Ask HN: Which programming language has the best documentation? - <AUTHOR>

Recently I was playing around with Scala/Lift and found the online documentation horrible. It was mostly auto generated function specifications with very little background information. Which programming language has the best documentation? <comment><USER2> The Java standard library docs are very good, and the language spec is quite clear and precisely defined.

Another language with brutally specific docs is Common Lisp. Even though I have really only dabbled in it, the Hyperspec is really pretty impressive.

At least one common factor between them is Guy Steele, I don't think that's a coincidence.

Edited to add that I'm pretty sure my comment was motivated by this comment by mahmud: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1661254>

<comment><USER3> I remember reading that Guy Steele was specifically hired to the Java project for this reason. Wikipedia corroborates this: "In 1994, Steele joined Sun Microsystems and was invited by Bill Joy to become a member of the Java team after the language had been designed, since he had a track record of writing good specifications for existing languages."

He also documented ECMAScript 1, which I've found to be pleasurably precise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It depends on how narrowly one defines "documentation" and what one means by "best."

I.e. there's probably a book on Visual Basic that's a good fit for just about anyone's level of interest and programming experience...assuming of course that one has an interest in Visual Basic.

On the other hand, K&R is a concise and well written.

Yet one has an inexhaustible supply of JavaScript examples only an F12 away.

<comment><AUTHOR> When you answer, you get to define the scope.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> In addition to documentation, I find a language specification useful. Golang has an excellent one <http://golang.org/doc/go_spec.html> My original Stroustrup C++book included a language specification which was nice.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I like both python <http://docs.python.org/modindex.html> and golang <http://golang.org/pkg/> best.

<comment><USER5> also the PEPs for Python: <http://www.python.org/dev/peps/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm going to vote twice:

1) ECMAScript, for being excrutiatingly detailed. Guy Steele did a wonderful job shoehorning an unambiguous specification around a loopy language. 2) PostgreSQL. While not particularly mathematical, Postgres docs do a good job of "covering all the bases"... potential "gotchas" and incompatibilities are always documented, and I never find myself wondering what a particular feature does.

</comment><comment><USER6> The Racket Guide [1] and Reference [2] are very nice (and almost all the work of just one person, Matthew Flatt).

[1] <http://docs.racket-lang.org/guide/> [2] <http://docs.racket- lang.org/reference/>

</comment><comment><USER7> In my experience I've been trying to learn beginner programming with Ruby on Rails. I feel like there are tons of high quality resources for Python that I come across. Ruby on rails documentation seems pretty good. Ruby documentation though has been tough to find.

</comment><comment><USER8> PHP via <http://php.net/function>

</comment><comment><USER9> C ISO/IEC 9899 - 1999 Standard is my favourite piece of documentation.</comment>


Why Great Employees Quit – Instead of Admitting They're Unhappy - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/lizryan/2018/05/14/why-great-employees-quit-instead-of-admitting-theyre-unhappy <comment><USER2> Liz used the past tense to describe the environment in which the manager previously held power over the employee - but the imbalance continues even after giving notice and leaving.

The employee needs to not burn bridges. They need to walk on eggshells through the exit interview. They need to maintain this secrecy long after leaving!

There's a lot that I would love to tell my past managers. Stuff I might tell a trusted co-worker over drinks, or would only tell non-work friends and family, because I know people who have been burned by opening their mouth and being too honest.

If you're a company owner or a manager with a lot of sway in your company and want to fix this, here are a couple tips:

1\. Be transparent and honest: criticize yourself and your company when you deserve it, in emails or memos, not just verbally. A culture that tolerates introspection and criticism is more likely to tolerate external criticism.

2\. Do not be completely honest and transparent when discussing occasional failures of past employees: it's all too easy to remember mistakes and forget the thousand times they got it right. Make sure that your current employees will know they will be spoken of positively after they leave.

3\. Make sure that your employees are friends with each other (and yourself, if possible) outside of work. Everyone needs friends, it's hard to make friends as an adult, and even Gallup uses "do you have friends at work" as an indicator of company health. This will mean that employees will have social conversations during and around work: this is good, they will be more productive if work is a happy place and not sterile, and the cost of a few minutes here and there is much less than having unhappy, lonely people trudging through the work day. If they are trustworthy friends they will be able to communicate honestly.

4\. If you are told something negative, don't take it out on them, fix the problem!

<comment><USER3> You don't need to walk on eggshells in an exit interview. You can decline it or if that seems rude you answer like an athlete after a game. I've said "it was just time to move on to something new" about a dozen times in the last one I did, rather than "my bosses boss doesn't think I add any value and he lives in another country so I don't know if I can change that opinion, nor do I really want to spend 2 years trying to do so".

<comment><USER4> >> You don't need to walk on eggshells in an exit interview

While walking on eggshells:

>> I've said "it was just time to move on to something new" about a dozen times in the last one I did

Possible outcomes being honest in an exit interview:

\- You help the company you're leaving improve its processes and culture

\- You burn bridges by hurting feelings of people in your industry

\- You may harm the chances of a rehire

\- You may harm the chances of a bad reference

Out of that list, the only way to get the first outcome is to create a culture of good will where the employee WANTS to help or feels safe enough to help without fearing reprisal.

It's not easy to accomplish and in most instances people will err on being polite.

<comment><USER5> _You may harm the chances of a bad reference_

Unless you work in an incredibly close-knit field where everybody knows everybody else, this is a myth and it needs to stop propagating.

You can choose references from personal friends and co-workers that will stress your positive results. The company as whole will never say anything positive or negative for fear of legal reprisal. If you worked for a bad actor, then burn the bridge and don't worry about retribution via reference checks.

<comment><USER6> >The company as whole will never say anything positive or negative for fear of legal reprisal.

It may depend on the field, yes, but this doesn't reflect what I've seen. From my view, unless you're on the lowest rungs of a monster field like retail, most fields tend to be small, and get smaller the longer you're in, as you're transitioning to being a long-timer. People know each other, and people talk. Even if the company itself will never say anything positive or negative, the people within talk to each other. It's incredibly easy to reach out on 'unofficial channels' to find some bits of information, and suddenly, a promising prospect never pans out. As for legal liability, all you know is that you were never hired; if you're lucky, you get a 'we found a more suitable candidate.' As far as liability is concerned, it's easy to sidestep.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> In my experience, few good employees quit because they are unhappy. People are good at enduring unhappiness for money,opportunities or acheiving a goal.

From what I have seen, it is usually some political or administrative mistreatment that ends up being "the straw that broke the camel's back".

I will accept low pay, a bad manager ,cruel colleagues and a ridiculous work environment so long as I get to do the technical work I have passion for, I don't get treated unequally (except where objective meritocracy applies) and I don't get lied to by my manager. Of course, it should go without saying -- if the competition scouts me and offers better conditions I wouldn't reject that offer.

Corporate america plays too many "games" against rank and file workers.

It makes me a bit envious of all the Enterpreneurs and employees of new startups. The Business hasn't gotten old enough to think up all these devious schemes to save a buck by mistreating workers. I wonder,Is it like getting into a brand new marriage?

Sorry for my pessimistic post, can only speak from my own personal experience. I get attached to coworkers easily and had to quit a few jobs because of b.s.

<comment><USER8> >few good employees quit because they are unhappy.

>From what I have seen, it is usually some political or administrative mistreatment that ends up being "the straw that broke the camel's back".

That makes them unhappy. It's rampant in the US. Programming is a creative endeavor, but most managers only know prod-ops or call center type management. You can't manage creatives that way. We actually had a guy a couple companies ago try to get developers to do time cards like at McDonalds. Another guy decided developers didn't deserve offices, so he kicked all the developer leads out and brought managers from another group to take their offices. That made our DBA of 5 years resign, and he was the best I've ever seen. It's like they don't even consider the effects their decisions have on morale; completely oblivious.

I think scrum makes development miserable, but it's a lot of shit. If I work a few 60-80 hour weeks, I don't expect to be scolded for leaving early once crunch time is over, yet it happens over and over again.

There's all kinds of stupidness in corporate America. It didn't used to be like this. Maybe it was but I was young and willingly suffered fools. If I had to boil it down, it's lack of trust and inability to treat different employees differently. They create policies for the lowest common denominator, like work from home. If one guy is a slacker, instead of firing his ass, they force everyone else to work in the office because, "well if I let you do it, I have to let everyone else do it." No, grow a sack and fire the slackers; otherwise, that's all you'll have left.

All this comes from big corporate managers. Smaller companies are usually better, but not always. If they hire a corporate bozo, they'll quickly go down hill too. M&A ruins a lot of great companies too.

What I do to combat it is have 6 months of income or 10 months of expenses saved up (around that) just for this purpose. If a place becomes too annoying, I just leave and take a couple of months off to unwind and write stuff I like to write. If I'm not dealing with a corporate environment, I can get things done 2-5x faster. Corporate America just sucks the soul right out of you.

<comment><USER9> You don't get respect because non tech managers see you as factory workers.

<comment><USER8> Sadly, a lot of this came from CIOs, so even tech managers see people as factory workers. In my experience, tech management is just so bad in the US, it's bewildering. It's like they got their training by watching Office Space.

<comment><USER9> Yeah I agree. And scrum is just a way to micro manage developers and take away decision power from engineers. I'm getting tired of the entire industry.

<comment><USER8> Yes, me to. It's sad, I once loved it so. I have no idea what I would leave it for though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Positive reason: One quality of good developers is that they seek out new knowledge and want to "grow". At some point, even in a great company, you may run out of ways to do that and you need to move on in order to keep growing.

Negative reason: Employees want to feel valued. If the pay doesn't keep up with what they are worth, they're going to feel the need to move on. A counter offer may only confirm that there employer really _did_ know how valuable they were but decided not to pay them for it - until faced with someone giving their notice.

<comment><USER11> In any job you must be given the opportunity to grow. The best employers will give you that chance over multiple dimensions: knowledge, wealth, reknown, responsibilities. Most employers will give you only one dimension. As long as you keep growing along that dimension all is well. But that single dimension gives a lot of leverage to your employer. He can use it to coerce you and force you back into line. When that happens, it's time to go.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Understanding whether your reports are happy or not is part of being a manager. It's a core reason to have 1-1's and if you don't ask reports if they are happy, doing what excites them, and whether anything should change, you shouldn't expect them to offer it up unasked. If they do offer it up unasked, you are incredibly lucky and should treat it as a gift. 1-1's are not a panecea, but they do provide a forum to have more difficult conversations when it's still possible to do something about it.

<comment><USER13> Exactly! Managers should be having regular 1:1s with direct reports—it mystifies me the number of managers I've met that concede that they only have these once a year at performance review time. How does anyone expect an employee to improve if they're not getting frequent, clear feedback on what's going right and wrong?

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> In response to Vera, I would say "No, he doesn't owe anything".

He's an employee, plain and simple. He got paid to fulfill a service. He did that service well. He then wants to fulfill services elsewhere and decided to do so. Tasks and services were completed, what more can you really ask?

I'm in the same boat. After over a decade working at the same place, I feel its my time to go as well (after all, I want to build a business instead of just be an employee). I know that I'm probably the guy in the company's plans, but I had to look at it this way - You're always needed wherever you go if you do your job as well as you can.

</comment><comment><USER15> So often the only way to get a pay promotion in development is to quit and go somewhere else for more money. Take the counter offer and your boss is now resentful.

Developer pay is terrible. Compare the pay of people who are really, really good to a mid-range tax accountant at a large firm to see just how bad it is.

<comment><USER16> > Developer pay is terrible. Compare the pay of people who are really, really > good to a mid-range tax accountant at a large firm to see just how bad it > is.

Um, what? According to this article [0], top CPA's make $125,000 which is less than new grads make in big tech (Google/Facebook/Amazon/Microsoft...)

[0]: [https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/051415/how-m...](https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/051415/how- much-do-cpas-make.asp)

<comment><USER17> Most developers are not new ivy league grads in big tech...

<comment><USER16> You definitely don't need to go to an ivy league to get into big tech. Here are the schools for which the friends I made during my internship went to: University of Illinois, Purdue University, University of Maryland, MIT, Villanova, University of Florida, University of Minnesota, and University of Massachusetts.

Definitely some top schools like MIT but most were from your run of the mill state school.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> People would more likely admit that they are unhappy if companies actually listened and made an effort to address the issue. In most cases your complaint will just get shrugged off. I am not talking about trivial stuff but things that may make you want to change jobs.

Despite publicly saying how important employees are in the end the real message is usually "If you don't like it here we will not do anything about it".

<comment><USER13> Yep. One thing that will drive me absolutely up the wall is feeling ignored. I know that I will not always agree with everything my employer does: that's fine. But there is (to me) nothing more demoralizing than having my company make a decision I don't agree with while ignoring or openly dismissing employee feedback about it. If you're getting feedback from employees that they disagree, at least acknowledge it and explain the (real, not market- speak) reasons for the decision. Don't just brush it off.

Better yet, if you make a decision and get a lot of blow-back on it, sit and consider whether it's really the right thing to do. Not every decision is the right one, and the willingness to back up and say, "Yes, you're right: that wasn't the right approach, let's try this instead" (or even just "we hear you and we're reconsidering this decision in light of that") is the mark of a place I'd like to work for.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Why call it quitting? That's just an old world frame. a job should last a lifetime.

i rather think each project is a learning experience for both company & candidate.

i've had 200 jobs in my career. it's going great!

</comment><comment><USER20> This article is not about Employees, its about Managers withouth leader skills.

</comment><comment><USER21> The grass is always greener in the other side.

<comment><USER22> That's not always the only reason, `people leave managers, they don't leave companies for greener grass`

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Whenever I left the job I left it for following reasons:

1\. I realised that my employer is not even keeping my salary up with inflation. There was simple no periodic review process. No refresher equity or annual appraisal.

2\. I realised that my manager simply does not have a plan for me to evolve into a leader despite me taking initiative he is too scared that I might fail. If you wont let me take initiative and fail I am not going to get better. You cant learn swimming in a tea cup.

3\. Lying leaders. If your inherent revenue model is not based adding solid value to your customers who are doing their honest work you wont last long. The bubble eventually bursts. Honesty in leadership matter lot more than we think.

<comment><USER24> In 20+ years I have never had a manager with a plan for me</comment></comment>


Rory Sutherland on The Psychology of Advertising and more [audio] - <AUTHOR> http://theknowledgeproject.libsyn.com/rory-sutherland-on-the-psychology-of-advertising-complex-evolved-systems-reading-decision-making <comment><USER2> I am only 15m into this podcast, but I know I will enjoy it.

An executive at ad firm Ogilvy & Mather discusses the economic philosophy of advertising.

He refers to the best advertising as "the creation of intangible value from existing products/services." An example he gives is Apple making the public/market find value in interfaces and user experience, while other products in the category are judged by clock speed and similar technical specs. Or, it is a craft lager being judged by how it was created and the story behind the recipe, rather than just the taste.

"The biggest source of economic waste is when a great invention is marketed in the wrong way. It is like eating at a Michelin star restaurant where the dining room smells a little of sewage. It doesn't matter how damn good the food is; it's the context that makes the overall experience."

<comment><USER3> Rory Sutherland is a truly unique guy. I saw him speaking a few times while worked at a sister company, and was always impressed by his ability to pack so much information in his talks, and so eloquently. Plus, he's hilarious.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> From around the 1:03:00 mark:

       In advertising, we want people to do this thing.

       What prior stimuli will we need to get them to do it?

       People won't use moist lavatory paper! That's one

       of my totem obsessions, by the way. What the hell?

       I mean what is it about the West that thinks it's ok

       to wipe your ass with dry paper? We need Japanese

       toilets. If I were Trump that would be day *&^%ing

       one, ok...But for whatever reason, people don't

       really buy moist lavatory paper. So I've got to ask,

       as an advertising person: what prior conditions might

       make this more likely? Let's hypothesize a bit. You

       might say: actually it's the shelving! Because when

       you look at supermarket shelves, we instinctively

       derive social information from the relative

       prominence and proliferation of wet versus dry

       paper. There a ton of dry rolls stretching as far

       as the eye can see. On the top shelf, there are two

       meagre little packets of moist lavatory paper.

       That means its basically for perverts or people with

       abnormal medical conditions.

Basis of _Nudge_. Another book he recommends is _The Mating Mind: How Sexual Choice Shaped the Evolution of Human Nature_. As well as some of the "happiness literature" such as Meik Wiking's _The Little Book of Hygge: Danish Secrets to Happy Living_. So, feel free to trust your gut. But still employ split A/B tests!

</comment><comment><USER5> Sutherland makes strong cases for focusing on experience & the creation of perceived value especially as opposed to more purely engineering solutions. Recommend seeing Rory Sutherland's comments about supermodels and Chateau Petrus on the EuroRail

[https://www.ted.com/talks/rory_sutherland_sweat_the_small_st...](https://www.ted.com/talks/rory_sutherland_sweat_the_small_stuff/transcript?language=en)

[http://www.ted.com/talks/rory_sutherland_life_lessons_from_a...](http://www.ted.com/talks/rory_sutherland_life_lessons_from_an_ad_man.html)

[http://www.cyberfootprint.eu/rory-sutherland-perspective- is-...](http://www.cyberfootprint.eu/rory-sutherland-perspective-is- everything/)

</comment><comment><USER6> I absolutely love Rory Sutherlands talks on Behavioral Economics, you can find excellent talks of his on youtube. Hes great at explaining on how to think in different ways. Excellent for people looking to learn about alternative viewpoints to things.</comment>


Construction of Dakota access pipeline will stop - <AUTHOR> http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc-news/watch/construction-of-dakota-access-pipeline-will-stop-824491587812 <comment><USER2> Here is a text article (not a fan of 4 minute video news stories): [http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo- way/2016/12/04/504354503/...](http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo- way/2016/12/04/504354503/army-corps-denies-easement-for-dakota-access- pipeline-says-tribal-organization)

Lead sentence: "The Army Corps of Engineers has decided to deny a permit for the construction of a key section of the Dakota Access Pipeline."</comment>


Facebook is the new Google - <AUTHOR> http://vcmike.wordpress.com/2009/11/14/facebook-is-the-new-google/

<comment><USER2> Um no, because there is no University of Facebook, that is the ability to learn anything by Facebooking it.</comment>


Download any song from internet ( Material UI ) - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/sukeesh/Music-Downloader <comment><USER2> Nice work!</comment>


Google is officially 100% sun and wind powered – 3.0 gigawatts worth - <AUTHOR> https://electrek.co/2017/11/30/google-is-officially-100-sun-and-wind-powered-3-0-gigawatts-worth/ <comment><USER2> Great work.

Specifically, Google purchases 3 GW of renewable energy and sells it to the grid at a loss.[1] This isn't the same as being directly powered by renewables because they don't have to worry about time shifting supply and demand, which is often done using natural gas.

[1] cloud.google.com/environment/

<comment><USER3> A more important caveat is that it's only talking about their electricity usage, presumably people still drive to work in ICE cars, fly airplanes, ship devices around the world, the accounting for even just electricity usage can extend out to suppliers and suppliers of suppliers etc.

But it's still a very good thing and others should follow suit.

Also, can you show your working for them "selling at a loss". They generate renewable energy then sell the energy and keep the certificates that say it's renewable, those are both worth something. Are you saying they could have bought the certificates on the open market for less, because I don't think that's the case.

<comment><USER2> Google's report from 2013, cited from their blog, says that they resell electricity at a "slight net loss".[1]

I didn't compare to buying RECs. The point is that Google is 100% renewable voluntarily. While RECs may be worth some tax credits, it's obviously a net cost or else Facebook would also be 100% renewable.

That said, I'm fairly confident that Google's approach is more costly than just buying RECs because demand for RECs is not very high. Google doesn't buy RECs directly because they want stronger guarantees of additionality:

"Buying a few years' worth of RECs from a renewable project does not provide the stable and sizable cash stream that a renewable project developer needs to get financing to build new green power projects. In a PPA [power purchasing agreement], Google is agreeing to buy all the power from a project for many years. Google has, in effect, totally accepted the power price risk that the project owner would otherwise face—instead of taking the risk of selling into the power market on a short-term basis, Google is providing the seller with a guaranteed revenue stream for 20 years. This is something the developer can literally take to the bank. If we were to buy only the RECs, this would represent a fraction of the value of a typical power project,5 and would still leave the renewable developer to face the market risks of future energy prices, making it much harder for them to obtain financing for projects.

[1] [http://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrust...](http://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrusted_dlcp/cfz.cc/en/us/green/pdfs/renewable- energy.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> +1000.

[https://environment.google](https://environment.google)

TIL this is called "Corporate Renewable Energy Procurement". [https://www.google.com/search?q=Corporate+Renewable+Energy+P...](https://www.google.com/search?q=Corporate+Renewable+Energy+Procurement)

PPA: Power Purchase Agreement [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_purchase_agreement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_purchase_agreement)

</comment><comment> murph-almighty This is amazing, especially considering their cloud services. Powering an entire datacenter on renewable can NOT be easy.

Does Amazon have a similar initiative? Given their market share in the cloud and their widespread AZ's I imagine it'd be tricky.

edit: jk, apparently their energy needs are half that of Google and they're making headway. ([https://electrek.co/2017/10/19/amazon-wind- farm/](https://electrek.co/2017/10/19/amazon-wind-farm/))

<comment><USER5> I think your math on that last bit is off. The article states they have 1.2GW, which is somewhere between 40% and 50% of Amazon's power usage (started 2016 at 40%, expect to exit at 50%). That would peg 100% at somewhere between 2.4 and 3.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> > Google is officially off-setting 100% of its energy usage with either wind > or solar power.

A tad misleading, they are still reliant on fossil fuels but are offsetting it elsewhere. That said I think the congratulations are well deserved.

</comment><comment><USER7> that's almost just under one bitcoin...

[https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bitcoin-mining-energy- consumpti...](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bitcoin-mining-energy-consumption/) says miners use 29.05TWh annually, so [29.05TWh / (365 * 24)h] = 3.3GW

<comment><USER8> I'm confused, you mean that the bitcoin network takes 3.3GW or it takes 3.3GWh to mine one bitcoin? It seems that google takes the same electricity as the entire bitcoin network.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Now that's more than impressive, well done Google

</comment><comment><USER10> This is absolutely amazing.

</comment><comment><USER11> Why do they sell at loss? Is the energy they buy from the grid cheaper than the energy they buy from renewable sources?

And do they just make an exchange with the grid for the same amount of energy?

<comment><USER12> My guess is that sometimes it costs money to provide energy. I would imagine it has to do with supply and demand at that time.

[https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601221/texas-and- californ...](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601221/texas-and-california- have-too-much-renewable-energy/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I guess this is just their servers. How about from server to screen, this has to be a future aim ?

</comment><comment><USER14> Great Scott!

</comment><comment><USER15> so?

<comment><USER16> You do not find this amazing?

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is great progress, but there are still some significant low hanging fruit to consider. For example, the power it takes to display the all white background of the search and other top Google pages is significant. Changing that to black or partly black or some darker color could save amounts of energy that are hard to calculate and represent draw from all over the network.

<comment><USER18> The largest power drain in an LCD/LED screen is the backlight and that has to be running regardless of which color is being displayed. This would only benefit OLED screen (which doesn't have a normal backlight) which are pretty much only used on high-end phones and TVs. Unlikely to make a significant impact in energy use, and furthermore any amount of energy savings would likely be lost in the extra amount of black ink needed to print out pages.</comment></comment>


Someone will try to ruin your life. Make sure they fail. - mkr-hn http://bitoftech.mkronline.com/2011/08/18/someone-will-try-to-ruin-your-life-make-sure-they-fail/

<comment> mkr-hn I'm not sure if that Firefox plugin that sniffs gmail passwords even with HTTPS still works. But it's still good to use a VPN and make sure you're always using HTTPS.</comment>


European Space Agency (ESA.INT) Hacked – Full Disclosure - <AUTHOR> http://tinkode27.baywords.com/european-space-agency-esa-int-hacked-full-disclosure/

<comment><USER2> These are just account logins (and not "disclosure" on how the break-in was accomplished).

I see no real use in this other than to create havoc.

<comment><USER3> Agreed, so now a whole bunch of script kiddies have access to the root accounts on services from the ESA servers ? And they don't know it yet (given that it's sunday).. ?</comment></comment>


scryptauthlib (Go), my first open source library, criticism please - <AUTHOR> https://code.google.com/p/scryptauthlib/ <comment><USER2> Why not github? I am surprised to see any non-google employee actively putting new projects on sourceforge or google code. I've also seen 2-3 different people search for "thing that is open source and does XXX" on github exclusively. It is like doing a social media campaign for your business and ignoring Facebook. Serious question, not a troll.</comment>


Microsoft copied its new Windows Package Manager from AppGet, claims developer - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/28/21272964/microsoft-winget-windows-package-manager-appget-copied <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23331287](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23331287)

</comment><comment><USER3> _... Microsoft reaching out to him last year with interest in his work before going quiet and then launching its own winget rival._

Same old Microsoft tactics. That's exactly what Microsoft did with Stac Electronics' hard-drive compression software way, way back in the early 1990s. They got Stac to show them the software, stopped negotiations, then brought out their own DoubleSpace in MSDOS.

And people say that Microsoft is changed. Suckers!</comment>


Ask HN: Has Facebook turned off email notifications? - <AUTHOR> I am not a big Facebook user -- I rely on their email notifications feature so that I'm aware when someone sends me a message or event invitation.
Apparently sometime in the last few weeks, I stopped receiving email notifications of any kind.
(I checked the settings page for email notification; it was very cryptic and basically useless.)
Has anyone else experienced this? Is there any way to reenable it? <comment><USER2> The last email notification I got was yesterday. Apart from that I got a reminder about friends' birthdays today.

I notice that messages notifications for private message sent to me not longer include the content of the message. Instead I get the following "You'll need to use Messenger to see and respond to __* 's message. With Messenger, you can text and make voice and video calls for free."

</comment><comment><USER3> I have with some isolated exceptions stopped receiving email notifications since March 20. I have been reporting it multiple times a day every day since then and no significant improvement. I know it may sound useless, but I would urge anyone bothered by this to keep submitting via the report a problem feature on Facebook to try and get if fixed. In my case I am missing emails related to my job.

</comment><comment><USER4> The email alerts have never worked reliably for me. For messages they arrive a week later, if at all. And I regularly get emails telling me I have 50+ notifications, but there is actually just a few. It's been totally unreliable and random since I joined many years ago.

</comment><comment><USER5> I have been logged out of Facebook for a few weeks, and started receiving emails (trying to entice me to come back) that I hadn't previously. The latest one was April 15, 3:12 PM PST.

</comment><comment><USER6> Same issue here, worked months before but last few days really random.

</comment><comment><USER7> I think so</comment>


Oracle Says Co-CEO Mark Hurd Has Died - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/oracle-says-co-ceo-mark-hurd-has-died-11571414910?mod=rsswn <comment><USER2> Most comments moved to [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21292476](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21292476).

</comment><comment><USER3> I know this is slightly off-topic, but I find this headline to be extremely strange. Why not "Oracle Co-CEO Mark Hurd has Died"? Surely the news is his death, not the announcement?

<comment><USER4> good journalistic practice is to not report something as fact until it is independently verified. So in the online world with a rush to push the article, the headline has to reflect what they actually know ('oracle reported'). They will probably update the headline once they get confirmation.

<comment><USER5> A lot of times headlines use quotes to indicate that someone other than than the news org said it. But I wonder how many readers are barely literate and don't realize this.

In this case the headline could be;

Orace Co-CEO Mark Hurd 'has died'

<comment><USER6> That sounds a bit weird. That would imply the term 'has died' was somehow facetious or metaphorical.

<comment><USER7> Ah, scare quotes. How about:

Oracle: "Co-Ceo Mark Hurd Has Died"

<comment><USER8> This is better than the title?

Why?

<comment><USER9> Because the subject of the title is Oracle, while the subject of the suggested title is Mark Hurd.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> [http://archive.is/rJnbu](http://archive.is/rJnbu)</comment>


Strange light on Mars - <AUTHOR> http://m.sfgate.com/news/strange-weird/article/NASA-photo-captures-strange-bright-light-coming-5382677.php

<comment><USER2> With such a thin atmosphere, why would a light shining upwards be visible from the side? For a light to be visible laterally like this, you'd need atmosphere for a scattering effect and a _very_ bright light. A light pointing upwards from the surface of Mars should only be visible to something looking downwards.

Concluding that it's intelligent life "using lights as we do" is just a wild claim with no backing. From the evidence it's pretty obvious that it's a holographic projection sent backwards in time from humans in the future.

<comment><USER3> Classic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Seeing as how the other camera on the rover did not capture this "light" (as seen clearly in this GIF: [http://i.imgur.com/LQa9PLU.gif](http://i.imgur.com/LQa9PLU.gif)) it seems pretty safe to assume that this is just an artifact caused by a temporary glitch on one of the cameras.

Here are the two source images taken at the same time by the rover's two cameras:

[http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw- images/proj/msl/redops/ods/...](http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw- images/proj/msl/redops/ods/surface/sol/00589/opgs/edr/ncam/NLB_449790582EDR_F0310000NCAM00262M_.JPG)

[http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw- images/proj/msl/redops/ods/...](http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw- images/proj/msl/redops/ods/surface/sol/00589/opgs/edr/ncam/NRB_449790582EDR_F0310000NCAM00262M_.JPG)

But of course disreputable "news" sites bring in a UFO enthusiast as their source for a quote about the possibility that there is intelligent life below the surface.

</comment><comment><USER5> This is most likely because I know absolutely nothing about space exploration but I found the line below to be the most interesting piece in the article. (because as posted already, I'll just chalk this "strange light" up as a photographic anomaly.)

> "Arrival at this location means Curiosity has driven 3.8 miles since August > 2012, when it landed inside Mars' Gale Crater."

It's crazy for me to think about this in comparison to Earth. Imagine somebody dropping a robot on Earth before any known life and trying to make sensible conclusions about what the entire planet was like by only exploring 3.8 miles...

</comment><comment><USER6> The guy the article quotes is quite a character.

From his post:

 _" Sure NASA could go and investigate it, but hey, they are not on Mars to discovery life, but there to stall its discovery."_

On a related note, I recently discovered that YouTube is a hotbed of dedicated quackery.

The amount of effort put into some of the "updates" and the odd intersections of religion, pseudoscience and misinterpretations of actual science are fascinating.

One of my favorite podcasts "The Skeptics Guide to the Universe" [0] does a good job of keeping abreast of and debunking some of the popular trends in wackiness.

0: [https://www.theskepticsguide.org/](https://www.theskepticsguide.org/)

</comment><comment><USER7> Why are the 8 photos they show just zooms/crops/edits of the first? Until there's another photo from a different viewpoint or some sort of official statement, I'm chalking it up to a photographic artifact. Occam's razor, people.

<comment><USER8> Yes, this is a complete non-event, probably a radiation artifact in the sensor. The following photos were taken at the same time by the left and right navigation camera, respectively, and only the latter shows the bright spot.

[http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/raw/?rawid=NLB_44979...](http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/raw/?rawid=NLB_449790582EDR_F0310000NCAM00262M_&s=589)

[http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/raw/?rawid=NRB_44979...](http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/raw/?rawid=NRB_449790582EDR_F0310000NCAM00262M_&s=589)

Images digged up by redditor CurtisLeow at [http://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/22g13b/rover_captures...](http://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/22g13b/rover_captures_what_appears_to_be_some_sort_of/cgmxux9)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I misread "This could indicate there there is intelligent life below the ground and uses light as we do," Waring wrote on his website. "This is not a glare from the sun, nor is it an artifact of the photo process." as being a statement from NASA and not from some random UFO web site.

</comment><comment><USER10> Motel 6 really _is_ everywhere.

</comment><comment><USER11> _clearly_ the tardis.</comment>


British Atlantis: archaeologists begin exploring lost world of Doggerland - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/environment/archaeology/11836627/British-Atlantis-archaeologists-begin-exploring-lost-world-of-Doggerland.html

<comment><USER2> And there was me thinking Doggerland was in a car park near Slough.

</comment><comment><USER3> Hey, that's where my Maternal mDNA haplotype group has the highest density!

H1 represent!

Some real background about it: [http://www.luxegen.ca/genealogy/deep-ancestry- our-maternal-l...](http://www.luxegen.ca/genealogy/deep-ancestry-our-maternal- line/)

<comment><USER4> Huh? Wrong thread maybe?

<comment><USER5> How would this be the wrong thread?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Very interesting but it seems that to fully explore this and other similar sites they will need to develop underwater robots that are capable of doing underwater what archeologists do on land.

</comment><comment><USER7> Why is it trying to download HTML files when opening in Chrome?

<comment><USER8> Technical answer without looking would be that either they're sending the data as an octet stream or Chrome is interpreting it as such. Works for me, go figure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Atlantis is a place of centuries-old legend that may or may not exist in some unknown location.

Doggerland is an area under the sea that no-one had heard of until some archaeologists hypothesised about it at the beginning of the 20th Century.

The title "British Atlantis" would be more appropriate for somewhere like Lyonesse.

</comment><comment><USER10> Does this history have anything to do with Neal Stephenson's inspiration for Qwghlm?

<comment><USER11> I don't think so - that's more based on the Hebrides, with a hint of Faeroes mixed in. Doggerland is in the North Sea, not the North Atlantic, so while an alternate history leaving a few sghrs as remnants of the ancient Doggerland would give him a plausible alternate source for an extra island in the British Isles, the location's wrong (although maybe you could argue Inner Qwghlm is a bit more like a kind of Lindisfarne analog, so... maybe...)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Pretty nationalistic of the newspaper to call it British. It borders most nations of the southern part of the North Sea.

<comment><USER13> There's an easy way to solve this. Does it have a flag?

I believe that if not then it's part of Britain by default. No flag, no country.

/with apologies to Eddie Izzard.</comment></comment>


Intel iAPX 432: The Architecture That Could Have Replaced x86 - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IAPX_432

<comment><USER2> This Wikipedia article contains significant historical errors. The 432 was to replace the 8080. The x86 was designed to fill the need for a 16-bit processor when it became obvious that the 432 had problems, performance among them.</comment>


Great example of used-car-salesmanship video - <AUTHOR> http://myownfortune.wordpress.com/2012/09/28/used-car-salesmanship/

<comment><AUTHOR> I'd link to the video itself, but I wanted to write commentary on what's so amazing about it and the FAQ instructed me to blog about it and link to the blog.

If this is considered bad form, tell me and I'll resubmit the video only.</comment>


How You Get Hundreds Of Twitter Followers In Days - <AUTHOR> http://brenthalliburton.com/get-twitter-followers-fast/

<comment><USER2> When I see a Twitter account that is following hundreds or thousands of others I immediately discount their value.

Oftentimes I find these accounts when they follow me, hoping for a follow back, which I see as an abuse of the New Follower notification system and tantamount to spamming.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree, as I said in the article, I felt the same way, but they don't really "see" this information in the suggested followers lists. I suspect that might be why it seemed to make no difference. I could be wrong. Or maybe the people following me are less discerning.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I like that this is playing into the algorithm, rather than playing into the automation machine.

<comment><AUTHOR> At least that is what I suspect. I was surprised by how few "hey, that guy just followed you back" messages I got.</comment></comment>


Entrepreneurs, not investors, kill startups - <AUTHOR> http://mystartuphas30daystolive.tumblr.com/post/54097344851/entrepreneurs-not-investors-kill-startups <comment><USER2> When I read things like "it was teaching me to be an opportunist rather than a visionary" and "I thought that I could try to disrupt an industry" I can't help but think that there's more to this story than just an inability to stick to one's guns.

I empathize with the author, and I have no doubt that in retrospect he may have legitimate reason to question the quality of at least some of the advice he received from his investors, but at the same time, in my experience, most successful businesses aren't built by those _trying_ to be visionaries and disrupt industries either.

<comment><USER3> I think that the word visionary gets taken to mean, someone who can see and gap in a market/process/product and fill it. Rather than, someone who has a vision and is driven to see it through to completion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I have to admit I learned something here: getting investors can be just as bad for the business itself as many acquisitions, and it's much worse for the founders.

In my opinion, if you're sitting on a profitable company, with a sustainable lifestyle, in a market that really can continue to expand, keep others out unless they let you put 10 years' profits in your own pocket first.

</comment><comment><USER5> It is quite important to realize before taking angel money that angels are like VCs in one important respect - they need a liquid exit of some kind within a few years, generally via an acquisition. This may not be what you had in mind for your future if you want to build a lasting standalone company. Have a conversation with prospective angels at some point and discuss this scenario. Ways you could make it work for them in the absence of a liquid exit are via dividend payments when your company is sufficiently cash flow positive, or by buying some/all of their share outright when you can afford to do that.

Once angels are ok with that, they'll be less likely to give you colored advice which may be oriented (even if just subconciously) towards getting your company sold pronto.

</comment><comment><USER6> When my startup went down, I felt i was left alone, I felt betrayed by everyone, including cofounders and investors, even more so than this guy. But here's what I did: I shut up and spent most of my time making sure my co- founders and employees suffer the least. I really don't get the point of anonymously broadcasting your rant about your own team and the investors. That's not cool.

</comment><comment><USER7> this guy has a lot of time on his hands for someone who has 30 days to save their business.

<comment><USER8> I think 'crashing into the ground' indicates it's a done deal. No saving is possible, so what's left is talking about it. I'm thankful for that much, at least.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's incredible how many successful entrepreneurs have become followers, think the latest trends are the ones on techcrunch etc.

There are very few entrepreneurs left who still think for themselves and are in for the interest of others and not for themselves.

The vast majority has become what investors have been forever, followers.

</comment><comment><USER10> Interesting argument. I guess he's trying to emphasize the importance of selecting the right investor/ accelerator. Many startups see VC investment as confirmation of what they are doing is right (thanks to all the media hype) after which they may tend to forget basic principles.

</comment><comment><USER11> These are interesting, but for some reason they read a little too much like AA self help books. Perhaps because it's difficult to be informative and vague at the same time.

</comment><comment><USER12> Can we keep these off of HN ? They're whiny, sensationalist drivel that's the opposite of the hacker ideals the HN community was started on.

<comment><USER13> Hacker ideals? Really? Sharing experiences is fundamental in building knowledge and anticipating the future. I enjoy these 'whiny, sensationalist drivel' because as a coFounder of a noob startup I don't hear enough of failed/failing startups. Instead all I hear is 'chest pounding howls' on why it's so cool to do a startup, seek VCs, join an incubator and make a killer exit. I welcome a different story. Especially a story everyone can learn from.

<comment><USER14> Completely agree.</comment></comment></comment>