Microsoft UI has officially entered the realm of self-parody - <AUTHOR> http://seldo.tumblr.com/post/9549775746/this-is-genuinely-microsofts-idea-of-a <comment><USER4> The first problem with the article here is that some of the buttons (Move To, Copy To) did not exist previously. They are also extensions of existing functions (Move, Copy) - so concluding that half the UI is covered by buttons that were not used is an inaccurate assumption.

Secondly, the actions are being moved from the context menu to the ribbon. Most new computer users find it very hard to remember additional, non intuitive actions like right clicking & context menus. Each of these is a 'modifier' that power users are used to, but which make the mental model of file manipulation much harder for beginners to wrap their heads around. They have to remember to apply these modifiers to see if the functions they want exist. Moving the functions into a contextually aware ribbon will make life much easier for these users.

Third, Move, Copy, Delete & Rename occupy the center of the ribbon. These are the most used commands (by far) and rightfully occupy center stage. Power users will call it clutter, but it will be extremely helpful for beginners.

[Disclaimer: MSFT Employee, but I do not work on Windows]

<comment><USER5> _Most new computer users find it very hard to remember additional, non intuitive actions like right clicking & context menus_

I didn't realize this. In fact, if I were asked to guess, I would have answered that most new users would pick up pretty quickly how to use context menus, especially if the context menus had related commands like file manipulation if in Windows Explorer (is it still called that?), or formatting if in a text document, etc.

Hell, rats in a cage can learn what to push in order to eat, so I would have thought that people would be able to learn this. Of course, it would help if they were told somehow and didn't have to discover it.

<comment><USER6> Work in support sometime. It is EXTREMELY common to find users that really don't know about right-click. Or that double-click everything. These are not new users either, they have been using computers for decades.

For new users I might agree that they could figure out a right click because everything is new. But for users where everything is familiar ("I've always done it this way"), it gets much harder to break those expected actions.

Second part is about explorer itself. While it might seem like a common utility (even necessary), I find it very rare for a general user to know about it (my wife does not, nor my parents, siblings, their friends,...but my wife's father does). Once they see it, they have no idea what to do. Copy a file? Really, they have no idea.

<comment><USER7> Do those users use the desktop shell at all though? In my experience with novice users (across platforms: Mac noobs are no better) is that they only know enough to launch apps. They never touch the desktop integration at all.

<comment><USER8> This is only because the Finder/Explorer has been made harder and harder to use. Apple's OSX Finder is a shocking UI abomination.

Their old MacOS Finder was clear and simple - my wife would spend hours arranging her work in coloured folders, each of which opened in a window whose shape and position she had chosen, and was meaningful to her. It was a powerful tool that enabled her to arrange and group her work.

Now, both Apple and Microsoft compete with each other over how bad they can make their file system interface. Microsoft wanted to do away with the filesystem in Longhorn, and Apple have actually done so in iOS.

Is this progress??

<comment><USER9> Are you talking about spatial mode? That still exists in Finder. Just hit Cmd+Opt+T or select "Hide Toolbars" from the View menu.

You're absolutely right. I don't have the citation on me right now, but spatial mode has been found to be easier to grasp for new users in every single test ever. The only reason it was dropped was because (1) Windows Explorer, (2) power users whined about too many open windows and (3) a lot of people got used to URLs opening in the same window thanks to web browsers, so people sought to apply the same principles to file browsers.

Spatial mode used to be default on GNOME for a long time. There, too, it was dropped because of the same reasons.

See also: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spatial_file_manager> and <http://www.bytebot.net/geekdocs/spatial-nautilus.html>

<comment><USER10> I don't know about Windows but on the Mac it's not spatial mode (and hasn't been since OS9) - it's just a poor imitation.

You can easily have two Finder windows open on the same folder, meaning you lose the immediate recognition that spatial mode gives you. My personal take - they should have two types of Finder window - a spatial "folder contents" window and a folder-browser (probably in column-view) that only shows folders and maybe a preview of the files within.

So you can navigate quickly/enter file-paths in the browser, but to actually use a folder, you enter spatial mode, so you have the instant recognition of where you are.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I don't understand how there can be so many posts here defending this UI. Is this a concerted effort by Microsoft to flood hacker news with their viewpoint? I just don't see how this is a defensible UI, at all.

Seriously, it's overwhelming. The UI is constantly shouting commands at the user, regardless of what the user is trying to do. UIs like these are exactly where the problem my parents have with computers come from. They go in with an idea of what they want to do, let's say they want to find a note they wrote previously. As soon as they open the window, they are bombarded with commands. Move! Copy! Save as! Select! Select all! It's a cacophony of nonsense to them. Copy? Copy what, where? Nothing in there helps them find their note.

Really. "Easy access." What does that button do? I have no idea what might happen when that's pressed. It sounds a bit dirty, but accepting that it's probably accessibility related and not an invitation to intimacy, I still can't figure out what it might do. Ridiculous.

<comment><USER12> The new Windows 8 tile-based interface will be the default way to interact with your files and applications, Explorer will be only for when you need to do some advanced file management. Your parents will most likely never have to use it.

<comment><USER11> No one should have to use it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I think the point is missed.

It's hard to claim that the context menu is good UI. The fact that so few people use the menu bar means that it's currently useless and needs to be reworked. It's not as if they're replacing the context menu with the ribbon, they're replacing the currently-unused menu bar.

<comment><USER14> True, and shortcut key functionality (the commonly used good UI) is simultaneously expanded.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Everyone I know loves managing their files, so it's great that Microsoft is finally improving Windows Explorer!

WRONG!

For the hundreds of nerds complaining that they don't have access to the file system on their iPads, there are millions of normal people who are delighted by a computer that they can use rather than manage.

How much longer can Microsoft keep making a 20th century operating system? What's going to be the great innovation of Windows 9? Yet another reshuffled toolbar driven by all of their wonderful data?

<comment><USER16> I was just thinking this myself. Windows 8 is moving towards a tablet-like structure, they need to go all the way on this and get rid of the filesystem for 90% of users.

Open almost any Windows laptop, and you'll see users who basically think of the hard drive as a file dumping ground. You'll see files stored on the Desktop, or everything just goes into one big directory. How many conversations have you had where you ask "Where did you save the file?" and the reply is "I don't know, just the place that it says when I press save"?

Windows should have had a services infrastructure, where programs explicitly define an export (how to access files the program has generated) and import (which files the program can handle). Users don't really think of files by directory but by type, either Word documents or photos or whatever. The file system should just be a dialog box which is essentially a search. "Show me Word documents I edited in the last 5 days." "Show me all my photos that I took in Hawaii." That's how users think about data.

<comment><USER17> Mac OS X already has that, but I still would not like to see the filesystem hidden from me. It's just too valuable idea for it to go away and it takes us further away from general computing to turning our computers into appliances owned by our OS vendor.

<comment><USER18> I think the idea of the parent poster is that there would be no file system (at least not in the sense of a tree hierarchy of directories), just a large database with some SQL like language exposed through the GUI.

<comment><USER19> All manner of people have suggested and planned ways of doing this, but as yet, none of them are really any good.

See: <http://nascent.freeshell.org/programming/TagFS/> <https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/WinFS>

and many more.

<comment><USER17> Even though Mac OS X filesystem is not a relational database, it does support a query language that allows you to search for built in or user defined attributes and their values.

This search functionality is available system wide (Spotlight search box), from any file open dialog or from the command line. For example things like this are possible:

Find me all pictures I tool this year and where I used flash, and aperture f4:

kind:image fnumber:4 date:"this year" flash:1

You type this in either spotlight or search box on open file dialog. You can do the same from the command line

mdfind -interpret "kind:image fnumber:4 date:"this year" flash:1"

The nice thing about the mdfind command is that you can restrict the search to a directory of your choice only.

Some people pay good money for photo organizers on Mac OS X, not knowing they already have this functionality built in. And finding what attributes are available is not that hard either:

mdimport -X

prints the entire metadata schema.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This is an odd article, because Microsoft addresses exactly the point this person is arguing against.

MS says, "Only 2 of the top 10 commands customers invoke in Explorer are available in the Command bar, the main UI element for invoking commands."

And have this picture, [http://blogs.msdn.com/cfs- filesystemfile.ashx/__key/communit...](http://blogs.msdn.com/cfs- filesystemfile.ashx/__key/communityserver-blogs-components- weblogfiles/00-00-01-29-43-metablogapi/8400.Figure-7-_2D00_-Command-use-with- Command-bar_5F00_2.png)

The takeaway from the data isn't that you should focus on people using context menus, because all commands haven't been available in other places. But they used their data and said, "there are the most common desired actions" coupled with their own design sense that said, "if we moved them to the ribbon they'd be easier to use".

To me that makes a great deal of sense.

I feel like this person, Seldo, who wrote this blog post attacked MS without either reading the full MS post or not understanding it. Statements like, "But the more important thing is that the remaining 50% of the bar is taken up by buttons that nobody will ever use, ever, even according to Microsoft's own research" (which she bolded) simply aren't in the data MS presented. It's as if she misunderstood the distinction between location and action.

And later she says, "Again, this is Microsoft's own research, cited in the same post: nobody — almost literally 0% of users — uses the menu bar, and only 10% of users use the command bar." Again she seems to not understand that the most common actions were only available from the context menus.

</comment><comment><USER21> Everything I had to explain to my ex-boss about dealing with files is there in one click. I could hide it if I wanted and have my usual experience. I really don't see the problem.

I actually think that overall this a big improvement. Minimalism can go screw itself when it costs me hours of free labour :)

</comment><comment><USER22> This reminds me of this famous quote:

 _The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste. They have absolutely no taste. And I don't mean that in a small way, I mean that in a big way, in the sense that they don't think of original ideas, and they don't bring much culture into their products._

<comment><USER23> The problem with this idea is that for the majority of users "taste" is the last thing on their mind. Functionality and ease of use are the only things that matter. Having common functions up front in your face is in fact easier to use than having them hidden away.

It takes a certain level of skill using a system before you're capable of appreciating higher level constructs such as "beauty". As an analogy, we all have seen poor coders whose code is poorly formatted, sloppy looking, and just plain _ugly_. But when you ask them they're just not capable of noticing this. Its that their minds have not elevated past the details to see the big picture. It's the same way with most computer users.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> The concept of the ribbon - tabs with buttons grouped by function - has a lot of advantages in theory. Obviously you can have bigger buttons which is always a good thing, and you allow each button to have sub-buttons which actually works out really well. I personally think Microsoft is on the right track from a high level perspective.

The problem comes in the implementation. The graphic design is just horrible. Where is the grid? Where is the white space? What the _hell_ is that round button that replaces the file menu? The title bar just looks awful.

If they could clean it up graphically I really think it could be just as nice as anything on Mac OS X. Ask yourself this, if Apple had come out with the buttons on tabs in the exact same groupings but done it in a gorgeous way, who would be complaining about it? We'd all be heralding it.

<comment><USER25> I think the ribbon concept is inherently flawed because no human brain can remember such an overwhelming amount of information (what command in which function group in which tab).

<comment><USER26> And your suggestion is?

How is the ribbon any different to a hierarchial menu bar? (See the Gnome drop-down menu or the iOS Settings Menu).

<comment><USER25> The problem has more to do with the excessive number of available commands. My suggestion is to cut the clutter and avoid hierarchical UI elements altogether, regardless of their nature.

<comment><USER27> So we're limited to either only exposing a dozen operations or somehow shoving 200 operations into a flat UI? This seems to be rather unrealistic.

<comment><USER25> A dozen operations may be more than enough for 80% of users. Designing for the remaining 20% is a common UI design mistake.

<comment><USER27> So basically the rest of the operations simply cannot exist? I guess you'll never burn another disk, or create a new folder for that matter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> This is a grossly-skewed assessment of the interface. Wouldn't the under utilization of features warrant an analysis WHY they are not being used? Wouldn't there also be a UX overhaul to make those features/commands/buttons/menus more approachable? The data and infographics would only be relevant if they were based upon the Win8 redesign.

</comment><comment><USER29> Before power users criticize the UI, keep in mind the recent study that 90% of computer users didn't know to use CTRL-F to search a document. Things that may be intuitive to you, may not be so to most other users.

Maybe MS did extensive usability testing, maybe they didn't. But that CTRL-F study was so surprising to me that I don't trust my instinct when it comes to judging the effectiveness of a user interface for hundreds of millions of people

</comment><comment><USER30> In Windows 7, the menu bar is hidden by default, that's why no one uses it. Also, "no one uses" those other commands only because no one knows they exist now. The whole point to the new UI is to change things to be better.

<comment><USER31> Yes, instead of the menu bar they have this weird bar with "Organize", "New Folder", and "Burn". Not sure why "Burn" on every single explorer window; maybe they think all users are Napster fiends or something...

<comment><USER32> Here's an image from the Microsoft article for those who don't know what it looks like in Windows 7: [http://blogs.msdn.com/cfs- file.ashx/__key/communityserver-bl...](http://blogs.msdn.com/cfs- file.ashx/__key/communityserver-blogs-components- weblogfiles/00-00-01-29-43-metablogapi/6443.Figure-4-_2D00_-Win7-Explorer_5F00_thumb.png)

Small nitpick: "Burn" doesn't show if you click on the main options of the left tree ("Favorites", "Libraries", etc).

I find it interesting because it clearly shows something changed on the last couple of years, we still remember how important burning something was, right?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Em, if the author would actually fact-check, he'd know that most of those buttons dont't exist yet, so they'd hardly have more than 0% usage.

</comment><comment><USER34> This prototype is a failure of both design and usability. It's an offense and a joke against anyone who expects to be able to interact with a machine in an efficient and intelligent manner.

\- It's ugly as hell

\- A beginner is bombarded with way too many things to click on

\- An expert is annoyed by useless buttons and waste of space

Sure, you can turn it off, but who wants to configure and reconfigure UI preferences for the rest of their lives (sidenote: reminds me of eclipse)? Sensible defaults, please.

Contrast this with Apple, whose designs often define what good design and usability means. In their apps:

\- The appearance is simple, well-designed, elegant

\- The only actions present are those deemed most necessary to the user

\- Tons of functionality is hidden under shortcut keys, modifier clicks and context menus for expert users (after years on OS X, I still discover hidden elegance as a result of their zealous attention to detail)

<comment><USER35> Just one question:

Are these two statements different or restating the same thing with a different perception:

>> after years on OS X, I still discover hidden elegance

and something like:

"It takes me years to find some features because they're so well hidden, and perhaps unintuitive."

<comment><USER34> Not at all. The things discovered are unessential to getting things done. It's usually just a nicer way or more of a "wow, I can't believe they thought of this crazy edge case".

A few examples: [http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/400/got-any-mac- os-...](http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/400/got-any-mac-os-x-hidden- features-or-nice-tips-tricks)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Reminds me of this video, which I was told was actually created by Microsoft as a self-parody, though I don't have any supporting evidence.

"Microsoft Designs the iPod Package:" <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9HfdSp2E2A>

<comment><USER37> Yes, this video was done by an internal group at Microsoft.

<comment><USER38> How do you know?

<comment><USER37> I knew one of the people behind it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I'm not sure why, but I've never really gotten used to the ribbon. Especially in Office 2010 , I find it incredibly difficult to navigate and, frankly, hugely annoying. To see it brought to something like explorer is horrifying, especially considering the large amount of vertical space it takes up.

Shouldn't there be more intuitive ways of doing these things? Why is there a need for a move button or copy (one or the other) when you have drag and drop? I know it is very much in vogue to abstract the file system away from the user, and it strikes me that this is exactly the opposite, and just might be just a little over engineered.

</comment><comment><USER40> The writer of this blog uses a picture of the Golden Gate bridge as the background image on the page. As someone who lives near the bridge, I can affirm that at any given time, more than 50% of the bridge is empty; that is, less than half of the bridge's surface is covered by cars or pedestrians. Clearly this is a complete waste of resources, and we should just get rid of the empty half.

Also, what is up with those suspension towers and all those cables? Does anyone actually cross the bridge at those great heights? I say cut them up and stick them underneath as support piers, so that they're not obstructing the view or (more likely) sticking out of a fog bank and creating a hazard to passing aircraft.

<comment><USER41> Civil engineering is very different from UI design.

<comment><USER40> Well, i wouldn't want you to overthink it...but they're not so far apart.

Games have the best UI; ideally a game will only show you the bare minimum of information required, and make the play experience as smooth and intuitive as possible. But games also have very narrowly defined win/loss conditions, and even in sandbox games (like _Grand Theft Auto_ ) success means that that players in the middle of the normal distribution are able to complete the game and interested enough to spend time doing so.

For creative or productivity software, the definition of success is open- ended, because while designers can anticipate the kind of tasks/problems users will want to perform/solve, the end product of their labors is fundamentally unknowable, rather than waiting within the software to be discovered by the diligent user (player). Sure, Michaelangelo used to say that the statue already existed within the block of marble and his job was simply to reveal it, but you should probably see that as an early example of successful branding rather than a design document. A game is like a theme park ride insofar as the riders may change but their interaction with the ride is highly constrained. An application is more like a civil engineering task insofar as it has to bear a substantial amount of traffic, but its job is to facilitate rather than fulfill. You want those things available on the toolbar, even though many of them may not see regular use, because it's the easiest way to signal the availability of such functionality. The relative utility distribution of toolbar buttons or menu items follows Benford's law just like everything else.

<comment><USER42> If your ridiculously large intellect can stop applauding itself for one second, I hope you can find time to read this.

That was probably the largest amount of psychobabble condensed into 2 paragraphs I've ever seen. Seriously, your first point was extremely over- simplified and you were called out on it, rightfully. I could make your first argument about anything. Watch: "Only 50% of people went out to eat this weekend. Clearly, we should get rid of 50% of restaurants." or "Only 50% of cars are driven on any given day. Clearly, we should just git rid of 50% of the cars."

Your first point was a miss, and chetan called you out on it. Then, you insult his intelligence and go into a psychobabble rant about little to nothing that applies. Jesus dude, come down a peg or two.

<comment><USER40> My first post was a _joke_ , to emphasize how silly I thought the UX critique was. Complaining that software and civil engineering are not the same is so obvious as to be trite.

I stand by my point above, though. Call it psychobabble if you like, but I like my metaphors. Shoot me.

<comment><USER42> I completely realize that. My point was to show how easy it was to make that critique with such an over-simplification, which was chetan's point as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> What people often miss in Ribbon UIs is that they are in fact _very_ much for the power user. Here are a couple of reasons why:

 _Every_ button or command on the Ribbon can be accessed via polymorphic hotkeys. Every command can be accessed as a chain of key presses. There is _zero_ need for mouse usage -- even in PowerPoint.

This is huge. This was not doable in previous versions of Office! There were some commands you could not access via anything else than the menu, and to those of us that are vim users, you know how bad that can be! I do a lot of PowerPoint presentations and besides designing arrows or shapes I have no need for a mouse. And PowerPoint is a WYSIWYG editor!

The other reason is that you can _hide_ the Ribbon. See the screenshots? That chevron symbol (^) means that you can essentially auto-hide the Ribbon and bring it back, while still retaining its usability via hotkeys.

I'm by no means an all-guns-blazing MSFT fanboy, but I need Office at work, and instead of jumping on the silly bandwagon of bashing all that is Ribbon, I found my inner vim user and learnt to god damn _power use the hell out of it_.

To those that actually need Office daily, I recommend opening it and pressing Alt. Let the funny stuff unfold.

</comment><comment><USER44> This makes me wonder how often I fall into the same trap when designing UIs.

"Not enough people are using this feature" can lead you to think "Let's make that feature's UI more prominent" instead of what it (normally) should: "Let's scrap that feature". Simplicity, minimalism, and elegance seem to be completely elusive to Microsoft, even with their brand new developments.

</comment><comment><USER45> The best way to 'fix' Windows Explorer is to focus on improving usability of the OS such that Windows Explorer isn't something average users needs to use. Focusing on improving it is focusing on the wrong problem, IMO.

Having said that, I think the author of the post seems to ignore the fact that Microsoft's research shows that not many use the menu bar currently (because currently, the menu bar is hidden by default). By adding the ribbon, I assume their goal is to improve that statistic, and in turn make it easier for users.

</comment><comment><USER46> The simple answer is that MS had to add all those buttons in the ribbon to make the UI more touch friendly. You cant right click on a tablet with your finger.

<comment><USER47> I can't believe this wasn't upvoted more.

Moving to this design is a step in the right direction. They need to do more - like ax the filesystem altogether (rendering this step meaningless), but that's another story.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> This post didn't even need words, just that progression of screenshots. Windows 7 feels almost like a nice breeze and them, wham, that Windows 8 monstrosity. Functional, data-driven arguments will never convince me that a user's first reaction to that window will be anything other than confusion.

</comment><comment><USER49> The UI, is apparently customizable. From the Team Blog:

"We knew that using a ribbon for Explorer would likely be met with skepticism by a set of power-users (like me), but there are clear benefits in ways that the ribbon:

-Exposes hidden features that they already use but which require third party add-ons to use in the Explorer UI today.

-Provides keyboard shortcuts for every command in the ribbon, something many people have been asking for.

-Provides UI customization with the quick access toolbar, taking us back to a customization level that is basically equivalent to Windows XP."

<comment><USER50> The rule of any customizable feature is that the vast majority of the users will stick with the defaults. So the defaults have to be optimized.

<comment><USER51> I'd love to see some stats on this. I wonder just what percentage of users never changes a default UI.

<comment><USER25> My parents definitely won't.

<comment><USER52> Well, that's at _least_ 2.8741 × 10^(-8) percent of users!

<comment><USER25> What's your logic behind this number? Do you think Microsoft made all those billions selling crappy software to geeks like us?

<comment><USER51> I'd wager it's 2 / CURRENT_EARTH_POP / 100.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> This post seems to miss the point - obviously some of the commands that were less-visible or non-existent earlier would not show up on the telemetry data, but can still be important to surface in a redesign of the UI.

The newly-added buttons on the ribbon are there to address the most-requested features (by actual customers) as well as some of the missing features users most-often go to third-party plug-ins for, per the actual blog post from the Windows 8 Engineering Blog.

As for whether the UI is stream-lined or not - while simplification has its place, it is not always a good thing. The OSX Finder is surprisingly devoid of things even basic users can find useful - in many cases it isn't easy to find the appropriate menu option or shortcut to perform these actions - <USER2> I think it goes too far by way of simplification.

It is good to make computers easy-to-understand - but by attempting to remove the learning curve COMPLETELY you can also damage the productivity a computer can provide. The sweetspot, of course, is somewhere in the middle.

</comment><comment><USER54> While I haven't used this UI and I think it's bulky and ugly, there is one important thing to note that I think people miss on first pass.

Typical use based on their research has used the context menu. On Windows that is typically a right click (IIRC). Now Windows 8 has claimed to moving towards more touch capable user interface. I'd imagine anything that is directly touchable with common controls being larger targets is a huge improvement from right-click simulation. These controls, while ugly, I could see as an improvement to usability in those scenarios.

Additionally, I haven't seen any effective file management interfaces for touch devices yet. Most of them shun the filesystem in favor of flattened document collections, so it will be interesting to see how this plays out on upcoming tablet devices. Personally, I was looking forward to stepping away from filesystems and lessening their role in my regular interactions, but time will tell where valuable experiences will be spent, so I'd say we wait and see for this one.

</comment><comment><USER55> It's the stuff at the top left of the screenshot that puts it over the edge. They couldn't resist having just one more menu, so there it is partially crammed in to the title bar.

</comment><comment><USER56> Article is ignoring a big thing, features such as "Copy Path" is almost hidden in Win 7/Vista unless you know where they are.

In 7 you have to "Shift + Right Click" to see "Copy as Path" in the context menu. Now how many users (even power users) actually know about this? So many of my friends were really pleased to find this out when I showed them.

There are lots of other features such as you can actually copy a file and when you try to paste it to a "File Open Dialog" 7 will automatically paste the path of the file, so that's why "Copy Path" was quite hidden, because for common usage it's just easier to do copy & paste.

We have to understand that just like everyone know what is Ctrl + C all power users eventually gets rid of menu bars and just uses hotkeys. New Ribbon interface (with hide/customise features) provides a nice infrastructure for that while not punishing the normal users.

</comment><comment><USER57> The ribbon discussion reminds a lot of the iPad one - all the IT "geniuses" simply don't get it.

Hate the ribbon. Hate the iPad.

But for the majority of users, those are massive improvements in UI.

Right-Click, Double-Click, ... arcane commands only people like and love that are good at memorizing actions. And if those memorized actions are gone, the rage begins. You need to be anal to love the old Office UI or the command line. Do you remember the hate the old Office UI got in the past from the very people who now praise it?

Personally, I think the ribbon UI was the ballsiest move that MS did in a decade. It showed real guts, real vision. In Office 2010, they improved upon it, making Excel, Powerpoint and Word actually more usable. Exposing new functions and teaching me about them, from within the UI.

</comment><comment><USER58> I generally like ribbon in Office and think MSFT has some great ideas here, like moving the info pan to better fit the wide screen reality.

But at this stage it looks so very very bad, and remind me the open office mouse with 30 buttons.

</comment><comment><USER59> Dunno... but I get the feeling that everyone thinks that computers should be easier, and nobody should have to learn anything in order to use the. Uh, what?

We're living in a world where digital technology more and more becomes the dominant driving force of our society. We already lost the ability to change hardware to a - relatively small - group of people (yes, considering the amount of people using the stuff, the group _is_ tiny).

So what now? Make sure there's only an elitist circle of high paid, influential "technology gods" left? While I definitely consider my self as a geek, I would not like such a society at all. It can be the target of humanity that ordinary people get even "dumber" than they're now.

Sorry, but I think people should strife for new knowledge, they should keep their spirit of discovery. By simplyfing the whole world around them, at least in my eyes, it becomes harder and harder for kids to figure out all these things on their own. And once all the knowledge is locked away from them, the elitist will choose who gets insight into the then "magical" workings of the world.

Yeah, maybe my picture of the future has a little bit of a dark taint, but well that's what you get when even your colleagues, which are the same age as yourself, are light years behind in terms of thirst for knowledge.

</comment><comment><USER60> Usability of this (and anything, really) would improve dramatically if in each system there were one correct way (based on selection by scientific usability testing) to initiate each task.

The "helpfulness" of providing "n" ways of doing the same thing is an illusion and only undermines the ability for users to establish a shared context which can be used to make user actions more automatic for the experienced and easier to teach to the inexperienced.

</comment><comment><USER61> I have to help "stupid users" in both the PC and the Mac world. There are "stupid users" everywhere and not more on one side or the other. I look forward to this new Windows Explorer. You would be amazed at the things regular people just do not know. MS is putting that all up front, in their face. They see it, they know where and what the commands are. It matches what their version of Office looks like. They will probably be able to figure it out instead of calling me to go show them how to do something, that as a nerd, deem "easy".

Plus, I agree with the other users. Our viewpoint is skewed. We are top tier users. We're not the ones that need disclaimers on the side of our hair-dryer that says, "Do not user while bathing."

</comment><comment><USER62> I'm probably the only one to think that it's good that MS keeps buttons that are less used. Cause you see less used does not mean NOT used. Sure cut&paste is going to be like 80% of the use, but when you make a new dir you're going to have that working and in front of you.

Here's the key sentence,take note:

It's not how OFTEN you use it that matters most but how USEFUL it is.

Browser makers, please take note when you remove 99% of the UI. Thanks.

Beside I know most "noobs" look for these functions in menus and will love the buttons. Even on OSX many just don't know how to move/copy. They can do it in iPhoto or iMovie, but when it comes to the finder they're lost.

</comment><comment><USER63> Between this and the last post about the copy dialogs with their graphs etc., I wonder if they are making a conscious decision to focus the traditional desktop UI more on "power use cases" (not necessarily "power users"). It's telling that the PM prominently talks up Copy as Path and batch file scripting in the video. It makes a certain amount of sense - for casual use there's the relatively minimalist, design-y immersive UI, so the people working on the desktop UI feel free to focus on the remaining use cases and move in the opposite direction.

</comment><comment><USER64> _They use this to show that "the commands that make up 84% of what users do in Explorer are now in one tab". But the more important thing is that the remaining 50% of the bar is taken up by buttons that nobody will ever use, ever, even according to Microsoft's own research._

This hits the nail on the head when discussing the UI decisions made. If Microsoft had included the top 10 commands in an organized manner, plus a few more from their data, it'd probably be fine.

<comment><USER65> There's a huge difference between _have never used_ and _will never use_. Microsoft's data is about past usage; the article makes an unjustified extrapolation from that to future message. This extrapolation is particularly relevant when discussing a feature that largely serves to improve discoverability - if the features make sense together, putting them together and making them visible may help users get more out of the software.

It would be interesting to find out how many people say "I never knew the file manager could do _that_ " when they fire up Windows 8, even when the feature has been there since NT4.

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> Seems like I've been defending Windows Phone on here so much lately, maybe it's time to balance it out.

I think this is hideous crap UI design. Fortunately, it can be shut off (at least in the leaked betas).

I'm not aware of anything good that's come out of Microsoft and usability tests. Apple didn't seem to use them and it turned out well for them.

Microsoft, go with the Windows Phone paradigm, full force. It is your (successful) future.

</comment><comment><USER67> While the Ribbon UI was intended to simplify complex UI, these screenshots suggest it may not. Take for example the "Explorer in Windows 8" image. The visual hierarchy is very confusing. The ribbon appears to have 5 pages - <USER3> File is bold and special for some reason (it invokes a huge popup menu?). But the focus of the entire app is on Files - so what conceptually would not go under File, except for Folder operations? Furthermore, above this special File menu there are three super special (and somewhat inscrutable) icons. But aren't these just shortcuts for File operations? Why don't they just live under File menu? For that matter, why have toolbar buttons been hoisted into the title bar itself?

The current tab appears to be the Home tab, based on the highlight. But this has nothing to do with your "Home" directory - it is merely the "default" page for the most common operations. These operations are used to manage your files - the names of two other tabs in this hierarchy. What would the user expect to find there?

The layout of the Home tab is visually confusing. There is no grid or use of whitespace to guide the eye, and it presents a non-uniform 2-dimensional array of controls of different sizes. At least the old toolbars being 1-dimensional meant the user could easily remember approximately how far along the toolbar to look for the icon - now the user must scan a far more complex terrain to find what they're looking for.

There are two different sizes _and_ layouts for action icons. So Copy and Paste are large icons with text below, while Cut is a small icon with text to the right. Why? Presumably it is less frequently used, but the inconsistency is visually jarring and non-obvious to the user.

While some buttons cause immediate actions, others have a small down-arrow next to them, suggesting they will probably pop up a menu instead. This introduces another variation to the two button types, giving a third type. But some have a default action when clicking on the button itself (a fourth type), and only reveal a menu when clicking on the arrow - yet there is no visual indication of which behaviour a button has. (This is apparent in IE and Office also.)

A user may wonder what is the difference between clicking on the dark blue File toolbar tab, versus clicking on the menu button in the very top of the titlebar, versus pressing Alt to reveal the hitherto hidden menubar?

While the Manage ribbon tab appears at the same hierarchy level as Home, Share and View, it has a brightly coloured tab _above_ it labelled "Library Tools". Vertical lines suggest it is superior to the Manage item; yet presumably it is also higher than Home, given its placement and urgent red/orange background? What is the difference between pressing Manage and selecting Library Tools?

A user not trained in the intricacies of the Office Ribbon UI will IMHO be utterly baffled by the complexity exposed in this UI and the inconsistencies therein.

While it is laudable that Microsoft is attempting to refresh the design of this venerable component of Windows, this work seems to be little more than a reshuffling of features and shortcuts, rather than a rethinking of file management.

</comment><comment><USER37> I just showed this to a Mac user who responded "Streamlined! Intuitive! Look at all that stuff, why would I use that?"

<comment><USER68> I'm a heavy Mac user, but Finder is and has always been one of OS X's pain points and its gotten worse in Lion. Until I changed it when I opened a Finder window it defaults to a list of "All My Files" which is useless (the first 20 or so items are __init__.py)

<comment><USER69> You're a programmer, use the terminal.

Also most "normal" users do not have a single __init__.py I like the new Finder but I rarely use it... ack FTW!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> On a related and more positive note: Microsoft also released a preview of changes they're making to the actual copy/paste process. And it's kind of cool.

[http://www.tomshardware.com/news/windows8-file-copy- win8-win...](http://www.tomshardware.com/news/windows8-file-copy- win8-windows-8,13287.html)

</comment><comment><USER71> Well, in general I agree with the comments saying that the review missed the point about reworking the Tool/Menu bar so that people start to use it more

I still think, it's too crowded, and will benefit from a mode selection (i.e. Advanced with all these button, Basic with only the most used ones and Custom )

</comment><comment><USER72> Although I'm (very very) far from being a MS fan-boy, I find an inherent flaw in such reviews written by programmers/hackers/power users. What they all miss is the real target audience for Windows - i.e. my Grandpa.

<comment><USER73> What is your Grandpa doing with a desktop? Get him an iPad, it's all he'll ever need.

<comment><USER72> Well, he has it since before the iPad. And isn't iPad kinda hard on old people? (shaky hands, etc.)

<comment><USER73> Actually I keep hearing that their great for the same reasons kids like them: easy concepts to grasp, unlike a mouse for example.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER74> The concept might be to increase their usage...

</comment><comment><USER75> If you're not using keyboard shortcuts for file operations, you're doing it very wrong. Hide the ribon UI and problem solved.

</comment><comment><USER76> There's really no question... the screenshot he has provided is heinous. Talk about being out of ideas 20 years ago...

</comment><comment><USER77> BTW, is "officially" the new "literally"?

<comment><USER78> I'm not sure. I haven't yet seen any companies that officially eat dog food.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_a-gn0dYmk#t=1m14s>

</comment></comment><comment><USER79> explorer is progressively getting bloated and nasty; there's no 'power user' version and now way to bring back useful features which have existed before.

i've been using Classic Shell to keep my sanity on W7 and the 'Super Bar' is big step back in productivity for me.

my search for seamless Explorer replacements continues...

</comment><comment><USER80> They entered that realm long ago.

</comment><comment><USER81> haha this made me laugh. would like to hear an official statement from the MS Design department

</comment><comment><USER82> Disclaimer: I'm a Windows and Mac OS X "power user" and I'm going to be rather critical of Apple who are seen as at the forefront of UI design. I'm probably going to get voted down for this.

I'm a proponent of the Ribbon UI and I fucking hate toolbars in OS X.

I use Outlook, Word, Excel and Windows Live Mail extensively. All of which have the ribbon UI. It turns out that for the sake of actually getting stuff done, this is incredibly useful. I genuiely hardly ever need to use the context menu because what I need is there "in my face" and "obvious". While this fits newbie usage patterns perfectly, it also helps us power users who don't always switch back to the keyboard shortcuts (mouse already in hand) and don't want to jump through several hoops (like faffing with context menus) to get stuff done.

On the other hand, I have absolutely no fucking idea what the hell the toolbar buttons do when I'm using Finder or Mail on OS-X (Snow Leopard and Lion). The icons are crap, there are no visual cues and I always end up dropping to a terminal to get stuff done because I simply can't be arsed to figure it out or piss around with right clicking or the awful keyboard shortcut system on OS X. I don't think people usually get that far with OS X without getting "shiny I paid $2000 so it must be good Apple mental block" as I call it.

I'm fed up of so-called self-proclaimed experts chucking out blog posts criticising user interfaces while masturbating over Apple's efforts. Microsoft's UI allows you to get shit done and get it done quickly. So it might not be as aesthetically pleasing, but it works and works well for those of us with shit in our eyes.

Also, Microsoft research what you want rather than tell you what you're having (like Apple do).

<comment><USER83> I love the ribbon. It briefly brought me back to Word from LaTeX. I am by no means a Word power user, but I found it 2007 much easier to use than 2003.

(I also have a Mac and prefer it to Windows, but I interact with it mainly through the terminal, the browser, and emacs - and I can't be arsed to learn powershell or whatever in order to do the same thing on Windows)

<comment><USER84> I hate the ribbon. It was the final push for me to abandon Word and learn LaTeX. Really.

I also use the shell for almost all file system manipulation, on OS X and on Windows (via Cygwin) so I know that puts me in a small minority of users.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER85> Microsoft UIs current state is, in general, cluttered and broken. I agree with this blogger, and my reaction was similar when I red the original post on msdn.

Having been absent from microsoft office (or any office like application for that mater) for many years, I recently got to use recent versions of microsoft products such as Word, Outlook, etc. The ribbons were a big facepalm, I didn't know such bad things exist, a few co-workers of mine said that they find them practical. I spent an average of 20-40 seconds each time I needed to click one of those buttons, even after many months of usage.

The buttons are jammed together in a rectangular area in ridiculous amounts. Some ribbons have close to 20 buttons, this will never be intuitive, it's just not visually easy to identify the buttons. Also, often a button is on the other site, all the away across the window in a far far away ribbon.

I never managed to use any microsoft OS after XP. Did the users really need other MS OS after XP? Quite frankly, I cannot find sinigle advantage of using vista or seven.

PS: The screenshots have something of a 1998 charm, I think it's that overlayed info. mspaint?

<comment><USER86> That's because, as you stated in your post, you haven't used them.

On a side note, the quality of comments has gone down while the know-it-all undertones have sky rocketed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER87> With regards to Microsoft's usage statistics, _and_ the counter-argument, I can't help but think of this: [http://motherjones.com/kevin- drum/2010/09/counterintuitive-w...](http://motherjones.com/kevin- drum/2010/09/counterintuitive-world)

Simple usage statistics aren't especially valuable if you don't look at the overall picture as to _why_ features are used (e.g. who would cut and paste if they understood how to move?). I'm not sure if either side is properly analyzing the available information.

<comment><USER88> Actually, copy/paste makes a lot of sense. Having to frequently copy or move files from one place to another, I got used to ctrl-c or -x a file, then go to a different directory, and ctrl-v. The appeal, I think, is that I don't have to use the mouse (which employs a time-costly drag operation).

Dragging files into directories is also cognitively expensive - e.g. you have to make certain that you are dragging exactly into the right folder which can be about 15 pixels high, depending on what view you're using. It requires hand-eye coordination which becomes unnecessary with simple copy/paste operations.

BUT, for beginner users, I agree: users have a hard time grasping the concept of a copy/paste buffer anyway, and with files it gets abstracted one more level. For more advanced users, they use keyboard shortcuts, so the buttons don't really need to be there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER89> I felt they entered that realm a while back. One of the reasons I switched to Mac.

</comment><comment><USER90> Yes, let's get rid of advanced features, because a lot of people don't use them.

</comment><comment><USER91> Someone should open a can of Apple HID on their asses.

</comment><comment><USER92> Most people I work with detest the ribbon interface.

</comment><comment><USER93> I'm getting off-point here, but did anyone else get annoyed that the MS blog post used bar charts when they should use pie charts to compare relative percentages?

<comment><USER94> [http://www.napera.com/product-design/pie-charts- considered-h...](http://www.napera.com/product-design/pie-charts-considered- harmful)

<comment><USER93> Point well taken. I can't seriously argue against Tufte or actual research, but I still like pie charts for some things.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER95> Maybe this is an ingenius plan by Microsoft employees to revamp the company from inside out (or outside in?). But seriously, the kool-aid drinking types are probably really flustered by your post, as they think the ginormous waste of screen space is the best thing ever invented. _sad_

</comment><comment><USER96> They missed april fools day by a few months

</comment><comment><USER97> Oh the myopic mind has no bound. Well...except where it has to have bounds to be considered myopic...

Do you expect an UI designed for someone that's never heard of HN and who is unaware that you can copy and paste pieces of text SHOULD seem attractive to a technohipster blogger?

So many times HN seems like the next incarnation of the Library of Alexandria and then posts like this make it seem like a bunch of silly stupid cyber bullies stuck in myspace and high school WHILE guffawing at the teacher's assignment for the day.

Microsoft is often times silly, stupid, evil, whacked out. But don't go projecting myopic mamby-pamby "critique" like you knew something.

Love them or hate them or think they're falling off of the face of the earth Microsoft gets enough right to still pull in the pennies, a tad bit more than I think this poor chap manages with his blog.</comment>


Your programming language does not know about elementary mathematics - <AUTHOR> http://lemire.me/blog/archives/2012/09/03/programming-elementary-mathematics/

<comment><USER2> It's somewhat predictable that the claim is based on floating-point examples. Computer floating-point numerical processing reliably fails many kinds of common-sense logical test.

Those interested in serious computer mathematics have remedies -- instead of floating-point values, use integers or ratios where possible, as Sage (<http://www.sagemath.org/>) does. In Sage, one discovers that 3456/7263 times 21/996 equals 224/22327, rather than 0.010032695839118555, as one might expect from less specialized programming environments.

Or one can increase the size of floating-point mantissas, something not possible in a non-specialized programming environment, but always available in environments designed for serious mathematics. This is less satisfactory than avoiding floating-point altogether, of course.

To the student programmer, this simple advice -- always prefer integers over floating-point values, and never use a floating-point value as a loop index.

</comment><comment><USER3> The author of the blog seems to be unaware of this information regarding floating point binary values:

What Every Computer Scientist Should Know About Floating-Point Arithmetic

[http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19957-01/806-3568/ncg_goldberg.ht...](http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19957-01/806-3568/ncg_goldberg.html)</comment>


Sean Parker Sees Gloom in Venture Capital - <AUTHOR> http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2010/11/22/a-dim-view-of-betting-on-start-ups/

<comment><USER2> "But worst of all, from the standpoint of innovation, entrepreneurs may be changing the way they are thinking — they are becoming less ambitious." </comment><comment>amen sean</comment>


20 Years of Impulse Tracker, Part 4 – full source code - <AUTHOR> http://roartindon.blogspot.com/2014/12/20-years-of-impulse-tracker-part-4.html

<comment><USER2> Whoa. Hard to believe it's been 20 years already. I remember Impulse Tracker coming to the scene vividly. Almost everyone in our crew (Explizit) on ST3 jumped ship. It was technically superior; you could keep notes playing in a channel for longer, and music improved for the better. We made awesome music in it.

Of course those on FastTracker2 would _never_ use Impulse Tracker. They were two camps, even within our crew, and the two would never meet. At the end both trackers were equally capable if I remember correctly. Of course we're talking about a time when 16 bit samples were the hottest thing around.

In case anyone wants to listen to a bunch of Impulse Tracker songs, check out our archive at [http://www.explizit.org](http://www.explizit.org). The .IT tracks are at the bottom (or just download the full ZIP).

<comment><USER3> As a friendly reminder, VLC can also play module formats. I mention this because of the text at the top of the page about the files requiring a "module player". As an added bonus, VLC is archive aware, and so one can just open the zip and play them while still compressed (but not e-all.zip, since it contains the individual zipped mods; VLC isn't _that_ savvy).

Thank you so much for hosting this, and for the untold number of hours of work that went into the songs!

<comment><USER2> You're right! I play them with VLC now and again. I'm reluctant to add anything about it to that page though. It's so beautiful in it's 1996 ascii- art design.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Whoa this brings back some memories! I was mostly a Fast Tracker user though. I used to love spending hours downloading .xm's at my dad's work so I could rip the samples and use them in my own tracks.

</comment><comment><USER5> Impulse Tracker still is the only DOS program that I know of that had a DirectSound driver. Let that sink in for a while.

</comment><comment><USER6> Neat. A friend in highschool (back in the ol' GUD days) was a mod tracker and composed using impulse tracker and acid tracker. He went on to win some intl contests.

</comment><comment><USER7> Wow, talk about a blast from the past.</comment>


This Tech Bubble Is Different (2011) - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_17/b4225060960537.htm

<comment><USER2> I realized this was an old article when it said Zynga's valuation was $8B on page 3.

The next few paragraphs go on to conjecture about whether Color will be successful.

<comment><USER3> Those facts kind of debunked any point the article was making. Interesting look on the past perhaps.</comment></comment>


Amazon: We're Lowering Whole Foods Prices on Monday - <AUTHOR> http://money.cnn.com/2017/08/24/news/companies/amazon-whole-foods/index.html <comment><USER2> Dupe of [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15094529](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15094529)

<comment><USER3> Thanks. We moved comments there.

An unusually hard call though. The current post was a bit earlier, but has an autoplay video and was lower on the front page. The other post is a bit later but has a paywall and conflict-of-interest issues. Which would annoy HN more? I'm guessing autoplay.</comment></comment>


Repeat entrepreneur seeking architect/engineering co-conspirator - <AUTHOR> http://jobs.stackoverflow.com/default.asp?5663 Repeat entrepreneur seeking architect/engineering co-conspirator and other great software engineers. I've been around the world of startups for 20 years, and am starting another company in Palo Alto (this would be startup #7). I'm passionate about building great, customer-centric, elegant consumer technology products and services, and am looking for rockstar software engineers who share this passion. If you are interested in digital media (photos, videos, audio), social networking, community and mobile, you've come to the right place. Your colleagues would describe you as the ultimate team player who is passionate, aggressively realistic, and unafraid to reach for greatness. You know a well-designed product when you see one (or design one), and you're not willing to compromise until you find that perfect balance for your customer. You know startups because you've been involved in one or many, and you're ready to help create and nurture an amazing company culture. You do this because you love it--and you wake up every day thinking how lucky you are to be living your dream. You are also careful to make sure that your loved ones remember what you look like. If you're just in it for the paycheck or are looking for a 9-5 gig, please look elsewhere. This is a groundfloor opportunity to help create a new startup.
I wish I didn't have to write this, but I am getting lots of responses from QA people, product managers, and consultants/contractors nowhere near Palo Alto who are not appropriate for this position. If you are not an experienced architect looking for a full-time opportunity within commuting distance of Palo Alto, I would ask that you not waste either of our time. Only senior web software engineers, please. Thanks!
If you are interested and meet the criteria above please send an email with your resume and/or a link to your LinkedIn profile. Please describe relevant startup experience that makes you ideal for this opportunity. Email jbeninato [at] yahoo [dot] com <comment><USER2> What were some of your previous ventures (regardless of successes or failures). I did a google on your username, and didn't come up with anything but a slideshow on VC capital.</comment>


Google I/O 2018 codelabs - <AUTHOR> https://codelabs.developers.google.com/io2018 <comment><USER2> It feels so inhuman. Like everything google, there are no names, no faces, no citations. Just walls of information and puzzles. Khanacademy has gone a similar direction; they have removed the human element from learning and are not hiding that fact. Even scam emails at least try to pretend they are genuinely sent from humans.

My favourites are still coursera and MIT OCW. They may not be the most perfect web technologies, but the landing pages right now contain people, faces, names, places and history.

I think this is the dystopian model of learning. We are faceless droids to them completing emotionless tasks. And to what end? So that one day a future generation might be able to qualify for a job that the AI is not capable of doing? If my grandchildren solve enough puzzles in the VR-web-o-sphere they will qualify to be blessed by, The Google. THE Google!

<comment><USER3> I prefer this to marketing faces.

Marketing faces are random actors and models, not having anything to do with the product, so it's a dishonest relationship from the start. It's designed to manipulate you into thinking the product is more genuine and is used by people you can look up to, and thats why you miss it now. You miss being manipulated.

A colleague of mine is bashing open source a lot because it sometimes has humor, like 'ooops a funny thing happened' or 'taking the poison pill' instead of 'We apologize for this error, please contact customer support bla bla'.

The windows attitude is also 'sit back, we are taking care of you' while the Linux experience is more genuine, less polished.

<comment><AUTHOR> The lack of a human touch on this site is simply a function of our priorities. This site was developed by volunteers, in the proverbial Google 20% style, and we've put very little effort into marketing. Admittedly, it could stand a bit more warmth, but, for better or worse, we've always put our focus on the content -- giving developers a fast track to building something fun.

<comment><USER4> Take a look at the open source projects parent mentions. Do you think they are putting their focus on marketing over content? OSS sites are made by real volunteers. While this project is neat and is a side project, all the contributors are paid by Google, right? So it's perhaps possible to get 21% time. Or convince someone with some empathy to volunteer as well. The problem has been solved by many community driven projects.

Apache has amazing content as well as a "human" touch.

This site demonstrates that someone put some effort into the design, so perhaps the easy solution is to spend even more time on marketing and skip the design-o-tron.

<comment><AUTHOR> > Do you think they are putting their focus on marketing over content?

I never said, nor meant to imply, judgements about any other projects. I was simply sharing the choices we've made based on our priorities and resources.

Personally I'm comfortable with those choices because they've resulted in literally hundreds (>650 at my last count) of nice looking and fun to use coding tutorials. I'm also quite proud of the authoring flow we built: these codelabs are generated directly from Google Docs (you don't have to write a line of code to produce them) and we've open sourced the tools for others to use ([https://github.com/googlecodelabs/tools](https://github.com/googlecodelabs/tools)).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The mobile version of this site is seriously crippled; it doesn't allow filtering and runs pretty janky. Whenever you scroll it activates the ripple animation for one of the cards, which is very annoying.

On desktop... It's also very bad. Has it seriously gotten this bad at Google? Maybe I should call for an interview. If you're going to hijack navigation, at least get it right. Most modern web browsers have tabs, allowing you to keep multiple links open at the same time. A common usage pattern is to browse a large collection and open the links of interest in tabs, in order to work your way through them later. If you have a mouse with a scroll wheel, you'll usually use the middle button to open links in a new tab. However, if you have a trackpad you'll use cmd+click on macOS or ctrl+click on Windows and GNU/Linux to open links in a new tab. This is the default behavior and it works perfectly out of the box.

The navigation issue is easily resolved by opening the console and replacing the navigate function. Setting it to an empty function does the trick:

        app.navigate = () => {}.

The annoying ripple animation can be removed with CSS:

        var style = document.createElement('style');
        style.type='text/css';
        style.appendChild(document.createTextNode('paper-ripple { display: none; }'));
        document.body.appendChild(style);

Another bug: in the tutorials, navigating to a different step preserves your scroll position instead of resetting to the top as expected.

Their WebAssembly Physics and DOM objects tutorial [0] is worth checking out if you wanna see a quick example of WASM in action.

[0] [https://codelabs.developers.google.com/codelabs/hour- chipmun...](https://codelabs.developers.google.com/codelabs/hour- chipmunk/index.html)

<comment><USER6> Thanks for the feedback! I dislike the ripple animations, too. This is coming from Material design implementation in Polymer components 1.0.

Hijacking navigation wasn't very nice either, absolutely agree. Too bad we didn't have time to drop it.

All of this is going to be replaced soon. Codelabs site is moving away from Polymer. Working on the new implementation in [https://github.com/googlecodelabs/codelab- elements](https://github.com/googlecodelabs/codelab-elements). Contributions are most welcome, of course.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Interesting that I couldn't find any golang content</comment>


I don't feel safe with Wordpress, hackers broke in and took things - <AUTHOR> http://scobleizer.com/2009/09/05/i-dont-feel-safe-with-wordpress-hackers-broke-in-and-took-things/ <comment><USER2> So let's get this straight:

He's complaining about Wordpress and their vulnerabilities when he:

1\. hadn't upgraded wordpress in months 2\. hadn't performed any backups of his posts

It's hard to be sympathetic to him or TechCrunch. If they're going to use custom features like third-party plugins and specially designed pages, they should have developers on staff to actively work to make sure that their customizations will work after an upgrade. By not doing that they're begging to be attacked.

<comment><USER3> Seeing as WordPress requires security updates with genuinely astounding regularity, I'm hesitant to blame the user. WordPress' excessive vulnerability count clearly demonstrates an endemic issue in the software itself.

See also:

[http://www.securityfocus.com/cgi- bin/index.cgi?o=0&l=30&...](http://www.securityfocus.com/cgi- bin/index.cgi?o=0&l=30&c=12&op=display_list&vendor=WordPress&version=&title=&CVE=)

<comment><USER4> or... another way to look at it. Wordpress releases security updates at astounding frequency without waiting to lump all those security updates in to one large update like most other large software tends to do.

Yes, I admit frequent updates can be a nuisance, but when they are literally spoon feeding you the update process (less than 10 seconds and one click in most cases), its stupidity - really.

See also: [http://www.securityfocus.com/cgi- bin/index.cgi?o=0&l=30&...](http://www.securityfocus.com/cgi- bin/index.cgi?o=0&l=30&c=12&op=display_list&vendor=Drupal&version=&title=&CVE=)

Drupal CMS less popular - more vulnerability.

<comment><USER5> _without waiting to lump all those security updates in to one large update_

Why do there have to be frequent security updates in first place?

If they didn't manage to tighten up their very limited attack surface in 6 years then I'd say it's a lost cause.

<comment><USER4> For a widely popular software like wordpress, security will be a cat and mouse game - until it reaches a level of maturity like other open source projects (ie, linux).

For me the problem is not that they release frequent updates - I would have a problem if they didn't release frequent updates to known severe vulnerabilities. If you look at their release logs you will see that most of their security updates has 24-48 hours of turnaround from the time of the vulnerability detection.

The recent vulnerability that this blog and most others (ie, smashing magazine) got affected has been fixed 2 releases before the current release. People who are affected didn't update for the last 3 release and someone developed a script out there that automatically scans for that vuln. and takes advantage of it.

<comment><USER5> _security will be a cat and mouse game_

From a security standpoint Wordpress is a trivial application because it's almost entirely read-only, except for the comments. Making a plugin- architecture bullet proof is a different story, but as I understand it most of these issues affect the very core, i.e. a vanilla wordpress install.

There is no excuse for their sorry state of affairs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Anyone who has been using wordpress for couple of years, and actually bothers to read the release notes of each version, will tell you that a vast majority of those increment updates are security fixes. Since around 2.7 upgrades are as easy as clicking a button - both for plugins and wordpress core updates.

Instead of playing the "poor me" game, say it the way it is; you failed at keeping your wordpress install up to date and secure and you failed at having a backup.

Smashing magazine got compromised last week and came out straight and admitted their failure on keeping it safe by not upgrading.

This scoobie guy sounds a lot like arrington - no wonder they are best friends.

<comment><USER6> _Since around 2.7 upgrades are as easy as clicking a button - both for plugins and wordpress core updates._

Which is, in itself, a fruitful source of potential security holes: To accomplish this feature, Wordpress has to have permission to overwrite its own executables.

<comment><USER7> Not to mention the only way they support this is via FTP - and I'm not that keen on enabling an FTP server purely for Wordpress's needs, thank.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> My old wordpress installation was hacked some time ago, so (following the lead of cperciva) I wrote a minimal blogging script which doesn't require PHP/Mysql and just generates HTML. The admin interface is vi.

<comment><USER9> You should check out Bloxsom.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Scoble's got a new blog on Posterous: <http://scobleizer.posterous.com/>

<comment><USER11> I bet his uses the same password on Posterous as on Wordpress.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I've been very happy with dreamhost. Their control panel handles wordpress backups and upgrades seamlessly. I just backed up and upgraded three wp sites, it took less than 5 minutes.

</comment><comment><USER13> I wonder if wordpress has unit tests at least</comment>


iOS 9.3.1 enables WIFI Assit, potentially breaking data caps - <AUTHOR> Upgraded to IOS 9.3.1 today, and after a problematic upgrade to 9.2, I took a moment to double check cellular settings and functions.
Normally I keep most application's cellular data usage to off. When Wi-Fi assist was rolled out, I turned that off as well, and kept it off. All this to keep data usage under a monthly cap.
Today's upgrade to 9.3.1 reverted WiFi assist to ON. This feature is the subject of 2 lawsuits against Apple due to lack of disclosure about this feature, and the feature's unpermitted use of consumer data plans.
The 9.3.1 upgrade turning this feature back on is a potential gotcha for those on a limited data plan who /thought/ they had turned it off.
Check your settings:
Settings > Cellular > Scroll aaaaaall the way to bottom > Wi-Fi Assist > (ON/OFF)
Edit: probably should have mentioned phone version. iPhone5 upgrading from 9.2.1. Perhaps the difference in experience is phone version? IDK... <comment><USER2> I checked mine after the update. Just like eugeneionesco, mine is still off.

</comment><comment><USER3> Just upgraded and that setting was not enabled after.</comment>


Your Job as a Founder Is to Create Believers - <AUTHOR> http://josephwalla.com/your-job-as-a-founder-is-to-create-believers <comment><USER2> I worked for a stretch at a startup where I was asked to "believe". The company's core values were made into wall artwork and recited aloud at staff meetings. It was all eerily similar to my Catholic upbringing. Including the guilt. "Oh, you want to leave work at 5? Yeah, that's fine. I just thought you _really_ believed."

You have to be a little insane to start a company, I totally get that. But you're truly doing yourself a disservice if you're attempting to amass a legion of followers.

A good developer might not give two shits about your carefully crafted mission statement, but she'll do some kick ass work. Isn't that good enough any more? Why is "startup culture" so obsessed with maintaining the appearance of success rather than focusing on creating something amazing?

<comment><USER3> A few potential downsides to an employee not believing:

1\. If they are offered an identical position at a company they believe in, they will leave. You won't be able to do anything to keep them around, so you have less ability to retain valuable employees. Hiring and training new employees is expensive.

2\. They won't push back when bad decisions are made. Would you waste your time arguing about a bad decision if you didn't give a shit about the company? You want people who will work for the best interest of the company. Granted there comes a time when you need people to accept a decision, but you want their to be a discussion around those decisions.

3\. They will negotiate for more salary than equity/options, giving them less incentive to help make the company succeed.

4\. They are less likely to convince their friends to join the company. Stripe built an incredibly talented engineering team through mostly referrals[1]. You lose that if you are hiring people who won't convince their friends to join.

I'm sure I am missing many others, and all startups may not need a team so dedicated that they would give up their salary, but having a team who believes in your company does have real benefits.

[1]: [http://firstround.com/review/How-Stripe-built-one-of- Silicon...](http://firstround.com/review/How-Stripe-built-one-of-Silicon- Valleys-best-engineering-teams/)

<comment><USER4> 1\. If you cannot offer something better, you don't deserve to retain valuable employees. You need to be a better founder and boss.

2\. Yes they will. You'll spend time arguing about a bad decision because it has an effect upon your life.

3\. Salary is an incentive too. I like mine to keep coming. Those of us who aren't terminally naive regard equity as nice to have, but generally worthless unless we get extremely lucky.

4\. If you are a good founder and boss who has a good company that's a nice place to work, they absolutely will. A _company_ , not a _church_.

You can't scale a company entirely with believers. You can do just fine with mercenaries. You just have to treat them as rational actors, which isn't so hard at all if you're a good leader.

<comment><USER5> Particularly regarding #4, a friend observed that, "people join startups for the vision. They stay for the culture (#4)"

<comment><USER6> ... probably not the least because "the vision" tends to get lost in pivots and priority shifts

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> In order of priority, your responsibilities as an employee are:

      1.  To yourself and your family
      2.  To your career and professional development
      3.  To the company

Don't ever sacrifice 1 or 2 for 3 because the company will not do the same for you. Part of meeting responsibilities 1 and 2 is making sure that you are fairly compensated for your work product and for the value you provide to the company. If you are not being fairly compensated for your work then you should make some effort to rectify this imbalance. If your efforts yield no fruit then you should walk away. Capable employees are too valuable to be squandering their potential drinking kool-aid for the benefit of others.

<comment><USER8> For the most part, this is correct.

It would take an exceptional company with a grand vision for me to swap 2 & 3\. I could see myself doing that if I worked for Seymour Cray's companies in the 60s and 70s, or Bell Labs in its heyday, or a company with a grand vision like SpaceX today. But for the most part, you are right.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think his point is one that seems obvious, but isn't always. First, you should believe in your product, then your job is to get others to do so. Treating people badly, not paying them, lying, etc. are all terrible and we should not ever praise those parts, but that doesn't mean his overall point is wrong at all. There are a few things going on there:

1) If you as the creator don't believe in it, you're probably going to have more trouble convincing others that it's worth using, unless you have some kind of interesting personality quirk.

2) The value of something - and it may be very valuable - might not immediately be obvious. AirBnB, for example, sounded insane to many people before it caught on. The founders had to believe in it, and they had to convince others to do so.

3) For things which are purely subjective (and I know some do find this distasteful, for sometimes good reasons), convincing others of its value is the entire point. Think about things like fashion, music styles, toys / novelties of various kinds - even certain kinds of technologies which only shuffle the deck in terms of functionality / UX may need to have users convinced. The effects of this one can be net positive (something starts out looking like a fad, turns into incredibly useful thing [Twitter]), net negative (unhealthy fad diets), or neutral (Webkinz? Furbies?), but even if you hate these things, you can't wish them away or deny they exist.

<comment><USER10> That the founders and the investors have to believe in a product is undeniable. If we agree that "believe in" means "believe that it's gonna catch on and make a shitload of money", not necessarily "make the world better".

But why should you care as a founder if your employees believe in your product? Your employees are professionals, pay them to get shit done and that's it, why do they have to believe in your idea of "Uber for strippers", or "twitter for baby sitters"?

The only ones who have to believe are the ones who put their ass on the line for a potential big reward. And startup employees are _not_ in this category.

<comment><USER11> I'm not exactly sure why _you_ as a founder should care (nor do I care what exactly you as a founder actually do care about), but many would rather work to make the world better than just "get shit done" that potentially gives the "ones who put their ass on the line" (which doesn't include them? [not following your logic here]) a big reward.

More generally, this is known as alienation of labor. Many humans, when they are reduced to pure commodities, don't feel too great about it and may begin to suffer mentally and physically as a result.

<comment><USER10> > the "ones who put their ass on the line" (which doesn't include them? [not > following your logic here]) a big reward.

The big reward is a big chunk of money. Employees very rarely make a lot of money after an acquisition.

> More generally, this is known as alienation of labor. Many humans, when they > are reduced to pure commodities, don't feel too great about it and may begin > to suffer mentally and physically as a result.

I never said that. People may not care about your big dream of saving the world and still be experts in their domain and be excited about the technical challenges that come with your idea. I've worked in many industries without caring at all for them (think finance, gambling, advertising) but I was still very stimulated by the technical problems to solve.

There is a big line between not drinking the kool-aid of "we're making the world a better place. Through constructing elegant hierarchies for maximum code reuse and extensibility." and alienation of labor.

<comment><USER11> >The big reward is a big chunk of money. Employees very rarely make a lot of money after an acquisition.

Yes, I believe that is what you claimed previously. You also seemed to suggest that it was deservedly so (that employees not share in the "big chunk of money")?

> People may not care about your big dream of saving the world

You're changing the parameters. I'm assuming you only care that your product is going to "catch on and make a shitload of money".

The employees are manifesting the product and are the ones who have invested their life in the company. I believe you claimed that employees do not "put their ass on the line" and therefore don't get to share in the "big reward"? What qualifies as putting your ass on the line?

>I never said that.

I didn't say that you said that. I'm saying that what you are describing fits into the more general framework of alienated labor. Feelings of alienation occur when there is little to no connection between the one doing the work and the work itself, which sounds pretty much exactly like what you described. If the game is reduced to "shut up and do what you're told because I write the check" and the employee requires that check to survive, the employee is at high risk of losing autonomy over their work as they may become ever more dependent on their founders and investors (founders and investors may openly exploit this fact). At the same time, the founders and investors may be extracting ever more value from from the company (by which I mean, the employees).

I don't think alienation of labor is a single binary condition. Some work is more alienating than others for various reasons, including founders, investors, managers, colleagues, product, workplace conditions, tasks assigned, etc.

Many people find it alienating to hear founders and investors talk about how they are going to make a shit-ton of money all while claiming that the people doing the actual work haven't put their ass on the line and won't share in the big reward that they are all working to realize.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The anecdotes are totally useless. You could replace "For 999 days [the airbnb founders] didn't see traction. But, they believed." with "For 999 days [the airbnb founders] didn't see traction. But, they brushed their teeth." and walk convinced that dental hygiene is somehow key to success.

<comment><USER13> "For 999 days [the airbnb founders] didn't see traction. But, they brushed their resume."

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I find it wrong that the author is using other successful companies as examples that they were built on "belief".

No, airbnb founders did not believe. In fact, Mark Zuckerberg did not believe either. Nor did Larry page.

They got there by learning from user, questioning their "belief" and iterating.

Nate: '... so I at this point decided to move to Boston. Had other priorities in my life. And pace suddenly slowed down .... Have you told Michael that I am working on other things?'. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ya0I6oz7q9U&fea..](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ya0I6oz7q9U&fea..).

Mark: '.. well, it does not have to be anything more than a college friend website. That is a great product.' [https://youtu.be/aQ5otpv6kTw?t=252](https://youtu.be/aQ5otpv6kTw?t=252)

Larry page: ... tried multiple times to license their technology and later sell the company for a few millions and later for a few billions. The gap in their asking price and market offer kept them going.

</comment><comment><USER11> I've been working on a theory that corporations are actually cults.

This is excellent validation.

<comment><USER15> So is every human organization.

The basic facts of life are that we're born, we eat, we sleep, we shit, we piss, some of us reproduce, and we die. All other meaning beyond that is socially constructed, from religion to power to currency and wealth to corporations, cults, voluntary associations, friendship, identity, and so on.

All history has been the story of one social illusion replacing another. For a couple millenia the church was dominant; for some period within that, it jockeyed with the kingdom. Starting in the 1800s, the nation-state became dominant; people have been increasingly losing trust in them since Vietnam. The traditional big corp died, as a source of allegiance, in the 1980s. Startups are moving in to fill a void - and, as productive organizations that rely upon peoples' consent for their existence, I think they're a lot better than many of their predecessors.

<comment><USER16> _> productive organizations that rely upon peoples' consent for their existence_

As a bonus for portfolio optimization and market experiments, they are more disposable than their predecessors.

The half-life of socioeconomic belief continues to shrink.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Your Job as a Founder Is to Create a Product People will Believe

</comment><comment><USER18> Corollary: "Your job, as a startup employee, is to drink the Kool-Aid."

<comment><USER10> +1. Do employees at the DMV _believe_ in their mission?

Why can't founders understand that employees are there for the paycheck? And rightfully so. "Guys, it's your company too! Let's do great things together and make the world a better place!" Yeah great. And for the next round of funding is it gonna be "my company too" or is my 1/10th of a point gonna be diluted?

<comment><USER19> Bingo.

When I started at the startup I previously worked at, while we were working for pennies and not making money, it was "our company" because I had equity along with the founders. Once we started making money and could have reasonable salaries it went from "our company" to "my company".

<comment><USER20> I'm a PHP developer, can I ask how you made the transition to Node? Did you just start hacking away at personal projects with Node? Any advice on resources?

<comment><USER19> Personal projects mostly yes.

r/node was a big help. I also make sure to learn JavaScript, not NodeJS exclusively. A firm understanding of JavaScript is the best way in my opinion. So start using frontend JavaScript stuff. Angular, React, etc. Once you're very comfortable with that, start building your own stuff. Ignore the "but why would I build my own when so much better exists?" because it's not about building something someone else will use, but to help you understand the workings of what you're building more.

Once you are comfortable in the frontend, NodeJS is just as easy.. Learn the core modules, and ecosystem.

On the frontend you should already be using something like Browserify or Webpack, so you'll already be familiar with using CommonJS based requires.

<comment><USER20> That's interesting. I already have a lot of experience with Javascript so it might not be so painful.

What do you think about Rails vs Node/Express/etc when it comes to startups? Are more choosing Node lately, or is Rails still the startup gold standard?

This is the comment I've been responding to btw:

> I've been a PHP developer since 1997. December of 2014 I left PHP completely > for NodeJS. Best decision of my life.

Can I ask why you feel that way?

Sorry for the interrogation, I'm just really curious and thinking of a transition myself.

<comment><USER19> > Sorry for the interrogation, I'm just really curious and thinking of a > transition myself.

No worries, keep asking all you want and I'll do my best to answer them.

> Can I ask why you feel that way?

Mostly because I was getting burnt out in PHP, the community was getting pretty hellacious, and because I wanted to do something new.

Regarding the Rails question, I actually when decided to leave PHP I was debating on learning Rails/Ruby or moving to NodeJS. But because I had been tinkering with NodeJS already (I wrote a pretty extensible IRC bot with a few friends to get the hang of things) and because I already have an understanding of JavaScript I would go NodeJS.

It helps that I'm not jumping between 4 languages in my stack, PHP, JavaScript, HTML and CSS to 3 languages.

Why I feel it was the best decision is mostly because it made me a overall better developer. I started learning a lot more stuff, and found out very verbose things in PHP are simplified in JavaScript.

I mean, look at popular PHP frameworks vs popular NodeJS frameworks... Laravel and Symfony are orders of magnitudes bigger than Express and Hapi/Sails.

PHP while getting better at it, has the NIH mindset whereas NodeJS is about building small packages that do one thing and one thing only and everyone uses them.

> What do you think about Rails vs Node/Express/etc when it comes to startups? > Are more choosing Node lately, or is Rails still the startup gold standard?

I think NodeJS is a solid alternative. There's huge companies using NodeJS now, Walmart, Netflix, PayPal just to name a few. And with the fact that NodeJS and iojs team have come together and the Node Foundation exists is great. iojs has been expanding heavily and that's good. NodeJS v4.0.0 is due out in the coming weeks and I can't wait.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> When I read posts like this, I used to think I needed to be more persuasive and crafty with how I presented what I was selling. I thought I lacked the skills of a good salesman, so to speak. Then I read somewhere that the greatness of a salesman begins at the products they choose to sell. They're great not because they can sell anything. They're great because they efficiently choose to sell the products that sell themselves.

As it turns out, great sellers aren't in the business of convincing people. Persuasion is the craft of a mediocre salesman.

Hence, I think this is more accurate:

"Your Job as a Founder is _validated_ by the believers you create."

There is always something in between, such as a vision, a demo, a product, an experience, a great speech, revenue, and so on. But founders don't create believers per se. They _generate_ them. I feel this distinction to be quite important.

</comment><comment><USER22> Your job as founder is to create customers.

</comment><comment><USER23> And here I thought my job as a founder was to find a business model that creates value.

<comment><USER24> Well, you'd have to believe that it creates value in order to say to yourself and to other people(unless you're a con-artist) you've found one such.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> The emotional appeal of "creating believers" doesn't work when investors want clear, quantitative results and returns on their investment. That's why "growth hacking" with intrusive modals and misleading marketing is an industry in itself in 2015.

Airbnb, Evernote, and Twitter are _outliers_ from a nicer past.

</comment><comment><USER26> This is idlewords's concept of investor storytime[0]. The only difference is that here, the author thinks it's a good thing.

[0] [http://idlewords.com/talks/internet_with_a_human_face.htm#ad...](http://idlewords.com/talks/internet_with_a_human_face.htm#ads)

</comment><comment><USER27> motivational sh*t is the signal things will end in tears

<comment><USER28> DEmotivational sh*t, on the other hand... [http://despair.com/collections/demotivators](http://despair.com/collections/demotivators)

<comment><USER27> eheh... rational commitment, domain knowledge and hard work are still better companions in our nitty-gritty sh*tty life

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Companies aren't about religion, they're about creating products people pay for. Fin.

</comment><comment><USER30> The other big problem about having company values is that people might expect you to live up to them. I once took a job at company largely because I really liked their espoused "values" and "mission statement" and I "believed" in the same thing they claimed to believe in. Compared to the last place I worked it all sounded like a massive breath of fresh air.

Anyway didn't take me too long to realize that all those claimed values where just empty words and the new place was exactly like the old place, and that certainly wasn't good for my moral.

</comment><comment><USER31> For some reason the following quote came to me while reading this: "Our task is not nurturing enthusiasm, but overcoming indifference." (Believe this was from an older Wieden + Kennedy pitch deck.)

</comment><comment><USER32> Sure, believing in your startup as a founder goes a long way. Keeps you motivated in coming back to work at it and walk the extra mile. But is not the founder's most important task to convince the press, investors, partners or even a team to believe. A mindset like that is only looking for acceptance in the external world.

The truly job of a founder is to focus on what really matters: user satisfaction. Working on the features they need, creating a 10x quality product, being the best at the specific area your startup is aiming at. Everything else will follow.

</comment><comment><USER33> I heard one of the current YC partners speak a couple years ago at a student conference and this person phrased things really well. There was a question from the audience, something like "how do you know when to quit?"

Their response: "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. And try again. And keep trying. But don't be a damn fool."

</comment><comment><USER13> It seems all rather obvious: Of course you have to believe that what you do makes sense in order to feel at least a bit of pleasure doing it. Everything else is just a job.

What I am worried about is that maybe it is sometimes taken too far, into some kind of religion at which point it is destracting from the actual practical goals of the company.

</comment><comment><USER34> Your job as founder is to create revenue.

</comment><comment><USER35> He has a point.

blind faith vs. logical rational ... being in the in the first business of selling to people(or employees) that work off of blind faith has always been way more profitable in at least power, and sometimes even money.

</comment><comment><USER36> "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." \--George Bernard Shaw

</comment><comment><USER37> Growth creates believers

</comment><comment><USER38> I might phrase it "...to _find_ believers". You run into a lot fewer problems if you merely search vs trying to convince.

</comment><comment><USER28> Wow. From one of the linked articles ([http://www.businessinsider.com/pandora- didnt-pay-50-employee...](http://www.businessinsider.com/pandora-didnt- pay-50-employees-for-two-years-says-tim-westergren-2015-4)):

 _In the run up to its 2004 Series B funding Pandora was running on financial fumes. Pandora wasn't able to pay its employees for an astounding two years between 2002 to 2004 while it worked on producing a viable commercial product. Not paying full-time employees is very, very illegal in California, where Pandora is based._

 _"We had no idea we were breaking the law, " Westergren said._

 _Over that period, Pandora accumulated $2 million in back wages owed._

How this story did not end with Pandora getting nuked from orbit in a court of law, I have no idea. And the bit about Westergren having "no idea we were breaking the law" (wink, nudge, say no more, guv!) is the perfect cherry on top.

I guess we're supposed to celebrate not paying your employees for years as some kind of Triumph of Entrepreneurialism, though. And I suppose it is, if you're Tim Westergren! (Not so much if you're one of the employees who he essentially strong-armed into loaning him tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars at zero percent interest, but who cares about them.)

<comment><USER39> The crazy thing is - how did the employees manage to stick around? Did they only hire people with huge lines of credit?

<comment><USER40> Even if you have the money in the bank, if I didn't salary for 2 years, I would want founder equity

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> The advice in this post seems like it could undergo a minimal rewrite and apply even better to cult leaders.

</comment><comment><USER42> Sounds good. What JS library should I use to do that?

<comment><USER43> there's a React add-on for that

<comment><USER44> That's JSX... noob...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> So running a startup is like running a cult? Makes sense

</comment><comment><USER24> If you don't believe in what you're building you're a slave. If you don't believe in what you're selling you're a con-artist.

<comment><USER46> Or a mercenary, depending on how much you're being paid.

<comment><USER24> Touché

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> As a founder:

Always be selling.

Always be fund raising.

Always be improving the product.

Always be creating believers.

For each of the above, it is 99% of being a successful CEO.

Right! Now how to cram 4(99) into 100!

Somewhere in there am I also permitted to write good code?

</comment><comment><USER48> This can also be read as "Your Job as a Founder Is to Create Believers So You Can Pay Your Employees Like Shit".

<comment><USER49> Or to be fairer to people just trying to run a company:

"Getting your employees to buy into your vision is usually more efficient than overpaying them to stay."

There are many companies that don't underpay because they want to exploit people but because they are trying to stay afloat.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> tl,dr to more effectively lie to others, learn how to lie to yourself

<comment><USER51> Remember... it's not a lie if _you_ believe it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Suggested reading: "The Annihilation Score", by Charles Stross. This is the latest in the Laundry series, about a unit of the British government which deals with paranormal problems. They have to deal with someone who calls himself "The Mandate". He has the power to make anyone around him believe what he says, and he has political ambitions. (He can make _people_ believe him. But the CCTV/face recognition system isn't fooled, and he's caught.)

<comment><USER53> You know the old question "What superpower would you have if you could have any?"... I have _always_ answered this way. If you can make any number of people believe anything you want, you wouldn't need any other superpower at all. You would have absolute power over every other person in existence.

<comment><USER11> Sure, but you couldn't fly.

<comment><USER54> You could still get them to believe you can fly</comment></comment></comment></comment>