and plan on using and enhancing as part of whatever business objectives I'm being hired to work towards.

Also, I add in a clause that states I will more than likely release aspects of the project under an open-source license. Nothing binding, but I like to have it in writing on the same piece of paper that ensures I get paid for whatever I do. Their lawyers always find a way to bill a few hours worth of figuring out the language. :)

The only thing I ever get from people is something along the lines of "hmm, we don't normally get this request, but no one seems to have a problem with it."

Development teams and managers love it because it means you're writing nice, modular code.

I've never had anyone take issue when, instead of burying some specific bit of functionality within business logic, abstracting things out to a library. In fact, most people would agree that that is good habit to have. ;)

When it is finished you just talk to someone up the chain about releasing it. Normally saying something along the lines of "hey, we might get people who don't work for this company enhancing this feature for us" really helps to sway their decision in your (and my hippie-dippie share things for the greater good) favor.

Here's the language from a recent contract:

\</comment></comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>-

4 . Ownership.

A. Assignment. Consultant agrees that all copyrightable material, notes, records, drawings, designs, inventions, improvements, developments, discoveries and trade secrets conceived, discovered, developed or reduced to practice by Consultant, solely or in collaboration with others, during the term of this Agreement and arising out of or in connection with performing the Services under this Agreement (collectively, "Inventions"), are the sole property of the Company except that Consultant may contribute certain modifications to Open Source projects as set forth in Sections 4.A.1 through 4.A.3. Consultant also agrees to assign (or cause to be assigned) and hereby irrevocably assigns fully to the Company all Inventions and any copyrights, patents, mask work rights or other intellectual property rights relating to all Inventions.

( 1 ) Open Source Projects. A software project is said to be an Open Source project when its project materials such as source code are published publicly and its software license permits the combination of project materials with other software project materials without fee and commonly with no or limited exclusivity or other limits on use.

( 2 ) Combined Projects. Consultant may from time to time in the course of performing Services and subject to approval by the Company use Open Source projects exclusively licensed under the MIT License to develop Inventions. During and after the use of Open Source projects, Consultant may add, change, improve or otherwise make modifications to Open Source project source code or other materials and may contribute these and only these modifications to the Open Source projects provided that these modifications do not contain Confidential Information and subject to the terms of the applicable Open Source project license and the project's administrative rules.

( 3 ) Notification of use. Consultant has attached hereto a list of Open Source projects that Consultant may use to create Inventions and to which Consultant would like to contribute back non-confidential modifications. Consultant will provide prior written notice to the Company prior to using any additional Open Source projects to which Consultant would like to contribute back non-confidential modifications; and such use shall be subject to approval by the Company.

</comment><comment><USER35> One difference that I notice in FLOSS contributions, is that a lot of the Web 2.0 company/founder/programmer input is in the form of the pieces of software, quite often reinventing the wheel a tad bit. Probably because contribution to the bigger existing projects takes a lot of time that startup members don't have, and frankly, is often beyond the usual skill level of a lot of them… (inexperience, wrong language etc.)

</comment><comment><USER36> > I believe, and you'll call me crazy, but the indicator for this second trend > will be a focus on automated testing (not just unit testing)...

I get that for most companies that are developing software it is to support some other profit center and not their primary focus. They hire subpar engineers because that's all they really need (and they're not compitent enough to tell the difference), so a lack of automation in this context, especially test automation, is not surprising to me in the least.

But the idea that you would have a software based profit center that isn't automatically tested, especially with the competitive nature of the web requiring rapid turn around on features, absolutely blows my mind. Are people firing from the hip and hoping nothing breaks or clicking every link on your site? In which case you're either way too overconfident in your own abilities or have no value for your own time.

</comment><comment><USER37> >I believe, and you'll call me crazy, but the indicator for this second trend will be a focus on automated testing (not just unit testing) and operations cost at consumer internet companies. Right now I think maybe 5% or 10% of consumer internet companies even run one bit of test automation, hell automation at all. Look for this as an indicator that they've figured out automation reduces costs and increases agility.

<http://saucelabs.com/> is a company I know of in this space, but their product _SUCKS_ (on Ubuntu/Firefox at least) and they didn't respond to my complaint emails (or fulfill their promise to remind me to cancel my trial subscription before I had to start paying for it). If someone wants to do automated browser testing right that would be awesome.

</comment><comment><USER38> Doesn't the founder of the libpurple project work at Meebo? Since pretty much the beginning of the company?

<comment><USER4> That isn't correct.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Spencer_(computer_engineer...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Spencer_\(computer_engineer\))

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Another aspect that may contribute here is that more and more FOSS developers are doing it as full-time paid employees of big companies. When you move from intense, motivated programming to the conservative and meeting-full corporate environment, your productivity is bound the decrease.

</comment><comment><USER40> I might be wrong, although I have a feeling that recent slowdown of opensource contribution is caused (at least sometimes) by the maintainers/commiters and "core teams" behind projects. You can check HN/Stackoverflow/Proggit/Forums for "how to start contributing to opensource". Answers are similar: find yourself a project, and be active there. But that's not that easy, most of time, due to time and knowledge boundaries.

Sometimes it's not like that. There's a lot of friendly people, who encourage newcomers, and realize that if they opensourced something, it's not theirs anymore, it belongs to community. I just wish there were more people who're that friendly and involve more and more team players to get stuff done in their projects.

For instance, i have some feature for my product, that requires extension of the framework I'm working with. My actions are following: check whether it's already done -> ok, not done -> build a simple prototype, proof of concept -> go create an issue / start discussion / show your prototype to maintainers or community.

So, after the last step most of time i was getting stuck. Either I'm doing stuff in a wrong way, but most of commits that were followed by the same path, weren't getting through. First maintainer sees it, says that we won't do it since that's not in our primary field of interest, and closes the issue. Reopening and trying to involve more people into discussion doesn't lead to the success, since dominated opinion was already stated out, and people tend to agree with people they know and trust.

Second approach. Fixing the issues you're facing. You're using some stable version of software (not cutting-edge), and notice that something went wrong. First google request gives you a link to a patch. So, your work is not required anymore. If it didn't, you still should write a unit-test and prove that that stuff was caused by framework, not your software bundle. Having not much or no open source contribution makes that process long. If not - <USER3> succeed and provide a patch or wait until someone fixes it in a better way.

Third approach. You don't have any features that you lack, and you didn't face any unfixed issues during development. But you want to pay back to the community, since you're thankful. You go to the bug tracker, and try to find a suitable bug for yourself. Often by the time you come up with a prototype, gurus already get it fixed. So, you're out of process again. You should really dive into that and spend long hours to get to know source code very well first, get acquainted with active people there. It's never been easy.

</comment><comment><USER41> Same as with layoffs, big corporations can use the "global financial crisis" to scale back OSS work if there only motivation was to not look like the bad guy.

</comment><comment><USER42> Personally I see what's going on as just regular capitalism at work. A new thing was discovered (the internet) and people tried different ways of exploiting it to provide value. One of the tools people used was loss leader [1]. Now people seem to be putting less faith in the loss leader strategy for various reasons and switching back to a "pay up front" or "pay as you go" model.

It's true that a lot of companies have been consuming loss leader products but not the products that cover the costs (e.g. not giving the creator of the software a job, not purchasing an upgrade, etc.). This is equivalent to buying milk and nothing else at e.g. Walmart. They wont stop you. They probably don't even have a provision for people who buy nothing but milk over and over. They don't need one because they've spent a _long_ time developing techniques to make sure you wont do that. In fact, if someone did start doing that it would be a good indication to the company that they need to adjust something. The internet hasn't been at this nearly as long as retail so it's no surprise that a feeling out process is going on.

Existing (stable) software has a very tangible value. With it you can accomplish much more than without it. You can take on more contracts and/or charge higher rates than you could without it. I think the fact that developers have previously been able to provide complete products by taking a smorgasbord of loss leader items and bundling them together with a little bit of their own glue was a market oversight that is now being corrected [2]. We can still be profitable if paying for the software we use. What would e.g. a home builder do if nails he used to buy at loss leader prices were suddenly priced at a profit? He wouldn't go out of business, he would pass the costs on one way or another.

Of course one could say "but I did pay them! I contributed 10 patches!", but this doesn't work because what happens if _all_ clients "pay" this way? You have to have some way of enticing clients into buying your other products (e.g. hiring you into their company, etc.). In retail this works out ok in practice because companies tend to all do loss leader on the same things (everyone does milk for example). In software we're not all selling the same product so you can have situations where developer/company A has best-in-class product X as loss leader and product Y for a premium, while developer B has best-in-class product Y and sells Z for a premium. External parties take X from A, Y from B and Z from a vendor that is able to sell it cheaper because they aren't using it to cover losses on some loss leader product.

I think a lot of people have been blind to what's actually been going on because there has been (for a lack of a better phrase) religious zealotry involved. People saw (and participated in) "free software" and assumed that everything was changing. It was a bold new world where everything was going to be free! Except rent, groceries, etc. [3] It wasn't. It was just plain old capitalism that existed before we were born and will almost certainly still being going on after we're all dead.

[1] Give away your code and get one or more of:

a) a job based on your proven expertise (e.g. Alan Cox)

b) a paid contract for providing support (e.g. Redhat)

c) more traditional loss leader model of giving away part of the offering while making the costs up elsewhere (e.g. "freemium", etc.)

d) advertising with the free product

[2] This would be equivalent to Walmart doing loss leader with meat, Safeway with bread, Target with vegetables, Home Depot with tables/chairs, Hobby Lobby with plates/silverware and us opening a hamburger shop.

[3] This isn't to say that e.g. the free software movement doesn't have a good moral foundation. I think they do. It was just never realistic to think that software can join this global gift economy while nothing else does. It would also be very unrealistic to think all other industries would look at what was happening and say "gosh! Lets give all _our_ stuff away free to!".

</comment><comment><USER43> I hate to be so snarky, but if you're going to use a font for your headings that is so big the _apostrophes_ are 20×20px, you might as well use proper quote marks instead of ASCII primes.

<comment><USER11> Help me understand: What is there about this constructive feedback that belongs in the HN comments as opposed to a helpful email send directly to Zed?

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> I think if committing has decreased over the past couple of years it's probably due to the so-called 'global financial crisis', I guess people have to work more and don't have so much free time to hack on open source.

<comment><USER45> Nah... I think just everything has already been invented, so there's no more need to start new projects... ;-)</comment></comment>


Systems Programmers Relax - Most Programming Advice Isn't For You  - <AUTHOR> http://axisofeval.blogspot.com/2010/11/systems-programmers-relax-most-advice.html <comment><USER2> This is a huge problem with a lot of discussion about software development practices. Software spans an astronomically huge realm of scales and varieties, yet so often we talk about it as though it's a monolithic thing. As if you could talk about bacteriophages and pachyderms or cap guns and moon rockets in exactly identical terminology without any loss of fidelity in describing either.

It is very true that software development techniques and practices should differ, perhaps even greatly, depending on the nature of the project. It's most important to be able to have the experience and knowledge necessary to know when and where to use one technique over another rather than to just be a mindless sponge of advice.

<comment><USER3> I agree. But are teachers in K-12 aware of this when doing CS? I'm afraid they inadvertently enforce monolithic thinking in the youngsters.

<comment><USER4> I don't think K-12 is the problem here. Usually the problems I'm teaching are trivially small (find max of a list, etc). The only other CS class we offer is the AP class, and it's taught to the test - but it's an algorithms and data structures class, not a software engineering class.

It seems to me like the problem is at the college level. My school offered just one software engineering class, which taught one monolithic method of developing software. A couple of semesters developing different types of software using different methods of development would have been nice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is certainly a good counterpoint to the highly visible silicon valley status quo, but it's risky. Deep thinking _might_ be the solution to a given problem, on the other hand it might give you insight a lot slower than iterating on a prototype. One of the benefits of computers is that experimentation is easier and cheaper than most other technical disciplines, so it's good to be able to whip up some experiments to glean practical information. Arriving at optimal solutions to difficult problems is not an endeavour that is well served by a monolithic approach.

In a way it's the contrapositive of one of my annoyances with TDD. Sometimes TDD advocates (along with anyone selling a methodology I suppose) get overzealous and start making ridiculous claims like "TDD ensures program correctness". When pressed they may backpedal and acknowledge that unit tests are no substitute for mathematical proof. But yet there remains a dogged obsession with one particular technique. Take the experiment of writing a Sudoku solver via strict TDD (<http://xprogramming.com/xpmag/OkSudoku>). It's obvious that TDD doesn't help you write better algorithms. It's a good discipline for ensuring test coverage, it gives good sanity checks, and it can even help the modularity of your program, but it sure as hell doesn't _inherently_ lead to better code.

So whether you spend years thinking things through before writing a line of code, or most of your time is spent writing and rewriting tests to ensure the perfect coverage, it's always worth reflecting on the effectiveness of time spent and diligently avoid cargo-culting on methodologies.

<comment><USER6> While very useful, mathematical proofs are not substitutes for unit testing, either.

"Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it." - Donald Knuth

<comment><USER5> After that whole thing I wrote, do you really think that's my opinion?

<comment><USER6> No: I wasn't trying to refute what you wrote. I was pointing out to the reader that though you were arguing that test cases are no replacement for proofs, and were right to argue that, the bugs that test cases catch may overlap with the bugs that a proof will catch, but the former set is not a subset of the latter set.

If I offended your sensibilities, my apologies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm sorry, as someone who works on a production operating system that a planet full of people use, I respectfully disagree - the hard part of systems programming is making sure the application API is 100% semantically correct, since it is written in __stone __once you release it - architecture and programming advice is _absolutely_ for you if you're one of these people.

Running usability tests with real developers on your API is extremely important to understanding how understandable and straightforward your design is - if you're an OS or a platform component, you don't _get_ a 2nd chance to design an API; you do it right the 1st time or you live with the consequences for years to come.

<comment><USER8> I'm not sure you necessarily disagree with the article. He argues against the "do the simplest thing that could possibly work" principle. He basically says, don't release code that isn't properly thought through if you do something that many others will depend on. You are saying something quite similar, but you stress the importance of running usability tests _before_ releasing code as thinking alone might not be enough. I agree with that, but it's not the same as saying ship the simplest thing that _could_ possibly work. Quite the contrary.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is something I've been thinking about for awhile now that I'm pursuing my own startup. Coming from a background in HPC, my papers were published using prototypes and proof-of-concepts. On the other hand, a _product_ needs to work at all times. Hence, the idea of an MVP from a systems standpoint is rather fanciful -- if an MVP works for 1TB of data (or worse, 5TB of data), but doesn't work for 10TB or 100TB, then re-normalizing after the fact is a huge issue.

As a question to other startups based on novel systems, did you feel that an MVP was the right way to go? If not, what did you do differently so as to not labor in "almost, but not quite ready" limbo.

<comment><USER10> As someone who is building a startup that deals with slightly-more-than-usual data and who has been involved with various startups that similarly pushed the data-boundaries in later phases: Yes.

Make it work. Make it right. Make it fast. In that order.

Restructuring data is, in most cases, a smaller issue than it may seem. Running systems don't normally crash and burn over night. More often you'll see it coming and have plenty time to apply bandaids while transitioning to a new system.

Doing so is much easier when you can actually see and measure the bottlenecks, rather than trying to predict them beforehand.

In other words: Embrace the limbo. ;-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I have to say that this article succeeds at saying nothing.

It starts with a invalid premise (that 99% programming advice amounts to "Do The Simplest Thing That Could Possibly Work") and then "criticizes" DTSTTCPW by bringing up completely unrelated issues (thinking vs. coding ratios), along the way making vague and disconnected distinctions between systems and application programming (is MySQL a system or an application? What is the crucial characteristic between those that makes some programming advice applicable to one but not the other).

The opposite of of DTSTTCPW is either doing things that don't work or things that do work but are more complex than necessary. There really isn't room to disagree with DTSTTCPW.

Thinking vs. coding is a false dichotomy. At the end of the day I don't care if Richard Hipp thinks for 8 hours and types for 10 minutes or if he types for the whole day without thinking first, as long as SQLite is a kick-ass software.

Personally I found that there's a (very small) limit to how much I can design up front (thinking phase) before I start implementing my ideas (coding phase). I invariably find that coding improves my understanding of the problem (often forcing me to update my designs) as well as giving me more ideas (it's not like my brain shuts off during coding - thinking is going on in parallel).

This is the core of agile argument: we're not smart enough to think about everything up front so the only realistic option is to start small and simple and build more complex things as we go and learn.

The author might be content with the fact he hasn't shipped his software in 9 years but I wouldn't take his opinions as relevant to what I aspire to do: writing useful software and shipping it.

</comment><comment><USER12> I hate this divide between "applications" programmers and "systems" programmers. Really good systems programmers will either have worked on applications themselves or will work in close proximity with application programmers. And really good application programmers will have deep knowledge of the systems stack under their app.

Which category would you put Linus Torvalds into? He wrote Linux, but he also wrote git. How about Jeff Dean? He wrote MapReduce and much other core Google infrastructure, but he also played a large part in the indexing & serving system. Guido van Rossum? He started Python, but he also wrote Mondrian.

</comment><comment><USER13> Two interesting links in here on the history of unix pipes that I wasn't aware of, <http://doc.cat-v.org/unix/pipes/> and <http://cm.bell- labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/hist.html#pipes>

The second link shows this as a formerly valid command:

      pr <"sort input"< >opr>

Ouch!

</comment><comment><USER14> Best blog name ever.

<comment><USER15> I accidentally downvoted, but I have to agree.

<comment><USER16> Upvoting is not for agreement. Upvote if you feel that the comment is well thought out, puts forward interesting points, or is otherwise worthy of the attention of fellow HNers. "Upvote" == "I want to see more comments like this".

Do not upvote just because you agree. I agree with the comment nominally, but I downvoted it, because it is a waste of space.

Simple test: if there were more comments like this, would HN be a better place? If yes, upvote. If no, downvote. If indifferent/not sure, move on to next comment.

<comment><USER17> _> Simple test: if there were more comments like this, would HN be a better place? If yes, upvote. If no, downvote. If indifferent/not sure, move on to next comment._

I agree with you here. The problem is that this is not directly obvious by only observing the upvote arrow. It might communicate more things than this, like "I agree with this comment." So, unless you tell them (and keep reinforcing this meaning), different people will read it differently.

I would even argue that it would be a good idea replacing the upvote arrow with a link named "I want to see more comments like this". That would stimulate more well thought, relevant comments, while agreeable/funny comments would still be there, but at the bottom of the page. These might be harmless, but they don't deserve lots of upvotes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The crux of DTSTTCPW is defining the problem. It's difficult to work in the abstract if you don't have a very strong sense of what your goals are. You can see in the development of pipes that they had McIlroy's "Summary - what's most important" memo, probably a multitude of other such memos, a strong team and eight years. Most people have themselves, a couple of scratched notes and a few months... Getting lost in the dark abysses of the abstract in these circumstances is not fun. Suboptimal is your saviour, if not the world's.

</comment><comment><USER19> _"Thus, programming advice of the DTSSTCPW variety (i.e. 99% of programming advice) always makes me a bit uneasy. Instead of thinking - shouldn't I just be crankin' out code, putting it online, and blogging about it on LJ?"_

Trying to think what LJ is, but drawing a blank. LiveJournal? (even though his blog is on blogspot?) Anyone know?

<comment><USER20> Yes, LiveJournal. Presumably he's trying to make what he's doing sound silly since LJ is, y'know, this wacky online diary thing.

I'm kind of amazed that blogs got significantly more respect, but LJ remained firmly below MySpace in being taken seriously. That takes doing, you know?

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> For critical stuff the current mainstream agile thinking is naive.

Some years ago I also believed that debugging was evil! That your software must work in your head, in paper and in the computer.

But, that's mainly an algorithm oriented thinking, when your software is integrated with a lot of third-party pieces it's impossible to progress without debugging.

</comment><comment><USER22> I think the key, underlying, fundamental thing is applicable to all programming - as far as possible, write your code to be understood by other human beings.

To me all good practices stem from this - I often get annoyed by cargo-cult, dogmatic, programming practices which remain detached from this 'golden rule of programming'...

</comment><comment><USER23> It's important to think, but sonetimes it better to move, especially when I just think to think. "Don't think, but feel." -- BL "It is same as rest, for fool to think." -- japanese common quote</comment>


Blockchain Cryptocurrency Marketing Job - <AUTHOR> Are you a Blockchain/Cryptocurrency Enthusiast? Who is amazing at Marketing? And looking at working from home? Let us know by sending your CV, Profile, and Country of Residence - email email@example.com Company: Indra Crypto Capital <comment><USER2> HN is not a job board, please see the FAQ.</comment>


Dr Mark Gasson "infected" himself with a computer virus - <AUTHOR> http://www.reading.ac.uk/sse/about/news/sse-newsarticle-2010-05-26.aspx

<comment><USER2> A sensationalist write up for PR purposes. It's just a common RFID tag, much like the kind we use for pets.

The fact that this guy implanted it under his own skin is inconsequential.

<comment><USER3> Inconsequential to us, but I guarantee I'll be hearing about it from my mother.

<comment><USER4> Was the first thing I got sent this morning.

You've got to be pretty stupid to do this :

        S: any RFIDs around with code for me to execute
        C: sure, here's some 0x1fab214bab3421baeb3f2d287d20d8297d2
        S: Thank yo ... Connection reset by peer

<comment><USER5> Don't run this, just put it in a .txt file and run a virus scanner on it:

      X5O!P%@AP[4\PZX54(P^)7CC)7}$EICAR-STANDARD-ANTIVIRUS-TEST-FILE!$H+H*

OK, it's actually harmless, but it's the only pure-ASCII executable I've ever seen, which is pretty cool.

<comment><USER4> see also <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1381127>

<comment><USER5> I think <http://mirror.href.com/thestarman/asm/eicar/eicarcom.html> is a better link for that

<comment><USER4> Interesting read but

> That it be a normal DOS program capable of producing the same results under > WINDOWS as well as real DOS mode.

so it's pretty useless to me

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Bollocks brought to you by the University behind: [http://blog.jgc.org/2006/12/midas-number-or-why-divide-by- ze...](http://blog.jgc.org/2006/12/midas-number-or-why-divide-by-zero.html)

</comment><comment><USER7> Also covered here:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1379909>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1379834></comment>


Secrets Of Nonverbal Communication - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/2009/11/11/body-language-nonverbal-leadership-careers-communication.html?feed=rss_leadership_careers <comment><USER2> I wonder if this book has any novel information that isn't available in the dozens of other books on the subject, or in the one I read fifteen years ago that covered all the examples in the Forbes article.

Although I've found it occasionally amusing at interviews and meetings, since reading that one book many years ago, to lead other people through series of posture changes, or to make some overconfident fool drop his alpha posture by adopting the same, in general these techniques are for bullshitters. If you're touching your neck because you feel uneasy/unsure, DO something about that. Don't find ways to appear competent, confident, whatever -- _be_ competent, confident, whatever by knowing what you're doing and talking about.

These postures, gestures, etc. will flow naturally from the ease and confidence of having achieved something honestly. Like Lupe Fiasco says: The wings don't make you fly and the crown don't make you king.

<comment><USER3> I wonder, however, if adopting the body language of the way you want to feel will make you actually feel that way, in the same way that adopting a facial expression will make you feel the corresponding emotion.

And with your suggestion to " _be_ competent, confident, whatever by know what you're doing and talking about. These postures, gestures, etc, will flow naturally" - from personal experience I know that _being_ competent does not automatically make me _feel_ competent or confident, and it certainly doesn't make me _appear_ that way.

I can easily see how these techniques can be used for bullshitters, but at the same time it might be necessary for someone learning how to honestly feel differently to know how to act differently.

Have you ever seen the Dog Whisperer? This guy Cesar Milan works with dogs with huge behavioral problems. With a dog that's incredibly fearful, he sometimes takes its tail and physically lifts it up, so it's in the position that a confident dog would hold its tail. When Cesar does this, the fearful dog becomes noticeably calmer. That's not the only thing Cesar does, but addressing the dog's "body language" definitely helps. Probably the same kind of thing works with humans too.

<comment><USER4> > Have you ever seen the Dog Whisperer?

Cesar Milan's body language communicates to dogs and humans that he is the leader.

"When Cesar walked down the stairs of Patrice and Scott's home then, and crouched down in the back yard, JonBee looked at him, intently. And what he saw was someone who moved in a very particular way. Cesar is fluid. "He's beautifully organized intra-physically," Karen Bradley, who heads the graduate dance program at the University of Maryland, said when she first saw tapes of Cesar in action. "That lower-unit organization—I wonder whether he was a soccer player." Movement experts like Bradley use something called Laban Movement Analysis to make sense of movement, describing, for instance, how people shift their weight, or how fluid and symmetrical they are when they move, or what kind of "effort" it involves. Is it direct or indirect—that is, what kind of attention does the movement convey? Is it quick or slow? Is it strong or light—that is, what is its intention? Is it bound or free—that is, how much precision is involved? If you want to emphasize a point, you might bring your hand down across your body in a single, smooth motion. But how you make that motion greatly affects how your point will be interpreted by your audience. Ideally, your hand would come down in an explosive, bound movement—that is, with accelerating force, ending abruptly and precisely—and your head and shoulders would descend simultaneously, so posture and gesture would be in harmony. Suppose, though, that your head and shoulders moved upward as your hand came down, or your hand came down in a free, implosive manner—that is, with a kind of a vague, decelerating force. Now your movement suggests that you are making a point on which we all agree, which is the opposite of your intention. Combinations of posture and gesture are called phrasing, and the great communicators are those who match their phrasing with their communicative intentions—who understand, for instance, that emphasis requires them to be bound and explosive. To Bradley, Cesar had beautiful phrasing."

"What the Dog Saw" by Malcolm Gladwell

<http://www.gladwell.com/2006/2006_05_22_a_dog.html>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _Curbside appeal has several components, starting with looks. Tidy, neat, conservative clothes are preferable, Navarro says. A good rule of thumb: mirror, don't shock. "Observe how upper management dresses, and follow their lead," he advises. "Casualness can kill credibility." Unless, that is, you work in a place where the top brass wear jeans and polo shirts, like, say, CBS Studios in Hollywood, where Navarro recently discovered he was the only person in a suit._

I don't know about this "tidy, neat, conservative" stuff. For people working in a creative field, I think tidy, neat and conservative would be detrimental to success. It's a generational thing, too. People don't dress like the did in the 50's any more for a reason.

<comment><USER6> For me it comes down to taste and respect for norms. I've worked in hacking environments where as long as you've got clothes on and showered yesterday you're fine. I also worked at Accenture where the dress code was "smart casual" which meant "tidy, neat, conservative." I prefer hackers but Accenture paid better.

These days I work at a creative agency and although there's no dress code I have to collaborate with co-workers and rich clients. If I wore my most comfortable frayed, discolored, "liberal" clothes I'd feel lots more creative but would fear for my job. I'm not Michelangelo or a scientist, I'm just building web sites. But there are serious artists here who work with me and they dress "tidy, neat, liberal." When they wear shorts and sandals, it looks good. The reason is, they spend their money on beautiful clothes. There's a conscious way to do progressive and then there's a poor, just rolled out of bed, I don't care way.

<comment><USER7> $100 jeans (e.g.) are a signal of status, not taste.

<comment><USER8> $300 jeans are a signal of status, not taste.

$100 jeans are a signal of taste.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is just the sort of self-important self-congratulation you would expect from "Forbes".

I would suppose that "Forbes" readers are upper management, and, like George Will, only own a single pair of jeans worn once yearly. Of course looking like "upper management" is the right thing to tell upper management readers who either never had any sense of style to begin with, or have had it ground out of them over the course of years of private boys schools, ivy league colleges, and board room meetings.

They say that everyone in the FBI is either an accountant or a lawyer, and nobody ever meets the lawyers. I think this is an article by an ex-FBI accountant telling you how to dress like an OCD accountant.

</comment><comment><USER10> I foresee a whole lot of people making themselves look awkward and stilted if they try to integrate the techniques from the book.

People naturally adopt confident, outgoing, friendly body language when they're feeling confident, outgoing and friendly.

Trying to work it in reverse is a bit like trying to ride a bike while thinking of all the details of cycling - it looks a bit naff and you're likely to crash.

If people really want to adopt confident body language they'd be better off doing things to make them feel more confident - say getting in shape physically or skydiving.

<comment><USER11> I'd say it's still useful to know what confident, outgoing and friendly body language looks like, so you can recognize it in others and yourself. For one thing, it might help you deduce what kinds of actions make people more confident, outgoing and friendly, so you can try doing those things yourself. For another, knowing whether somebody else is confident or not can be important in deciding how to relate to them (you don't want to overwhelm an unconfident person).

It's definitely more of a sensory ('input') skill than an active ('output') skill though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> These 'self-improvement' gimmicks are a kind of tax on people newly intent on improving themselves. They are beneath the dignity of a true hacker.

If you try to mess with your body language you'll just look creepy. I suppose an exception to this is if the person you're trying to impress is sufficiently dumb and insensitive as to not notice. In which case why bother trying to impress him?

Instead of trying to project the image of a confident, kind person, try _being_ a confident, kind person. The body language will follow naturally.

</comment><comment><USER13> Some of the items are regional (east coast/west coast), but Joe Navarro is great. His book on poker tells is amazing. Reading it is like taking off glasses the next time you play a game.</comment>


The Top Web Design Mistakes of 1999 - <AUTHOR> https://www.nngroup.com/articles/the-top-ten-web-design-mistakes-of-1999/ <comment><USER2> These ones are especially relevant now:

> 1\. Breaking or Slowing Down the Back Button

Thanks to people who like implementing Javascript frameworks but have no idea how to make them work properly. Then again, many also seem to break the whole page loading aspect too, for much the same reason (hey Wikia).

> 6\. Moving Pages to New URLs

Seriously, this seems to be a thing every news site under the planet does, despite said content not changing all that much. Why? Why keep breaking things every few weeks or so? 301 redirects exist for a reason.

> 8\. Jumping at the Latest Internet Buzzword

Oh hey, now it's 'cloud', 'blockchain' and 'PWA'. Either way, this tendency is especially common on news sites, whose web developers seem to think they're working at NASA (or maybe Google).

> 10\. Anything That Looks Like Advertising

 _Looks at those newsletter sign up modals_

</comment><comment><USER3> Still 100% relevant nearly 20 years later.

</comment><comment><USER4> > "Animation avoidance makes users ignore areas with blinking or flashing text > or other aggressive animations."

I will say that there's a part of me that thinks the deprecation of blink and marquee was a mistake. I kind of miss those sometimes. It's a very small part, mind you, but still.

<comment><USER5> Marquee still renders in Chrome, and possibly others, which I can't help but imagine is an easter egg by the devs!</comment></comment>