Workers Are Fleeing Big Cities for Small Ones, and Taking Their Jobs with Them - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/workers-are-fleeing-big-cities-for-small-onesand-taking-their-jobs-with-them-11567848600?mod=rsswn <comment><USER3> I'm not sure that it makes sense to group Boise with the other cities they mention (Austin, Denver, Portland, Indianapolis, etc.). Boise has less than half the population of Raleigh which I think is the next least populated of the cities that they mention.

In addition, while this is much more subjective, most of those cities seem to share a similar "cultural prestige"/influence as compared to other large cities like Columbus, Jacksonville, etc.

It seems to me that a more accurate description is that people are moving from the most expensive and culturally prestigious cities to slightly less expensive and culturally prestigious cities. It doesn't sound to me like they are moving to what people generally think of as "small cities".

<comment><USER4> Taxes. State income tax. This can be as high as 9.0% (CA or NY). That is insane. If you make 100k, the state could take 9k a year. In some states that will cover your _entire_ mortgage on a _house_. I love CA or NY, but FL, TX, NV, etc have NO state income tax. ID is awesome, but 7% taxes is no go.

<comment><USER5> That isn't necessarily a robust analysis of cost trade offs. A good example of how this can be inaccurate is Texas which has a reputation as a relatively low tax state, but in order to fund its considerable road network levies extremely high property taxes which in turn trigger higher rents than might be expected. New Hampshire has a similar situation with low taxes being made up for with high property taxes which pay the cost of rebuilding the roads which are ripped up seasonally by frost heaves and geologic activity.

Ultimately people demand basic services which have to be paid for. Eliminating one source of funding may reduce the overall burden but more likely simply shifts funding.

<comment><USER6> Extremely high relative to what? Houston's property tax rate is half of San Francisco's, and a bit lower than where I am in suburban Maryland.

<comment><USER7> No it's not? Property taxes on a home in the Houston area will range from 2.3% to 3% of the appraised value per year. That includes improvements on land and it's not prevented from rising every year with the value of the house.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I just moved out of SF and went remote. It's pretty awesome. Living there was fun but also stressful and inconvenient especially with kids.

I didn't even lose my "walkability" you can find that in many places if you choose the right neighborhood. In fact kind of improves if you factor in not worrying about getting mugged or accosted by homeless crazies.

My large home in one of the top planned communities in the nation costs me just under the shack I rented in the east bay.

<comment><USER9> Same here.

My wife and I lived in SF for close to five years. We wanted to have four kids and well, that would have been a nightmare in the city.

So we moved back home to family in Lincoln, NE. We now have four kids, live in a great school district and I've continued to consult with startups.

[https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimjones2/](https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimjones2/)

P.S. First year of being completely remote was fantastic. Fifth year? Really lonely..

<comment><USER10> Is there some equivalent of a WeWork, where you can socialize with others? How are the coffee shops?

<comment><USER10> Baffled by the downvotes... why? Are there better social alternatives for the long workdays?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Single data point here, but I moved back to my hometown after leaving NYC about 5 years ago, I work remotely, and I will never go back. Quality of life massively better.

Always fun when recruiters reach out. Many simply can't believe someone wouldn't want to move back to a bigger city in return for a much higher paycheck (which I politely explain is effectively less money than I make now, due to costs of living).

<comment><USER12> HN yesterday: suburbs are evil! Drain on society! Move to the cities!

HN today: hey you guys know you can get 2700sq ft on 2 acres for half of what your studio costs right?

<comment><USER13> If you're living in a suburb and working remotely, it's a pretty good deal. You're not burning gas to get to work and you get to enjoy some space.

I think the biggest evil of suburbs is the commute. I think part of the reason there's no social activity in suburbs is because, honestly, who wants to do anything after spending an hour in traffic after getting off your 8-5 job and knowing you need to be out the door by 6:30 the next day?

<comment><USER14> > there's no social activity in suburbs

I find that hard to believe.

<comment><USER15> It's literally not zoned for it. Change the zoning laws to at least allow for a local pub or coffee shop in the middle of a residential area, that would be a positive step in the right direction IMHO.

<comment><USER16> I mean I kind of agree with your point about zoning but you realize that your chosen examples make you look like a single, childless 20something and thus somewhat out of touch with what a lot of people consider socializing?

I don't like to suburbs either but I'm currently visiting my brother who lives in one. Their socializing is kids basketball & soccer games at the park (which suburbs are zoned for), picnics at the local greenway (also zoned for), and swimming in the community pool. All of which are walking distance.

Not to mention, you know, inviting people over to their house because it isn't a tiny 400 square foot apartment. They make dinner for friends and watch football on the porch.

<comment> vertex-four OK, here's a question - you say "tiny apartment", but is that really all that exists in the US? In the UK, there's a rather large amount of 2 and 3 bed flats - the one I'm living in is nearly 800 square feet, not unreasonably priced, and we can fit more people than we can reasonably organise to be available at one time.

There's also three parks within 10 minutes' walk, more a short bus ride away, and multiple shops and cafes surrounding us. And we're about 15 minutes by bus from the city centre.

Just saying... the issues the US seems to have with cities seem to mostly be a result of lack of caring about them, not inherent properties of cities.

<comment><USER17> Typical apartments in the US seem to be around 700-800 square feet, with one or two bedrooms, so not "tiny". These may or may not be located in walkable neighborhoods or with easy access to city center, it depends on the city. As an anecdote in Seattle, which is better at this than most cities, I have a one bedroom flat that is almost 1200 square feet and can walk to everything except the airport, for which there is public transit. Not unreasonably priced, though not inexpensive either. There are dozens of bars, restaurants, cafes, etc within a few blocks as well as several shops of all types.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I live in Sweden and I did the same. Moved back to the community I came from when we got our son. Got rid of the commute and we got a house that's 2x as big for, I kid you not, 1/10th of the price.

In fact our expenses fell so much I could even start working 60%, and we had about as much money left as before.

There are trade-offs. There are no restaurants except fast food, there is no martial arts training I used to do, there are no boardgame clubs and it's much harder to get friends. But if you can get through that economically it's a ridiculously beneficial thing to do (given you can get a job of course).

<comment><USER19> What about education and health ? I mean even moving out of the big city in UK you are going to see very variable schooling and hospital coverage?

<comment><USER20> In the U.S., moving from the city to the suburbs is probably the best thing you can do to ensure decent public schooling. For instance, a recent list of top ranked public high schools from US News and World Report:

        Academic Magnet High School, South Carolina
        Maine School of Science and Mathematics
        BASIS Scottsdale, Arizona
        Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, Virginia
        Central Magnet School, Tennessee
        Gwinnett School of Mathematics, Science and Technology, Georgia
        Haas Hall Academy, Arkansas
        International Academy of Macomb, Michigan
        Payton College Preparatory High School, Illinois
        Signature School, Indiana

<comment><USER21> Be _very_ careful with that list. Those are specialized, highly competitive schools. What puts them on that list as opposed to Oklahoma School of Science and Math or North Carolina School of Science and Math is that the latter are boarding schools that serve their whole state. These are schools that serve the same role but only allow people in from their county (e.g., Alexandria County for Thomas Jefferson).

Also, US News and World Report rankings are useless. They're a measure solely of prestige and brand, not of any actual quality of education.

I'm not saying your wrong. I'm just saying that this data doesn't support your point.

<comment><USER22> Unless things have changed, Thomas Jefferson lets in people in other counties as well (ie fairfax county).

<comment><USER21> They must have changed that since 2005 when I was dealing with their graduates. It certainly wasn't open to me earlier on when I was a high schooler elsewhere in Virginia.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> > She and her husband, who have two children, bought a house in the Boise area > after renting in L.A. It is twice as big as their old place, but the monthly > payments are half as much as their L.A. rent. There was also enough room for > her mother to move in.

2x the space for 1/2 the price. Our remote-working future cannot come quick enough.

<comment><USER24> It this price disparity will only last as far as the demand for these areas stays low. As the demand from remote workers fleeing large cities grows, so will the prices. See Austin for an illustration of rapid gentrification due to migration.

<comment><USER25> There is a lot of open space in the United States. Time to plan and build the next Austin.

<comment><USER26> Indeed, there is a lot of open space. When you look at why Austin has the appeal for high tech industry, I think it largely was/is based on University of Texas and their strong record in computer engineering. This caused companies like IBM, Motorola, Samsung, etc. to locate there.

It takes decades to build out another such city from scratch. I'm not arguing that it shouldn't be done, just that it doesn't happen quickly.

<comment><USER25> IMO the hardest part is convincing people to be part of such a task because they have self-reinforcing loops like workers go where jobs are, companies go where talent is.

Maybe time for a Kickstarter for cities?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> When I lived in Raleigh/Durham back in 2011, I bumped into John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats at a coffee shop. We chatted for a few minutes and he said that he hears a lot of people say that Durham is the Brooklyn of the south, but he doesn't buy it. He thinks (and I agreed) that it has its own charm, its own vibe and its own identity, and that people are trying to make it into something it's not.

That's to say, I think you're absolutely right - people want to move to these places cause they perceive them as little Brooklyns or little Seattles. They have the sensibilities and prestige of those places, but not the crowds or the cost.

<comment><USER28> Durham is very nice but prices have skyrocketed since around 2015. Apartments downtown went from 1500 to 3000 monthly, for example.

<comment><USER29> This is happening in just about every decently-sized city. Demand has gone up, but very little new housing stock is being built.

<comment><USER30> That and Berkshire Hathaway is buying up homes at an impressive rate and then driving up the rental costs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> IME people move out of big cities when they get into their late 20s / 30s, when the joy of exploration of what a big city has to offer starts to wane compared with the ease of living life in a comfy groove, when you know what you want and it's available without putting up with everything else that a big city pushes on you - high prices, high rents, crowds, long commutes.

I don't think this means that young people are going to stop coming to cities.

<comment><USER32> Living in a big city is amazing if you are young and single (or maybe newly married and still in the urban mindset).

There are enormous benefits to many young people, lots of things to do, all in a small area.

But inevitably goals or expectations change (or the number of dependents increases) and it's time to move to the suburbs or the country.

You WILL give up things moving to the country, but if you don't care about or prioritize those things, it's ok.

Cities traditionally suck as far as housing/cost of living, crime and some recreation.

But I think they might have access to better jobs, transportation/airports, health care and nightlife/museums/venues/etc

And good weather might correlate to higher housing costs (think california here)

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I took a pay cut to work remotely in Asheville, NC (about the most remote, stable, infrastructure-enabled city I could find next to Chattanooga, TN) and while the community was great and living costs were much cheaper, this kind of plan was still wishful thinking because unless...

1\. you stay remote (read: can handle work != social structure)

2\. your spouse's employment situation is also accommodating

3\. your community doesn't decline due to the brain drain / job drain problem of areas outside major metro centers

So you need to be resistant and resilient to the downsides of living away from so many techies.

<comment><USER34> Funny you mention Asheville and Chattanooga. I'm currently working at one of the large tech companies in the Bay Area, but if I ever take a remote job, those are the top two cities I would move to.

<comment><USER35> I'm surprised more folks aren't moving to those areas. I can see them being the next Boulder.

<comment><USER33> I knew about the Denver area's potential at the time but the high real estate prices were a problem. Part of my objective was to get years ahead of a big boom and save money before it got too bad, and I managed to do that fine in Asheville. The region has a lot of the same issues as smaller towns in the US without any industries to accelerate its growth besides craft beer and tourism. The healthcare industry is entirely because of the massive retiree population that are typically snowbirds that don't contribute to state and county taxes besides property taxes, so its everyday population is starved for government resources relative to its size while it has the highest property values in NC (well, it was until 2016 last I saw). So basically Buncombe County was the lowest earning but most expensive part of NC to live in - <USER2> is not a recipe for sustainable growth. I really liked the community and it was a really good place to live if you could afford it. Chattanooga is much better off in comparison although I'm curious about how it's done at attracting a sustained tech industry almost a decade after its investments.

<comment><USER34> It sounds like you moved away from Asheville and stopped working remotely. Do you still work in tech in the South?

<comment><USER33> I was in Atlanta for a few years afterward (not my choice honestly) and wound up back in a much better situation and same location than I started before my move to Asheville. It was a humbling experience that I may not have gotten if I had stayed in the DC region, which also was never my preference either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Bend, Oregon is apparently the remote work capital of the US, according to statistics compiled by one of the Oregon state economists who - it turns out - works remotely from Bend rather than in Salem or Portland.

IDK... I've done remote work too, but I now have a job in an office and it makes me happier to be around other people, and to be able to chat about stuff in a higher bandwidth way.

<comment><USER37> I've experienced both remote work from another state in a house I owned and working in the company office in Manhattan for extended periods. Working in the office was massively better for my daily mood and mental health than working at home all the time. Just little things like getting up to go get an afternoon coffee with the people I work with.

When I worked at home sometimes I wouldn't even leave the house for two or three days at time.

<comment><USER36> I started going to the store every day just to have something to do to go out. My wife was like "NO, we don't need anything!" until she kind of got why.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> The infrastructure in many big cities is so broken, daily existence is kind of painful. I live in Austin which isn't really even that big of a city but the infrastructure is so poor that commuting anywhere is very painful and there are a lot of road rage incidents as a result. Unless you live downtown there is no walkability and if you live downtown you need to work downtown. The public transit system is laughable. We have a metro rail that doesn't run after 6 and doesn't run on Sundays.

<comment><USER39> Many voters, unfortunately, appear to prefer broken infrastructure: [https://www.statesman.com/news/20180512/wear-austins- light-r...](https://www.statesman.com/news/20180512/wear-austins-light-rail- backers-ponder-thumbs-down-vote-in-nashville)

<comment><USER38> Yeah there are a lot of NIMBY's here. They don't want to make the sacrifices necessary to make the city better.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I dont think I could ever move back to the midwest. Spent a couple years in columbus and that city gets old pretty fast. Either you pay 1.3k a month to drink in a 4 story apartment complex with thin walls and a pool closed for 8 months of the year, or you live out in white bread suburban hell until you are in hospice care. Not for me.

Where I'm at now is probably the most multicultural city in the americas. You see signs in all kinds of languages on a daily bases. Neighborhoods actually have striking character. There are interests I have here that I could never pursue in any other city. There's also the weed, the weather, the fact that ambitious transit is actively being built, and, my god, the FOOD. My ashes will be scattered across the santa monica mountains.

<comment><USER41> > or live out in white bread suburban hell until you are in hospice care

Funny how 95% of world population would be ecstatic about moving there, yet you describe it as hell.

<comment><USER42> Feels like a pretty drastic over estimation.

<comment><USER41> US is one of the very few places in the world where most people live in their own house, even if it's in "hellish" suburbs. Outside of US, even in first world countries, most people live in flats. Also, majority of world population live in flat out third world countries, and for them, moving to a "boring" (safe, clean, reasonably well designed, consisting of polite/civilized people, having working, high-quality infrastructure etc. etc.) US suburb would be a huge improvement.

<comment><USER42> > Outside of US, even in first world countries, most people live in flats

That's where the overestimation comes in. You assume people are miserable and would rather live in a ridiculous house and have to take a car to go do anything.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I suppose one interesting question is if some of these cities that are highly attractive to remote workers will gather up a large enough concentration of them that they will start to get hired locally there. (Or perhaps this is even happening already?) If I was in charge of economic development in one of those areas I'd certainly want to look into what might encourage that local→remote→local transition to take place.

<comment><USER44> I believe Austin has started to benefit from this trend.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Definitely happening here in Boston with people choosing to live in Portland, ME and Providence, RI. Both great places to live with a much lower cost of living. The commute is somewhat do-able from Providence. It's a great deal if you can get the Boston salary and make the remote/semi-remote life work.

<comment><USER46> Yeah, Boston area housing prices will be the death NH/ME/RI. Considering how culturally incompatible the Boston area is with NH and ME I feel really bad for the people of those states who get to see their states turned into MA- Lite.

<comment><USER47> Portland, ME is just far enough from Boston that it's not feasible to do any regular commute unless you really, really want to live there.

<comment><USER48> This is _very_ true. I commuted from Newburyport MA (20 minutes south of Portsmouth NH) to Boston by bus for a few years. (My other option was MBTA commuter rail, which was further from my house and ran into North Station, which was farther from work.) The bus ride was routinely 1 hour 20 minutes, so add another 20 to get to Portsmouth.

(Edit: I've also done the Providence, RI to Boston commute, by rail, which was just over an hour typically.

Don't forget that commuting works well when your job is near free parking/train/bus. It gets pretty bad when you have to add another 20 minute subway wait/ride in once in town...)

<comment><USER49> Damn dude how was it possible that the MBTA was further than driving all the way up to Portsmouth? The Newburyport commuter rail station is dead center of town. Was this before they opened the station up there?

<comment><USER48> Sorry if I wasn't clear. The bus runs Portsmouth NH -> Newburyport, MA -> South Station. (No drive to Portsmouth necessary.)

The train is on the Newburyport/Newbury town line, so not _quite_ the center of town... but that's a quibble. Parking for the train isn't free either, and tickets cost more than the bus. The busses run more frequently too (they're smaller, so it's like breaking one big train into pieces.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> It's harder to get a remote job. There are more non remote jobs than remote. So if you're looking for a job, you have a set of 3 choices, remote only, non remote or both. Moving when you have a remote job is cool, but if things get tough say in an economy downturn and you need a new job. You might find that it's more difficult to get another remote job. If you moved to a location without much jobs, you are going to put yourself in a difficult bind. If you bought a house, tougher!

<comment><USER51> I solved this problem for myself years ago: make your own job. May not pay as well for a bit, but every dollar is portable.

<comment><USER52> Out of curiosity what do you do? If you don't want to share that's fine, but I also wish to do the same however have not found something to solve/make yet.

<comment><USER51> Literally the most boring thing you would ever think of which has tons of competitors. I sell it to big companies who don't mind spending $1K/year on it (h/t to Joel on software for this tip)

If you want to do it, then find some product that exists, that you like, copy and tweak.

<comment><USER52> > h/t to Joel on software for this tip

Is that Joel Spolsky? Man I miss the SO podcast.

I can't think of what it is you do but thanks for your response. That's a good tip about existing product(existing market).

<comment><USER51> Yes Joel spolsky. Go read his essays, classic stuff

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> Canadian datapoint here. I used to expend every cent living in whatever crappy rental I could find in Vancouver. Moved to a tiny island community six years ago and now work remote one of two days a week to cut the commute down.

I have deer walking in my yard and 20 square miles of untouched forest to hike in directly where I live. Our internet provider recently upgraded service to 1Gbps, so video conferencing is snappy and glitch-free.

Many of my employees are making similar moves. One moved to a mountain town about an hour outside of the city. Another moved to a seaside village.

This is clearly the future, brought to us by the vast improvements in remote work infrastructure such as Slack and Zoom.

</comment><comment><USER48> > ... [W]orkers tend to spread out geographically during an economic cycle's > later stages, economists say, raising questions about how these cities will > fare in a downturn. Workers are usually more confident—and employers more > lenient—when the economy has been flourishing.

> In 2017, some 5.3% of adults in metro areas of between 500,000 and three > million people worked from home, a rough proxy for remote workers. That was > up from 3.7% a decade earlier...

It'll be interesting to see whether these workers will be able to maintain their "big city" salaries over time, and how they'll fare in a economic downturn (e.g. they'll be far away from "most" jobs in their sector.)

<comment><USER54> I work mostly remotely from a small town outside a mid size city that has a satellite office for a company based in a big city. I get the big city salary for now, but I'm operating on the assumption that the gravy train will stop at some point. I'm OK with that tradeoff.

</comment></comment><comment> non-entity As someone who lives in a small city (120k city pop ~800k metro pop) I'm still looking to move to larger one for an number of reasons. Most of probably due to my specific niche issues and likely arent important at all (for example early 20s, I cant drive, lowering my quality of life, etc.)

But one big one is networking. I've been told by people trying to get into larger tech companies that the only way to get in as an experienced professional is referrals. Living in a larger tech hub opens up so much more potential for networking and career growth that I just cant get here.

</comment><comment><USER55> This is a good thing, whilst centralisation of workforce has it's upsides, it has in many places exceeded that balance with many negative impacts. Whilst these are small steps, for those removed from the overheads of a delayed saturated comute and associated impacts upon health. Equally, one less commuter, helps reduce that saturation and crowing with associated delays, might even be that per person we are only talking a nanosecond level of scale. But when you have many of these small reductions in saturation, and those gains project across a larger scale. You end up with slightly better air quality, slightly less health impacts, slightly less delays.

Hopefully this is a trend that tractions as many roles can be shifted in this way and improve quality of life overall.

On the flip-side, will we see large corporation office space shifted into the virtual World? Will signs start appearing in offices "Will the last one to relocate, please not turn off this server". Maybe.

But the ability to use up an area and then move on, expand and repeat the process has been one trait humans share with many biological organisms. Is this just nature at play thru adaption to the environment,on some level - I'd say yes.

<comment><USER56> What's the environmental impact of this? Won't this use up way more land and be in general much less efficient?

<comment><USER55> For many instances - no as you are just removing that long commute. Many places have high priced area's that people commute to from a great distance. In those cases you are removing the commute. For those moving into the countryside, unless your building new houses - your not using up more land. Just shifting and also removing the need for new housing in dense area's, so protecting green spaces were they are more needed.

But any swing one way or another can shift that balance. You can look at the extreme of people all shifting to the countryside that the countryside itself becomes a town, a city.... But things tends to balance out.

After all, in many area's we are seeing the demise of high street shopping, is that a good or bad thing. But I'm sure many do not want to live in stacked up boxes so small as so they are barely affordable and all other activities reduced to door delivery. Though in many area's, that is kinda what people have already.

Then the whole aspect of the population not getting any smaller and such shifts will be more than offset by population expansion.

<comment><USER57> You aren't really removing the commute. You're replacing the work commute with the grocery/social life/needs etc commute. Which is also far less efficient on a community-level because those smaller towns and suburbs have to be strongly subsidized in order to maintain infrastructure that far fewer people use. Not to mention that by working remote you're also starving those small towns of business growth opportunities by having it be centralized in another state, which means paying for new infrastructure is much harder especially given how tax-averse Americans tend to be.

<comment><USER58> Citation? My small town is not subsidized by anybody, far as I know.

<comment><USER57> Where does the funding for new infrastructure come from? Hospitals? Public services such as police or firefighters? Libraries, if your town has any? Or how about schools?

This money comes from the federal government, gets distributed down to the state level which then gets distributed out to the various cities and localities depending on need [1]. A lot of these towns are given grants or loans from the USDA in order to fund various improvements [2].

[1] [https://www.governing.com/topics/finance/gov-state- budgets-f...](https://www.governing.com/topics/finance/gov-state-budgets- federal-funding-2015-2018-trump.html)

[2] [https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/7/1/my-journey- from...](https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/7/1/my-journey-from-free- market-ideologue-to-strong-towns-advocate)

<comment><USER58> We build our own in Iowa. Not sure how that works elsewhere. We build our excellent secondary road system (access to every section in Iowa for agricultural purposes). We build our hospitals. Our library was a local bond issue.

And our schools! A new bond issue every few years for schools for a growing population.

And lets forget the myth that 'federal funding' is free, or come from somewhere else. It comes from us.

<comment><USER57> Federal funding mostly comes from the states with the highest economic activity. Unless you're disputing that states with higher number of individuals and economic activity doesn't correlate with more taxes paid to the federal government.

And on the iowa website itself [1] I can see the grants and federal funding used by the state government. My point being that if the more rural cities were required to pay for everything themselves, they would not be able to.

[1] [https://iowadot.gov/transit/funding-programs-and- application...](https://iowadot.gov/transit/funding-programs-and- applications/funding-programs)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> There is another dynamic at play, not mentioned in the article: the smaller cities are actively trying to become better places to live. Here's a nice writeup: [https://annehelen.substack.com/p/this-land-is-your- land](https://annehelen.substack.com/p/this-land-is-your-land)

Quoting from that blog post:

""Cool," which is to say, a certain type of bourgeois, with a certain aesthetic that unites it with larger cities while still maintaining a feeling of quaintness. In Tulsa, for example, there's a gorgeous new book store, an ever-expanding number of breweries, co-working spaces in rehabbed brick buildings, coffee shops in rehabbed brick buildings, airy restaurants with farm-to-table menus in rehabbed brick buildings. There's a walkable downtown, a First Friday art walk to get people there, a cultural tourist site (the Woody Guthrie Museum) and public (in this case, actually private) outdoor space (The Gathering Place)."

</comment><comment><USER60> I am on one of those arrow paths from New York City to the upper south.

Sort of. They fly me in from NYC during the week for four days, then fly me back for the weekends.

I didn't really make a decision to move, I was looking for work in NYC, but was given a good job offer which said I'd be paid a NYC type salary, and have expensed flights, hotels, car rentals and meal etc. per diems. I haven't exactly moved, I rent in NYC and stay at a hotel down there. I don't plan on staying down here permanently - if and when I start looking for another job it will be in NYC.

I think some of what is observed is kind of illusory. Because what is really happening here? On a very broad level - am I from NYC saying I want to become more of an upper south kind of guy? Or is this upper south Fortune 100 company saying it wants to become more of an NYC-type company, and bringing me and others down there to accomplish that? From everything I have seen, more of the latter. Northern Virginia has already pretty much been swallowed into the Boston to DC megalopolis, and it's possible that Richmond, Virginia Beach, Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill and Charlotte are next. Or if companies are desperate enough for IT etc. talent, they might start offices in NYC, SF etc. looking for it. Our company already has a west coast advanced IT office, as well as some offshored stuff to India.

New York means not needing to own a car, because it has a massive public transit system (which has been a little shaky for the past five years though). It means 4AM last call. It means having technical meetups and conferences, and universities like Columbia and NYU with impressive CS professors and students. It means lots of job opportunities with good salaries. You can even avoid the city and live a suburban existence if you want.

All anybody talks about are the slim pickings in the local job market down there. You don't have that problem in San Francisco or New York.

</comment><comment><USER61> The article doesn't touch on carbon impact, which I can intuitively think of as going in either direction. On the one hand, it's obvious that replacing a car commute with remote work is directly advantageous on a one-to-one basis. On the other hand, it's also possible that many households will actually see an overall increase in car and air miles (to say nothing of systemic scalabilities from serving infrastructure/goods/services to dense vs sparse populations) - so whether the trend is overall positive or negative is not obvious to me.

</comment><comment><USER62> Tulsa has an incentive program just for this, made possible by GKFF. [https://tulsaremote.com/](https://tulsaremote.com/)

</comment><comment><USER63> Austin..cheaper? update : just a bit.

[https://www.expatistan.com/cost-of-living/comparison/los- ang...](https://www.expatistan.com/cost-of-living/comparison/los- angeles/austin/breakdown)

</comment><comment><USER64> Yep, I saw this play out first-hand. My company hired a good group of people in the Seattle office for a job that was essentially remote. After a few years, the office shrank from about 6 people, to 2 as people decided to just move to CoL cities. Example destinations: Tampa, Santa Fe, Spokane, and Raleigh (in my case).

Nobody regrets their move yet to my knowledge. I'm definitely very happy to be saving money, and my standard of living is better. My urban lifestyle hasn't changed much (still only drive 2-3x a month for trips to cities, beaches or mountains) and I'm from NC, so culture stuff like the food and friendly people are a positive as well.

</comment><comment><USER65> I live in SF, which many would consider a big city, but I've come to realize that I actually do enjoy living in a big city, it's just that in the US in particular big city living means a big cost of living premium.

There's dozens of big metropolitan cities outside the US that have better public transportation systems, lower rents, lower food costs, etc. that the analogous big city in the US, namely SF, LA, and NYC. I'm beginning to realize that the best way to continue living in a big city but lower my monthly expenses would be to move abroad.

</comment><comment><USER66> If I were at a small startup as an engineering manager and the CEO told me to outsource to save money, I would try very hard to convince him to outsource within the country. Employees are cheaper while the timezone and skill set remain high. It obviously is nowhere near as cheap as Vietnam or India, but so much better even with 1/4 as many devs.

That outsourcing conversation I had at every single startup I worked for, and I greatly hope the trend to remote work continues.

<comment><USER47> On top of that if your startup has any meaningful operations or customer service headcount, you will save so much money outside of SF/LA/NYC -- not just because of wages, but because of rent, as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> We've been seeing this for several years now. VBOs (Virtual Business Owners) are seeing their effective spending power double by moving to places with lower taxes and cheaper housing - that is REAL! - [https://vbonation.com/vbo- lifestyles/move-to-rural-america/](https://vbonation.com/vbo-lifestyles/move- to-rural-america/)

</comment><comment><USER68> I'm moving from New York to San Diego. Going to work remotely. There is a risk involved, sure. But after 11 years in NY I think it's worth a shot.

<comment><USER7> It's San Diego, not San Juan. I'm sure you will be fine.

<comment><USER69> Hahaha my thoughts exactly when I read this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> Once again I cannot help but to see this waving pattern.

        rural -> urban -> ~rural

        decentralized -> centralized -> decentralized

It's an odd phenomenon when elements aggregates into a pole to accelerate until that pole is saturated and overwhelmed, improved elements now go away, until the next cycle.

</comment><comment><USER71> Living in Berlin for almost a decade, bought a house here and love to live here because costs of living is far less than compared to my original city (50k people, even the house market is expensive over there).

No car needed, plenty of services for family and kids. My original city doesn't offer them at all and you need to own a car if you want to go somewhere.

</comment><comment><USER72> I had been working remotely for a startup and since funding is very limited so is my pay for now. Moved across the border from San Diego to Tijuana. My cost of living is less than half of what it was even though I live at the beach now instead of a low income neighborhood in San Diego.

</comment><comment><USER73> Many of these second tier tech cities have a full tech ecosystem: nationally ranked tech schools, lots of startups, venture capital, tech accelerators, startup weeks, etc. I have live in both Palo Alto and Denver over a decade each. Denvers biggest tech shortcoming is a lack big VCs.

</comment><comment><USER74> The problem with moving to little cities is the downturn and losing your job. Where is your next job?

</comment><comment><USER75> I'm all for spreading the workforce out and encouraging more remote work. It makes no sense to subject so many people to LA, SF, and NYC commutes every day when the job can be done just as well from home or another office location in a suburb or satellite campus somewhere.

<comment><USER40> The difference is in those places you have a lot more options to pivot to a new job. If the suburban office closes there are no jobs for you in the area and you'd have to relocate. Some people like remote work, but personally I don't. I get a lot more done being able to run into people face to face and quickly hash through something in the hallway or at a desk or over lunch.

And you can live close to work in those cities. I live and work in LA and commute on public transport for 20 mins one way. The rents may be high in LA, but even minumum wage is nearly $14 now, and rents are pretty even across many parts of town barring some obvious exceptions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER76> Does hiring a remote worker trigger nexus if you don't otherwise have a "presence" there? I'm sure you'll need to register with the secretary of state there to pay payroll taxes.

</comment><comment><USER77> Remote work not only allows workers to be in small cities, it allows employers to be in small cities (or outside the cities).

</comment><comment><USER78> Rich consultants / independent service providers working remotely move from one place to another. Yawn.

</comment><comment><USER35> Didn't read the article because, paywall. But Austin, Denver, Portland have all had significant price increases. RiNo in Denver is really cool but homes are $700k+. It's a big discount from LA, but I wouldn't call it life-changing, especially when you consider what you give up.

Art, culture, and diversity of people are what make a city so interesting to me. In LA, we have so many friends who are working on interesting projects and are very intelligent. Every time we discuss moving to a smaller town, we are concerned that we might have difficulty finding social circles that fit us. The average American and I just don't have a ton in common. I know that sounds super snobby, but people are different. I'm not saying one is right or wrong.

I always think about what will be the next tier of cities where remote work and satellite offices will be popular? To me, Asheville, Greenville, and to a lesser extent Chattanooga will be popular locations. CoL and an urban core are requirements, but also access to nature, transplants and local universities seem to help. A good airport is also big, as we love to travel.

</comment><comment><USER79> What websites are best for finding good remote jobs? What are the most useful tools and apps?

</comment><comment><USER80> This article lacks numbers.

</comment><comment><USER79> What are the best websites for finding remote jobs? What tools are best?

</comment><comment><USER81> Does this mean smaller cities are getting bluer?

<comment><USER82> If its a family that is moving, it likely is making them redder.

<comment><USER62> Why do you say that?

<comment><USER82> Families leaving are typically seeking a better place to raise children.

<comment><USER81> And recent grads a place that is affordable. All my friends from Los Angeles have moved to Texas and Florida (some are families) and they are all progressive like most in Californian major cities. So they will make those states more blue. Which goes against what youre saying.

I fail to see why families from big cities would be red. Most in big cities are progressive, even families. I havent seen data that would suggest otherwise

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER83> I'll just say this and take my downvotes[1]: It's impossible to read a piece like this in the modern world, about two white middle class families leaving large, coastal multiethnic metropolises for suburban homes in (what a quick google tells me is) the sixth whitest state in the union, without a racial lens.

These workers "fleeing" big cities simply don't seem likely to be a uniformly sampled demographic, and for the article not to at least nod to that seems like pretty questionable journalism.

But maybe that's just a step too woke.

[1] Edit: heh, two minutes before the first accusation of racism. Pretty much what I expected.

<comment><USER84>
       the sixth whitest state

You conflate the ethnic makeup of the _city_ they flee with that of their destination _state_.

In contrast, New York _state_ as a whole is predominantly white, while I would guess that Boise is the most diverse city in Idaho.

<comment><USER83> You're right. I should have looked it up. Here:

> > [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_percentage_of_white_population)

Boise is in fact the THIRD whitest city in the whole country .

<comment><USER84> You're misinterpreting your source.

Putting aside the qualifiers that the dataset[0] is specific to cities _with population above 100K_ and that it's a decade old, the counts _include Hispanics and whites together_ , which is obvious from Laredo, Corpus Christi, and El Paso all being in the top 8.

In other words, _using your source_ , Boise is all of 1.3 percentage points whiter than _Laredo, Texas_.

[0] [https://www.indexmundi.com/facts/united-states/quick- facts/c...](https://www.indexmundi.com/facts/united-states/quick- facts/cities/rank/white-population-percentage)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER85> Hey look, there is a solution to the housing crisis that the tech community didn't even think of

<comment><USER86> The article attributes some of the shift to remote work, which would seem to be related to tech?

<comment><USER85> Yet big tech is not investing in remote work, but into new factory housing or co-suffering spaces.</comment></comment></comment>


Should I Bake? - <AUTHOR> https://shouldibake.com/ <comment><USER2> There's a really good primer article to give some context here: [https://theconversation.com/renewable-energy-supply-and- dema...](https://theconversation.com/renewable-energy-supply-and-demand- during-lockdown-and-the-best-time-to-bake-bread-141345)

and we've also created the following for a better bake!

\- a twitter forecast ([https://twitter.com/baking4cast](https://twitter.com/baking4cast))

\- an Alexa Skill ([https://www.amazon.co.uk/Baking-Forecast-Bake-renewable- powe...](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Baking-Forecast-Bake-renewable- power/dp/B08944JQQ2))

</comment><comment><USER3> Neat idea, any reason why you focus specifically on baking as the main activity?

Found this [1] while looking for numbers for Germany. It's showing different values for the percentage of renewable energy use in GB, 38% vs 26% on your site. Any idea why?

[1] [https://www.electricitymap.org](https://www.electricitymap.org)

<comment><USER2> Hey!

Good question RE why baking, because this does apply to any energy intensive activities (possibly an iteration for the future).

....so, 1) we've started with baking as we believe its the most accessible way to contextualise what is a challenging topic to explain (especially for those outside of the academic world)

2) the wider the audience we're able to engage, we hope, the greater the impact. Baking is a ubiquitous activity that (almost all?) households do regularly, and it can be scheduled around the forecast with fairly low impact to the user's time

3) cause baking is also pretty popular right now ;)

But the same logic applies to other activities, it's better to use the dishwasher, wash your clothes, charge your (car) batteries when there's more renewable energy being generated.

RE the discrepancy between the figures, we're only including 'hydro', 'wind' and 'solar' in our calculations, whereas the Electricity Map includes Biomass (which can be a controversial inclusion due to the associated land use and biodiversity impacts).

Also, a lot of this is based on forecasting models (which rely on many factors incl historic weather data, forecasted weather, consumption etc etc), so... you could say it's similar in some ways to predicting the weather. We use the GB's National Grid Carbon Intensity statistics ([https://carbonintensity.org.uk/](https://carbonintensity.org.uk/)) for our data so that we're most closely aligned geographically.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the insights! I agree that baking is a good gateway.

I think it would be even more persuasive if you could come up with some calculations, to show how much CO2 can be saved individually and collectively by following the recommendations.

<comment><USER2> yep definitely, quantifying the impact of changing the time you bake would be a great next step (.....we've got quite a lot on our list).</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Fast Algorithms for Exact String Matching - <AUTHOR> http://arxiv.org/abs/1509.09228 <comment><USER2> How is this better than a search on a suffix tree created with good old Ukkonen algorithm? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukkonen%27s_algorithm](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukkonen%27s_algorithm)

<comment><USER3> I'm going by the abstract here, but:

You'd build the suffix tree from the haystack, whereas their algorithm preprocesses the needle.

So I guess it mostly depends if you're going to be repeatedly searching different strings in the same document, or if you're searching for the same string in many different documents. Plus, space requirements might be relevant too, as a preprocessed haystack is probably bigger than a preprocessed needle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Complete dupe: same URL _and_ same submitter: user_235711.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10318008](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10318008)

<comment><USER5> We invited user_235711 to repost it. We've been trying this lately as an experiment in giving good submissions multiple cracks at the bat. However, from comments in the thread it sounds as if this article may not be as substantive as it looks.

(Also, don't forget that on HN a small number of reposts is ok if a story hasn't had significant attention yet: [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html). Otherwise what makes it off /newest is dominated by randomness.)

<comment><USER4> Are "we" are not powerful enough to just propel the original object to the front page, instead of requiring a freshly-minted replica?

<comment><USER5> This is the third time someone has asked me this since yesterday, so there's clearly a real question here, and maybe a solution that we haven't found yet.

We can help 'propel' things for a few hours, but after that the posts look weird on the front page, e.g. if they have say 3 points and are many hours old. Plus we want to be able to invite reposts for things that are much older. If we notice—or anyone points out—a years-old submission that was fabulous and went nowhere, let's give it another shot. That's not an uncommon case.

If anyone can suggest a better solution than "make a new post in append-only fashion" I'd love to hear it.

<comment><USER4> > _If anyone can suggest a better solution than "make a new post in append- > only fashion" I'd love to hear it._

Command tab category: "featured", where submissions are ordered in a way that certain "editor's choice" submissions are boosted.

This solves the problem of propelled posts looking "weird" on the front page; they look weird where that is the behavior.

"Featured" doesn't have to be ever-present; if there is nothing being featured at the moment, the link can disappear. Its intermittent manifestation could help get it noticed and used.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Worlds Collide: Valve And JJ Abrams Working On Movie - <AUTHOR> http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/02/06/worlds-collide-valve-and-jj-abrams-working-on-movie/

<comment><USER2> The moment either Chell or Gordon Freeman open their mouths one of their defining character traits will be effectively destroyed, and it'll just be downhill from there.

<comment><USER3> Keep in mind, there's a lot you can do in the HL/Portal UNIVERSE without playing out the games directly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The whole movie in... First Person Perspective!

or even better;

The whole movie is a first person game and every viewer has a mouse and keyboard, every move from everyone is integrated/averaged together and this moves the character on the movie screen.</comment>


Just a few words can increase female, minority job applicants by more than 20% - <AUTHOR> https://qz.com/1023518/just-a-few-words-can-increase-female-and-minority-job-applicants-by-over-20/ <comment><USER2> The article cites a report that cites [1], providing some employment numbers. Comparing them to U.S. demographics according to wikipedia, whites are over- represented by 7.6%, which merits "Diversity in the American workforce is dismal." Meanwhile, asians made up 4.7% of the population, but 14.04% of high- tech workers [1], an over-representation of 299%.

Yet the article focuses solely on how job ads contain phrases that are biased towards _white_ males.

[1] [https://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/statistics/reports/hightech/](https://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/statistics/reports/hightech/)</comment>


Thread in Which DHH and Paul Graham Argue about Thiel's YC Position - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/dhh/status/785786822471192576 <comment><USER2> \- There is a difference between who you vote for, and you you vocally campaign for. He spoke at the convention, he didn't just share his views.

\- You have a right to say anything you want, but that doesn't mean you can't be fired for it. If Thiel agrees with Trump, and Trump is counter to the values of YC, maybe Thiel isn't right for YC. He's in a position of advising companies, probably sometimes privately, how does YC know his advice aligns with their values?

Conversely:

\- We don't definitively know Trump has done anything more than be a bombastic creep, so anyone comparing supporting him to supporting Hitler or Stalin is going a little far.

<comment><USER3> As much as I don't like trump, what I like even less are people suggesting you can or should be fired for voicing a political argument or an opinion.

You are correct that technically you can be fired for what you say, but not when it's protected speech.

You would not support some one being fired for voicing political opinions that you agree with, so this is not only illiberal but also quite likely hypocritical.

<comment><USER2> Just to clarify, the position you have is you should only be able to be fired for your actions, not your beliefs (however widely communicated)?

And, as an extension, the beliefs of it's members should never be taken to be the beliefs of an organization?

<comment><USER4> Supporting a political candidate doesn't mean you support literally everything they have ever said. It only means you prefer them out of the given viable options.

<comment><USER3> Even if you support everything they say you can't be sanctioned for that by your employer.

They can require you not to do that at the office, or using any official company channels (as long as this policy applies equally) but if you comply you should be protected from any sanctions.

Without this pluralism dies and with it democracy, and this is how you get partisanship to its current levels.

<comment><USER4> Too bad people like you don't work at Mozilla, where their CEO got fired for his political donations

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> First they came for the billionaires but I did not speak up because I was not a billionaire...

But really this election has made we want to avoid the zealot supporters of both major canditates. Hold your ground Paul.

</comment><comment><USER6> I am deeply unimpressed with DHH's position.

<comment><USER2> Can you give some more explanation of why?

<comment><USER4> He's implying we should retaliate against people because of their voting decisions, which is a hugely shitty thing to do. There is no black-and-white in politics, and someone who supports Trump doesn't mean they support literally everything Trump has ever said. But thanks to the divisive bullshit of this campaign, everyone hates each other.

<comment><USER7> Not simply a voting decision. As DHH explained, "this is a man who's a Trump delegate! Keynote endorser at his convention! Political action and operative."

<comment><USER8> I think most people who vote for Trump would be happy to be nominated as his delegate. All things aside, it is seen as a social honor to be a delegate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This thread blew my mind. Initially, I thought DHH was just been a duchbag as always, but then he used very good arguments. I hope to not be banned, but pg has very weak arguments in this matter, and it is a very important one.

<comment><USER3> He actually made very poor arguments to the point of not not even making one.

Then he made things worse by literally invoking the post facebook/liberal Internet Godwin's Law by tieing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to this issue trying to bait Graham with a nonsensical argument.

And the argument is nonsensical because nothing morally, ideologically or politically prevents one from being both supportive/attentive to the cause of the Palestinians seeking statehood while being against BDS or any other boycott movement because boycotts by definition prevent any type of dialog and make any issue considerably harder or near impossible to resolve.

<comment><USER9> Só pg should not also boycott Trump and their supported? No "join the resistance" at all?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Interesting how this story has been kicked out from front page.

<comment><USER2> It's currently on the front page in the RSS feed: [http://hnrankings.info/12689700/](http://hnrankings.info/12689700/)

But it seems like you're right, they've killed it on the actual site.

<comment><USER11> "They" most likely being actual users flagging the submission, as happens often with political stories.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I wouldn't kick Thiel out for his Trump support. I'd kick him out because he funded a proxy war against the media and the First Amendment.</comment>


Tool to Measure 'Cohesion' in a Swift Codebase - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/arthurpalves/coherent-swift <comment><AUTHOR> Cohesion is a concept that goes hand in hand with the Single Responsibility principle, it refers to the degree to which the elements of a module belong together.

"[...] Thus, cohesion measures the strength of relationship between pieces of functionality within a given module. [...]"

The command line tool, coherent-swift:

1\. Measures the cohesion of your Swift code

2\. Has ability to validate cohesion against a minimum threshold

3\. Generates Cohesion Badges

4\. Has ability to ignore output for a passive scan</comment>


How A Clandestine Las Vegas Birthday Party Changed My Approach to Hiring - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/startup-grind/how-a-clandestine-las-vegas-birthday-party-changed-my-approach-to-hiring-aa79e2c5da <comment><AUTHOR> Excerpts:

"It finally dawned on me: _if I was spending so much time keeping people honest, maybe I was hiring the wrong people._ "

[...]

"...many team members I hired turned out to be superstars. They went the extra mile for clients, did amazing work, and never missed deadlines. One day, I decided to analyze these "lucky" hires: Was there something they had in common that I could screen for in new candidates?

It turned out there was. While these people had the necessary skills,

 _they also demonstrated a clear sense of ownership of their work._ "</comment>


The bunny theory of code - <AUTHOR> http://www.nczonline.net/blog/2015/05/14/the-bunny-theory-of-code/ <comment><USER2> I, for one, don't blindly copy and paste code. Code collects entropy over time; if it's been around for a while, it almost invariably can be improved. Copying and modifying is cargo-cult coding in the small and one of the fastest ways to create a codebase where you have no idea what the code is doing.

Adding process and standardization around this seems like a patch on a dysfunctional coding culture. Standardization frequently ends up on something that isn't the best way, and with web development in particular, is likely to be outdated in a few months. Requiring meetings to change standards to improve code has got to be a toxic working culture.

<comment><USER3> > I, for one, don't blindly copy and paste code

Yes, but blind to what? The coder is blindly manipulating symbols[0]. What if the code produces the artifact you desire? I'm not sure anyone really blindly copies and pastes. On the flip side, if you forget what you wrote in a month or two, how is that outcome different than copying and pasting in the first place?

[0] [http://blog.airover.ca/2014/06/programming-blindly- manipulat...](http://blog.airover.ca/2014/06/programming-blindly- manipulating.html)

<comment><USER2> Someone sees this code somewhere:

        // this code accomplishes x
        foo();
        bar();
        frob(42);

They want to do x, and they copy the whole block, and perhaps modify the argument. They have only a surface understanding of what foo, bar and frob do, if any. They don't know if there is an order dependency; they don't know if the behaviour is specific to the situation where the code was copied from, or whether it applies (or not) to the place the code is copied to.

This is blind copy and paste. It is blind because it is not seeing through the symbols to the workings underneath. Functions, classes etc. as abstractions are useful, but they're leaky, and to write good code, you need to understand things at a lower level. At the very least, you need to know about implicit dependencies, time and memory complexity, and have a vague idea of the heft - the constant factor - of what you're putting into motion.

If it's a codebase undergoing continuous development, and foo / bar / frob are grouped together in more than one place, it's a smell. The code probably needs refactoring and restructuring, and all the calling points need adjusting.

This is just a more concrete example to get across what I'm talking about, since it seemed to be unclear. I don't have time to watch a video before replying, sorry.

Also the only way I forget what I wrote a month or two ago is if I've changed jobs, and then it's a willing forgetfulness. It takes many years for me to forget my code, for better or worse.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Copy and paste code _out of the same repository_ , modifying it slightly? Surely the more appropriate thing to do in most cases it to make that code generic, available as a function, and then call it from the two places that now need it?

It sounds like it is the code review of future commits that needs to be fixed here.

<comment><USER5> Ok, let me give you an example, where my instinct would be to copy and then modify:

We have a library that requires initialization, action, and then freeing of resources. Initialization involves creating and filling in a struct and/or passing parameter values to an initialization function. After that it is necessary to check for success/failure. That's for initializing the library. Then something similar is done to initialize an object we want to manipulate. I would begin with the copied code, replace the appropriate values in the initialization, replace the error handling, replace the action, and keep the freeing of resources as is.

<comment><USER6> If you said what language you're working in, it might be easier for me to understand why you wouldn't use inheritance.

<comment><USER7> An example that superficially looks like "cut and paste" programming occurs is actually implementing a new derived class. In the C++ case, you could:

1\. Type out the new .h and cpp files from scratch.

2\. Copy/rename the base class .h file, remove all non virtual functions and other text not needed for a derived class, copy/rename this new header creating a .cpp file, convert method declarations to definitions, and add method implementations.

3\. Copy/renamed the .h and .cpp files for an existing derived class and replace the existing method implementations.

Option 3 is a reasonable choice and is an example of what article article discusses.

<comment><USER8> Option 3 is a reasonable choice, but I don't think it's an example of what the article discusses.

The example you provided is a good one, because it's an instance where you _can 't_ write abstractions to help you in the language you're using. Defining new classes, their interfaces and members is part of the necessary scaffolding when writing in C++. (Let's pretend it's not possible to do this with the C preprocessor.)

But the first example in the article does not sound like your example. Rather, it sounds closer to im3w1l's example, where the programmer copied code for some particular functionality, not for scaffolding.

<comment><USER7> I don't see im3w1l's example as copying code for some particular functionality, it's copying boilerplate code needed to use a particular library. First the library is initialised, passing in a number of parameters to an initialisation function. If the values of these parameters are the same in multiple instances in the same codebase then that is violating DRY, but if the parameters differ it's just the scaffolding that you are reusing.

<comment><USER8> The difference, to me, is that it's scaffolding code that _can_ be abstracted. You can't abstract writing a class - it's a primary activity in the language. Only macros can help you there - either the broken ones provided by the C preprocessor, or real ones provided by languages like Racket or Rust.

But boilerplate code that interacts with an external library is not a primary activity in the language. You can hide it behind a class or a family of functions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> _> place a very high value on what ends up checked-in to a source code repository. The reason for this is very simple: once code gets checked-in, it takes on a life of its own._

I would modify this slightly and say code that's added to _important_ public branches designated as master, qa, integration, etc should have a very high bar for quality. The other "experimental", "sandbox", etc branches would be understood by the team to have suboptimal code. Yes, it doesn't prevent people from Ctrl+C+Ctrl+V'ing the bad code but at least the developer's work-in- progress code has been backed up to a wider repository than just his laptop. (Yes, the programmer should be backing up files to USB flash, or corporate LAN, yada yada, but disciplined backups outside of repository commits often don't happen.)

That said, cargo culting bad code is definitely a problem. It doesn't matter of the source code has any of these comments:

//This following is experimental. DON'T COPY IT!

//!!!Do not reuse the following loop. It is O(N) instead of O(log N) and I haven't optimized it yet!!!

It doesn't matter how many scary exclamation points and uppercase characters are used in the warning. It will be ignored.

Even if you using language level guards instead of comments such as #pragmas or metaprogramming (if this_function_name == "JohnExperiment3"), people will just ignore the guards and Ctrl+C+Ctrl+V the "bad" source code lines they need. The infamous example of "if windowsos.version begins with "9" is copied all over the place.

<comment><USER10> > Even if you using language level guards instead of comments such as #pragmas > or metaprogramming (if this_function_name == "JohnExperiment3"), people will > just ignore the guards and Ctrl+C+Ctrl+V the "bad" source code lines they > need. The infamous example of "if windowsos.version begins with "9" is > copied all over the place.

Hmm, could this be the reason for windows 10 after 8?

<comment><USER11> yes it is. It triggered Windows 95/98 checks in some software.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is a great article, something I have noticed but failed to place into a good metaphor like this.

The other place this happens is in online code snippets for blogs and the like. If you need a way of doing things, you often search. If you find it, you'll probably copy it. If you find the same thing twice, you'll think everyone does it this way.

So the lesson there is to always be careful about code you put into blog posts and stack overflow answers and the like. If you cut a corner, get sloppy with a naming standard or fail to put in basic checks, you're spreading landlines across the world and there's no way of recalling them, because nobody comes back to review a solution they found online.

</comment><comment><USER13> "The original engineer knew that they hadn't properly solved the problem and left it as a landmine for someone else. It just so happened that I stepped on it and now couldn't remove my foot until it was properly disarmed."

This is my life.

</comment><comment><USER14> The problem with these warnings is that their authors assume there is a better, economically viable way of doing a particular thing. When it was economically not viable for the original author to find and apply the ideal solution, why I or my project manager spend the time to find the "real" solution (which may or may not have any effect on the end user)?

There's not even a guarantee that the "real" solution would be more maintainable or less complex than the quick fix (for example, what is the "real" solution to fixing a confirmed bug in some Swing base class?). Most of the really dirty fixes I've encountered fall into this category.

<comment><USER15> Oddly enough, most of the really dirty fixes I have seen involved not understanding the library and deciding that it was a bug in the library.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is a good article, I'm sure I'll find myself saying "no bad bunny code" soon.

I've encountered this phenomenon and there are a few situations where it can feel natural or correct to copy and paste code. While I can't say these are great reasons, they do merit being considered.

0\. QA concerns. You can't just modify/change logic without triggering a need for QA to re-check. This is in fact, one of the biggest stumbling blocks for code quality in a company. You just can't refactor as needed, it has to be planned for and paid for. There are times when you're basically stuck using bad/logic and just extending it.

1\. You're a guest in the code. You're just working on this feature for one iteration, and the other guy who will likely be on the project for the rest of the year wrote the bunny code. I wouldn't change how he does things, I'd instead talk him and let him know there's a better way. I wouldn't implement a second type of fix.

2\. It's unclear what direction the primary authors want the codebase to grow in. For instance do you use library level functions to accomplish tasks the language syntax can? (for loops vs an iterator function). Some prefer one over the other. I would just follow the style I see

3\. Styleguide logic. E.g. the code should look as much as possible like it's written by one person. While I know this rule applies to indentation and visual appearance. I think it's fair-ish to apply to it to logic as well.

These are a few things to think of, but I agree with the author of the post, be careful, this code will multiply.

</comment><comment><USER15> On the list of annoying places to work - places that have custom versions of standard libraries like JQuery.

</comment><comment><USER17> What happened to the "release early, release often" idea? That's pretty much the opposite of "don't put anything in repo until it's perfect".

<comment><USER18> _snaps his fingers to the beat_ It's all just a bit of history repeating...

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> > In my current role at Box, I'm famous for repeating the phrase, "no > accidental standards." We don't accept that things are "the way" just > because they pop up in a couple of places. When we see this happening, we > stop, discuss it, and either codify it as "the way" or disallow it. We then > update code appropriately before it gets too far. Through automation, code > reviews, and code workshops[1], we are able to keep an eye on the code and > make sure we're all on the same page.

no.

There's a faulty assumption here: that code in a repo should have a pattern. That there's a Way of writing code that should be followed within a company. That it's acceptable to believe code already checked in is the Way.

no.

Having worked in a team that was very serious about this approach advocated by the OP, what happens is that opinions about the Way change, so the fad from two years ago is no longer the Way, but it still ghosts on through the code base.

You will encounter many ways of writing code in many repositories through your life.... the ideal Way of the code is to be able to write the code needed, _how_ it needs to be written, without bothering too much about the Way Of the Mandate (but don't copy and paste).

It's slightly Tao, I think. The Way that can be described is not the Way...

<comment><USER15> On the other hand, when maintaining code, it is really nice when it is predictable.

<comment><USER19> Eh... sometimes? But, honestly, that's not an assumption that should be made... you need to be fluid enough to handle it all. Even in the Theoretically Standardized codebases, different approaches and styles come and go according to the fad du jour.

Right now I have to deal with 3 codebases on a regular basis, in three-four languages, written partially by people not even here, over the past 5 years. On a bad week, I have to crack open 3-4 more codebases in 2-3 more languages... and don't even get me started on reading open source code.

If I am looking for predictability, I'm going to be disappointed, and if I need it, I'm going to _fail_. Grok it is what I say.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> "not unlike bunnies that tend to multiply when you're not looking."

trust me, they also do when you look.

</comment><comment><USER21> Sounds a lot like the broken windows metaphor from "The pragmatic programmer". Still, it's nice to have another one.</comment>


Microsoft Introduced NeuronBlocks – Modulized NLP DNN Toolkit - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/microsoft/NeuronBlocks <comment><AUTHOR> NeuronBlocks is a NLP deep learning modeling toolkit that helps engineers/researchers to build end-to-end pipelines for neural network model training for NLP tasks. The main goal of this toolkit is to minimize developing cost for NLP deep neural network model building, including both training and inference stages. For more details, please check our paper: NeuronBlocks -- Building Your NLP DNN Models Like Playing Lego at [https://arxiv.org/abs/1904.09535](https://arxiv.org/abs/1904.09535). NeuronBlocks consists of two major components: Block Zoo and Model Zoo. In Block Zoo, we provide commonly used neural network components as building blocks for model architecture design. In Model Zoo, we provide a suite of NLP models for common NLP tasks, in the form of JSON configuration files.</comment>


Infinite monkeys and infinite repos - <AUTHOR> http://robertheaton.com/2013/04/09/infinite-monkeys-and-infinite-repos/

<comment><USER2> This looks good from the perspective of a customer. This also looks good from the perspective of the rare successful monkey team (survivor bias.)

But for an average monkey before the startup experiment this looks rather bad. Unfortunately this is just the monkey you are.

</comment><comment><USER3> >Creating something transcendentally awesome requires doing stuff that at the time looks completely random, and it's the ability and willingness to do this that will make you incredible.

>Have the courage to try things that look like they could only have been conceived by an inexhaustible supply of apes. It's not necessarily a terrible thing to be an Infinite Monkey Startup.

No thanks, I'm going to spend my valuable time trying to build things that fit a market and satisfy genuine customer problems.

I don't get this, it starts off talking about human startups being bad at customer development and feedback loops, but then says "just do something random, lol". I know it's supposed to be light hearted, but I've read more interesting articles on TechCrunch. (Zing).

<comment><USER4> Some people want to hit the world with something new and some people just want to get rich :)

<comment><USER5> And then there are people who want to create great products and get paid to support themselves and further development. Neither selling snake-oil nor starving are an option to them.

Please don't make it sound like not making "free/libre open source" would equal being a greedy capitalist who only cares for profits.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> You seem to forget about the infinite number of photo sharing apps and social media aggregators you would also have. And the infinite amount of monkey groups that invented monkeycrunch and the infinite amount of monkey startups that read monkeycrunch religiously.

<comment><USER7> Indeed. The central point of this post seems to be that "an infinite number of startups" would be "arguably more diverse". Well, okay.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I thought this was going to be about the insane proliferation of "forks" of any given popular github repository.

Some advice: just forking something and hacking on it is just the start. If you'd like to give something back to the open source community, be sure you communicate with the other people involved in the project about your changes. That may be a pull request, but for more complex things, might well also involve writing something to the mailing list.

<comment><USER9> I thought the exact same thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I like the idea of the article, but it falls apart in the real world, on the individual level. Each human has a finite amount of resources, time, and energy. Therefore we tend to invest in those projects that we feel will reward us in the way we need to be rewarded. For most people that is monetary, as people we like to eat, more than bananas.

If we had a social system that had a softer cushion for failure or a start-up incubator that rewarded ideas that were creative we may see a larger group of people taking risks and interesting ideas.

One of the primary differences between humans and monkeys creating start-ups is that humans have human lives. We have bills, families, responsibilities, higher wants and needs, and so much more. The start-up arguments seem to forget that we are all people, real human people. Even entrepreneurs are people, and they will have to address their humanity at some point.

</comment><comment><USER11> Agreed that copycatting and lame ideas are to be discouraged, but the author makes one fatal error in my mind: consumers and venture capitalists have the benefit of "portfolio" thinking. Entrepreneurs have all their eggs in one basket, and a finite amount of time to make things happen. So while being totally zany might indeed be good for the whole, I can pretty much guarantee that it will be terrible for 99% of the entrepreneurs.

</comment><comment><USER12> > ... the cost of domain names involving monkey puns would skyrocket. But such > is the price of progress.

<comment><USER13> That would drive me bananas ...

</comment></comment><comment><USER14>
      > The... ecosystem [of random startup ideas] would be
      > arguably more diverse, more innovative and overall better
      > for consumers. Instead of having 8 million photo sharing
      > apps and 11 million social network aggregators, you would
      > instead have an infinite number of truly bold products.

Somehow I think that there must be a better approach to creating more innovation than generating ideas at random, but I get his point: There are a lot of "me too" startup ideas. I wonder though: Is that really a bad thing?

<comment><USER3> I think to some degree, it can show you what is in demand. The problem is, is it something in demand by developers or by bill paying customers?

And there is definitely a better approach, it's called "market research". :-)

<comment><USER14> We may be talking about the inability of our research techniques to find all possible markets then. If companies targeted markets at random, then some of them would find the markets missed by our imperfect research. This would require that companies stop caring about survival and profit though, so perhaps the current funding models don't do a good job of incentivizing founders to think broadly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This post is the exact opposite of my primary mode of building software and yet I still love it. Why? Because it makes me think outside the box, which is my secondary mode of building software.

I've longed believed that addressing the hair-on-fire needs of real customers was the best way to stay on the critical path. But every once in a while, the world throws you a curve ball and things work out differently.

Just recently I needed to build a bunch of tools to help me build something a customer needed. I had no idea that the tools would turn out to be the better product. Who knew? An infinite number of monkeys, maybe.

Thanks OP for the enlightening thoughts. Now go build something someone wants.

</comment><comment><USER16> Imagine an infinite number of 32GB microsd cards. One of those cards would contain at least 100's of the best apps out there for every platform, 100's of the best books, and 100's of the best photos, as well as 100's of the best blog posts. It would truly be original unlike all the software today that builds on previous ideas, or books that build on previous ideas, or art that builds on previous ideas.

<comment><USER17> It's not that bad a mere 2^(8 * 32 * (1024^3)) cards can get you there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> "They wouldn't pay any notice to flimsy trends, since monkeys don't read TechCrunch."

Maybe we do pay too much attention to TechCrunch, but can you imagine the articles you'd read there when they start reporting on the Simian Start-ups? (simianstartups.com and simian-startups.com are both available ... let the gold rush begin).

</comment><comment><USER19> Startup opportunity, dealing with the infinite food supply and the infinite amount of monkey poop.

</comment><comment><USER12> Monkeys are not apes and vice-versa

[http://science.howstuffworks.com/zoology/mammals/monkeys- vs-...](http://science.howstuffworks.com/zoology/mammals/monkeys-vs-apes.htm)

<comment><USER9> When I read something about crushing skulls with monkey paws, I knew he was way off. A mandrill would be more likely to bite you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> This sounds like the development process of most Linux distributions.

</comment><comment><USER21> Great post. Would be nice as long as natural selection worked so that really awesome startups would thrive.

</comment><comment><USER22> I really am sick of people making photo sharing apps.

Can we please make something different? Please.

</comment><comment><USER23> Your blog sub-text is missing the oxford-comma. "Lies, damn lies and startups."

</comment><comment><USER24> MONKEYSSSS</comment>


EFF: The impostors - <AUTHOR> http://easyfastfree.com.au/

<comment><AUTHOR> The imposter part is, they send spam titled "EFF Newsletter". Most people I know who won't open any spam will open that spam.</comment>


Tell HN: Alice ML, Factor back up, Nemerle to go - <AUTHOR>

Most of the programming languages deleted on Wikipedia yesterday have been restored. A few are still awaiting reinstatement.
Back up
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_(programming_language)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factor_programming_language
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ioke_(programming_language)
Still down
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemerle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Deletion_review#Nemerle
Hanging on by a thread
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joy_programming_language
Any others? <comment><USER2> Pure still has an AfD notice.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pure_(programming_language)>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> All are back up!</comment>


Don't Annoy Users - <AUTHOR> http://daringfireball.net/linked/2012/06/29/dont-annoy-users

<comment><USER2> There is the "don't annoy users school" of thought, but there is also the "don't allow users to be annoyed" school of thought; subtle yet very important philosophical differences that lead to widely varying policies.</comment>