Ask HN: What is the best way for Technical Support to submit bug tickets to dev? - <AUTHOR> I recently took over the management of our technical support team. We're primarily a web-based team. We have a number of web products, ranging from a CRM tool to some APIs via AWS.
I'm wondering, for any of the IT Managers, Developers, Product Owners or Engineers out there, is there a set of best practices for submitting bug/ER tickets to engineering?
Our goal will be to decrease as much friction in the ticketing process as possible.
We'd like to know what to include on bug tickets. What can we provide so engg. can hit the ground running? <comment><USER2> What conceptual model are you using?

Where I used to work, we wanted a process by which problems, or _apparent_ problems, with products could be submitted by anybody in the company with any sort of a technical nexus, including technical support, pre-sale support, technical publications, field consultants, QA, and r&d itself.

We came up with a bug database system that provided two pathways for conceptual problem reports to be accepted as bugs. R&d itself could enter bugs directly for products within their own purview. For the rest of the company, however, we would we wanted some filtering and independent analysis before necessarily accepting an unexpert opinion about an _apparent_ misbehavior to be logged as a bug directly.

Therefore, we had a parallel _problem_ reporting system that was available to all technical personnel outside of r&d. Problems would be evaluated by technical support and or r&d personnel before being escalated to a bug. Also, since a given bug could reveal itself in more than one apparent misbehavior, multiple problems could map to a single bug.

When there was any contention as to whether an apparent misbehavior was to be accepted as a bug in code, in documentation, or to be dismissed as a misinterpretation on the part of the customer and/or the reporting party within the company, the issue came before a Bug Committee which included representation from Support and R&D (at least). Then, it could be escalated to a bug or closed.

The benefit of this dual-path model was that there was a low-friction process that would capture problem reports from a broad population and document them for everyone to see paired with a more formal and rigorous process to identify, documents, and track agreed software defects.

Bug entries would include a source control system reference for each affected source version tree and comments by the fixer(s).</comment>


The Little-Known History of Palestine's First Rock Band - <AUTHOR> https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/g5xywx/palestines-first-rock-ban-al-baraem <comment><USER2> Respect to those people for doing a dangerous thing in dangerous place for a good cause. Although I personally don't like Arabic music, as a rocker however I'd be curious to hear more of their music.

<comment><USER3> It's not as dangerous as you might think. We do have parties and listen to music of all kinds there. From Arabic Folk to Hip Hop to Pop. Source: I grew up in Palestine.

<comment><USER2> That is good. Please accept my apologies for having been that biased; distance paired with misinformation don't help in this context.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> do any recordings exist?</comment>


Carly Fiorina destroyed the 'HP Way' - <AUTHOR> http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/10/27/EDFT1G2A5C.DTL <comment><USER2> Even when she was CEO, it was widely believed within HP that Fiorina was only there to fluff up her Republican credentials in preparation for a run at higher office. The HP/Compaq merger was at least in part motivated by her desire to be the author of a flashy, attention-grabbing merger that would vault her into the public eye.

Apparently, though, epic failure in business doesn't disqualify you from running as the candidate of managerial competence in the modern Republican party. Fiorina destroyed an icon of the American tech industry, and for what? _Nothing_

<comment><USER3> Y'see, this is why I don't like these sorts of discussions. Suppose Fiorina were a Democrat instead of a Republican. Would you be writing the same thing (s/Republican/Democrat/), or would you be defending her?

Maybe you _would_ be writing exactly the same thing. Maybe you're a paragon of political detachment. But in the fraught political climate of the day, I the reader am left to suspect that most people's opinions on the matter are severely coloured by whether they personally wish to see a Republican replace a Democrat in next week's California Senate election.

This is why I don't think this article is conducive to good discussion and have flagged it.

<comment><USER2> Sorry, but I disliked Fiorina _way_ before it was cool.

I would dislike her regardless of party, for the way she destroyed HP culture and turned my friends at Compaq into bitter, insecure husks of human beings. (Those that haven't been fired by now, anyways) The fact that she's actually running for office on that record is just the icing on the cake.

<comment><USER4> The arsenic on the cake.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> HP wasn't the first. In the 90s, there was Lucent Technologies, aka Bell Labs (Unix, C, C++, vi, plan9...): <http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/tag/carly-fiorina/>

[http://www.finnov-fp7.eu/publications/finnov-discussion- pape...](http://www.finnov-fp7.eu/publications/finnov-discussion-papers/the- rise-and-demise-of-lucent-technologies)

(disclosure: my parents worked there at the time and brought home the internal news every night)

<comment><USER6> Worth reading, thanks. But it faults her for Lucent's strategy of pushing new products into the market by financing small companies to buy and operate them. Not only was it approved by the market, it was a sound strategy.

Lucent was continually developing new networking equipment with a particular service model in mind, but AT&T was sluggish in deploying them. So they found ambitious small companies and hooked them up with equipment on time payment plans. Generally they ran the service better than the telcos would have, and it created lots of great companies.

<comment><USER5> The 2nd link provide does a "by the numbers reported" reports. It's like high schoolers in chemistry class trying to get an A on lab work; who hasn't fudged the numbers before?

The Fortune article digs a bit deeper: PathNet was such service provider caught in the easy money in the internet bubble era. "...PathNet, with barely 100 employees and all of $1.6 million in annual revenue..." "...The smaller company had barely $100 million in equity (and that's based on generous accounting assumptions) on top of which it had already balanced $350 million in junk bonds paying 12.25% interest. Adding $440 million in loans from Lucent..."

So, give equipment and money to a company, knowing they would need to one day repay 220 times their revenue (if they could), and recording that as a "sale" ... that does not appear to be sound strategy for sustaining one's own company. It's like banks, giving out loans to people to buy houses they might not be able to afford...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> When I joined HP in 2001 out of college, the first thing my boss had me do was read the book "The HP Way." It was by Dave Packard and outlined their history and philosophy for doing business. My boss was an HP lifer and loved the HP culture and made all his direct reports read the book. Sadly, reading the book just made me realize what a different company I had joined since Carly's changes were soon felt through the organization. Even more so when HP merged with Compaq and instilled their Texan-style top-down management approach and booted out the more distributed and democratic approaches towards innovation and decision making. I finally left in 2006 when the Compaq IT management started forcing all IT employees to move to Houston or Palo Alto (I had just moved to Chicago).

</comment><comment><USER8> The depths of dislike for Fiorina in the tech industry are somewhat impressive. A former-HP friend who strongly leans Republican lamented that the Republicans managed to find almost the only possible person who he _wouldn't_ vote for over Barbara Boxer (who he strongly dislikes... but not as much as he dislikes Fiorina).

</comment><comment><USER9> I still won't forgive her for killing DEC/Compaq Alpha, one of the most beautiful CPU architectures.

<comment><USER10> I don't like her because she split off HP's test equipment division into Agilent. I think The HP Way left the building when this division was no longer the heart of the company.

It would be like Disney spinning off the animated movie business to focus on running TV stations or GM spinning off the car business to focus on financing. It might make sense on a spreadsheet but it has to hurt morale of all employees who give more than the minimum because they are proud to be associated with an iconic company

<comment><USER6> The HP way is very much alive at Agilent. It's the right way to build test equipment and their stuff remains the gold standard. But it turned out that building ink jet printers was a low-margin business so that part of the company had to become a less luxurious place to work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Wasn't Carly Fiorina the one who destroyed HP's R&D division and consequently relegated a large chunk of the HP product line (HPUX, systems and storage) to obsolescence in the space of a few years?

</comment><comment><USER12> She destroyed the "HP way...which put a premium on integrity, respect for employees and a focus on how the company's work would benefit the broader community.

Difficult to see how you could do the same in Washington

<comment><USER13> She was the one who started the policy of bugging employees and board members to find leaks. I'm sure the WireTapHawks would love to have her in DC.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Didn't the HP board destroy the HP Way by placing the outsider Fiorina at the helm?

<comment> brown9-2 I agree. You can't blame a single person for such a large strategic shift. She is just the most visible, and the easiest to blame.

However, some number of people had to think it was a good idea to hire her, continue to extend her contract, and reward her performance with huge compensation.

Even a CEO has a boss.

<comment><USER15> The analogy here is that if she's elected and screws up the country, then it's the voters' fault. Which is true, but is also a good reason to not put yourself in that position as a voter.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Carly Fiorina running on her record as CEO of HP is like Michael Brown running on his record as the head of FEMA.

</comment><comment><USER17> Seems to me that quite a few tough choices need to be made in DC and I don't recall Boxer making any that didn't involve wasting vast sums of money.

</comment><comment><USER17> and Barbara Boxer is, along with her fellow foolish democrats and republicans, destroying the American Way. I guess they're even steven.

</comment><comment><USER6> The article charges that at HP, Fiorina maximized shareholder value at the expense of a great intellectual & humanitarian legacy. You can deplore that or not depending on your economics. But it's not a reason to paint her as a bumbler or willful destroyer. The market approved her strategy at Lucent and most of her time at HP.

<comment><USER2> What? Lucent lost 90% of its value thanks to Carly's leadership, and HP's stock lost 50%. If she was effective at anything, it was destroying shareholder value by the billion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Fiorina's (mis)adventures with HP are hardly news (she resigned in 2005). This is a purely political article before next week's election, and it is "off- topic: most stories about politics [...] unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon."

</comment><comment><USER19> The timing of this article is interesting. Supposedly she destroyed the 'HP Way' years ago. Makes me wonder why it was brought up now... Almost as if there was some important date approaching...

<comment> brown9-2 The intention is clearly stated in the first and second sentences of the article. It's not as if the author's are trying to hide their purpose.

<comment><USER20> Look at the username, this person is trolling.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I can't take this seriously - blaming an individual, especially a CEO, for destroying a corporate culture is ridiculous. I know essentially nothing about the history of HP, but what I do know is that the board bears ultimate responsibility for big decisions, for example a massive layoff.

There is also the distinct possibility that the 'HP Way' was sacrificed to save the company. Again, I know nothing of the history, but putting out a hit piece like this right before the election is just crude.

<comment><USER22> I have to disagree, I would think that the CEO would be the single most important individual in defining, creating and driving a corporate culture.

<comment><USER2> I agree, but in the case of HP I would add that the board has been entirely capable of disgracing itself independently of Fiorina. Fiorina, Hurd, and Apotheker didn't manifest out of thin air, after all.</comment></comment></comment>


An idea to combat hiring discrimination - <AUTHOR> So I just read this.. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/oct/01/physics-was-built-by-men-cern-scientist-alessandro-strumia-remark-sparks-fury .. and it got me thinking about hiring discrimination.
It seems to be an issue in almost every workplace. People are getting discriminated against, others and railing against the measures taken to try and achieve equality.
I just had an idea that could achieve truly merit based hiring, that could be applied to STEM and anywhere else...
Carry out interviews anonymously. The people actually doing the interview and making the hiring decision dont learn the applicants name or background. When they talk to them, its text only or using a voice modulator.
They can see their work (with all names or hints at the applicants background redacted) and interview them.. But they never learn any of their personal details..
You could even use fancy technology to do a video interview and capture their mannerisms and facial expressions but project it onto a neutral character.
This is one way I can think of, to try and achieve truly merit based hiring.
I'm serious.. why not do this? Hiring discrimination is a serious problem, and I know this idea seems silly, but if this helps it'd certainly be worth trying out..
Are there any people here prepared to try this out? <comment><USER2> Good idea! But check out [http://www.interviewing.io](http://www.interviewing.io) it already does this for programming - including voice masking, if you wish...

</comment><comment><USER3> A key problem is that discriminated-against groups may actually do worse when evaluated anonymously merit-only basis. (There was a study, but I don't have the link.)

Perhaps a better question would be, why aren't companies snapping up these superior candidates that are being discriminated against? Capitalists aren't know for leaving money on the table.</comment>


Confessions of a $20K bootcamp graduate - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@norimaki/confessions-of-a-bootcamp-graduate-hack-reactor-f921c441fb23#.63ynk0unv <comment><USER2> Flatiron School was nothing like this. We had long lectures every day by a great senior-level dev, and then review sessions with recent grads later in the day. It was a really polished curriculum, and a great environment to work hard in. $20k is indeed expensive, but it's only money. I used to do something I didn't love for a living and now I get to write code. Life is short. I'm thankful bootcamps exist and there was a path for me to transition into a challenging, engaging career.

I've been out for almost a year now. I hope they're still keeping the standards high.

<comment><USER3> > "$20k is indeed expensive, but it's only money."

That is a _very_ substantial amount of cash for most people. Not to mention the time commitment. (As you say, life is short.)

<comment><USER4> Eh, much cheaper than a $40,000 4-year commitment (from a public university, assuming $5,000 semesters - which is _very_ lenient).

<comment><USER3> That's been brought up a few times in this thread. I don't think it's a fair comparison at all. You can borrow student loans for college, but the $20k comes out of pocket.

<comment><USER2> Most bootcamp students already have college degrees. Many have families and mortgages, etc. Dropping from the workforce for four years to do another college degree isn't a realistic option. Tuition isn't the biggest cost of education at a certain point in life; lost wages is.

<comment><USER5> A second bachelor's is unlikely to take four years of full-time work; e.g., Oregon State's online second bachelor's in CS is a 1-year full time program.

<comment><USER2> That's cool and an option I didn't know about. Still, an entire year of lost wages is way more expensive than a bootcamp. I couldn't have made that work.

<comment><USER5> > Still, an entire year of lost wages is way more expensive than a bootcamp.

Plenty of people do online programs nearly equivalent to full-time (with loads like that of the 1.5-year track for the OSU second bachelor's, which is also available on 2-, 3-, and 4-year tracks with lower impacts, though longer terms) _with_ full-time jobs _and_ families, some even do full-time programs (like the 1-year track) that way. People that need to learn around an existing job and often family commitments are pretty much the core market for distance education.

That's not to say bootcamps don't have their place, but the idea that there is no other option for people who want to become programmers and can't afford to take a lot of time off of their existing job is just wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Honestly I feel like the golden age of bootcamps is coming to an end. A lot of schools jumped into the market and it just seems like quality is dropping.

Having worked at a bootcamp as an instructor and having hired multiple bootcamp grads I've noticed that typically you'll have 2 or 3 really great students and then 20 who got little value from the program. Bootcamps work wonders for that small percentage of students though. A lot of people who had some pretty shitty career paths ended up going from $12.00/hr to $100,00/yr within a few years of the program.

That's life changing; sadly it's the exception, not the rule.

<comment><USER7> I didn't have any ability to follow my students' earnings but that '2-3 really great students per class' also correlates with my experience TA'ing CS110 students.

<comment><USER8> Exactly. I feel this is being overlooked a lot.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I hire data scientists, my experience interviewing through a boot camp for a year: the top 1-2 students in each class are great, the remaining 10-15 are anywhere from under-qualified to woefully unqualified. The one guy I hired from the bootcamp, easily the highest quality applicant from three classes we evaluated, told me he learned essentially nothing. He told me his teachers had no real qualifications or work experience. The students are charged 15K for 6 weeks, about the same amount I spent on my entire masters. We were charged 10K to hire him.

Bootcamps are a good idea in theory, but the execution makes it clear most of them are cash grabs and part of a disturbing culture in this country to massively profit off post secondary school education (at the expense of the students).

<comment><USER10> > The students are charged 15K for 6 weeks, about the same amount I spent on > my entire masters.

Assuming you're going for a job, paying $X to get a job in six weeks sounds like much _better_ value than paying $X to get a job in two years.

<comment><USER11> I think parent comment is suggesting a greater value because 15k bought him a whole year or two of supervised self-improvement, whereas it lasts only 6 weeks in the boot camp environment.

<comment><USER9> Yes exactly. I only brought up the money to transition to my rant about how I think bootcamps are a cash grab :)

I also think thaumasiotes is missing my overarching point, which is that the data science bootcamps didn't actually provide much value to their students.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is a great post and more of these are surely needed. I think the reason we don't see many graduates speaking out is because they feel it might "de- value" their degree which I totally understand.

However the lack of transparency with bootcamps is frightening. Especially regarding how much they charge. I'm not saying all of them are bad. In fact I think it is refreshing to that so many bootcamps popped up since now you have a lot of options. However there doesn't seem to be a lot of price warring yet which I find kind of odd.

<comment><USER4> The weird thing is that the "price warring" that does go on seems very dramatic - there are plenty of bootcamps that are effectively "free". That being said, they often don't get rave reviews (nor do they seem to have much marketing going for them).

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I went to a bootcamp in 2014. I think it was detrimental. I came out of it depressed and wholly unequipped for the roles their marketing suggested I'd be ready for.

I don't recommend them.

</comment><comment><USER14> As an employer I'd look at bootcamp participation as a sign that the applicant doesn't know how to program. Just like all of Sun's nee Oracle's and MS's (well, _and_ Oracle's) cert programs 15 years ago.

If you truly don't know how to program but want a coding job, then here's a $0 class. Start with JavaScript. Why? The entire internet is based on JavaScript, it can do anything, it runs on any OS, and it's easy to learn.

Google how to write a "hello world" web server program in node.js. (js stands for JavaScript. node.js is the most popular way to write web server in JavaScript). Follow that tutorial through.

Next, update it to make it tell the current time, updating once per second. Make a client-side and a server-side version of the app. Client-side means your code is in the HTML page and gets executed by the browser. Server-side means the code is on the web server, and your browser pings the server once per second for the correct time. Server-side is a bit more complex. Google is your friend in this. stackoverflow.com is a great community and resource to learn from (but search for existing answers before asking questions!).

Next step is to find a TodoMVC tutorial (google again) in node.js, follow it through, and publish to heroku. You probably want to google "node.js todomvc heroku tutorial". (I didn't but I'm sure something would turn up). This will teach you about databases, version control (specifically "git"), hosting, and deployment. At the end of the day you'll have fully functional web app that anyone can use just by knowing the URL! Really once you've worked through that, or, once you're able to do it from scratch without googling much, you're a coder. Rejoice.

At that point put your TodoMVC code on github (google again, but the place people share code via "the git"), and start mucking with it. Whatever suits your fancy: if you're into UX then spend time making the UX cleaner. If you're into databases or programming languages, adapt to different ones. If you're into performance, then blaze that path. Or if you're just not into todo lists, then use your newfound knowledge to start a project WRT something you do like.

Final step, ping potential employers and show off your github account. You'll certainly get a look from SMB owners who are looking for people with some intrinsic motivation. You'll put people who subcontract their drive to bootcamp programs to shame.

<comment><USER15> Given the volume of applicants you have to sift through, I don't blame you for generalizing that "bootcamp == noob".

I know several people who had a CS degree and/or had been working as actual "Software Engineer"s for fairly reputable companies before attending a bootcamp. For people like this, there are several reasons to attend:

1) The same kind of reason why people do MBA's: you get a mental break, in that you do something very different than what you're used to doing, and then probably get to work in a more desirable city/company.

2) To learn things that were not taught in a CS program. At least as of 3-4 years ago, most CS programs did not teach you any kind of web development-- if you're lucky, there was a class on the LAMP stack, or you could do an independent project using whatever stack you wanted. Otherwise it was Java/C++ for data structures & algorithms. Going from that, to webapp development, can leave you feeling like you have no idea what you're doing. Especially if your coworkers aren't nice enough to help you out.

3) To meet technical cofounders. It sounds like nowadays some programs are basically letting in anyone with a heartbeat, but a few years ago at least, before bootcamps became "cool" or whatever, they attracted highly motivated risk-takers, many of whom had prior programming experience.

<comment><USER14> Agreed. Everything in perspective.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I attended Hack Reactor last summer. The teaching style she describes was incredibly effective for me, and I couldn't have been happier with my experience there. It doesn't take long to pay off $18k when you get a huge raise.

</comment><comment><USER4> Eh, I had a much better experience. But I don't chalk up my success to HR's curriculum nearly as much as I do the people (though getting exposure to Node.js has been a huge aspect of my life).

If you're going to any bootcamp/immersive and you're going for the curriculum all you're going to get out of it is the curriculum - which you could easily obtain from freecodecamp.com for... well... free. If you're going to go, you should be going for the people - your sprint partners, thesis groups, beer buddies, outcomes teams, tech leads, alumni network... that's what lasts _after_ Hack Reactor and it yields dividends well beyond the (admittedly striking) sticker price.

<comment><USER17> Part of my concern with bootcamps is the sentiment expressed above that you need it to get exposure to some arbitrary technology. In my experience, the best indicator to success in an industry or technology is a desire to learn that technology. Not someone giving exposure. I a happy it is working out for you, but as Node falls out of fashion, it will be on you to learn the next wave.

<comment><USER4> I hate when people make the assumption that learning JavaScript is somehow a limiting factor. It hasn't stopped me from picking up Java, Ruby, Python, or PHP. I still have some trouble with Go structs and I still have some learning to do on Rust lifetimes... but seriously.

What "next wave" of server application development does Node.js leave me so woefully unprepared to deal with? Are people really having issues marshalling JSON/XML or sending templates down the wire?

<comment><USER17> Was not my intention to imply javascript was a limiting factor. Nor that web frameworks for python, java, ruby, etc. are all that different. My comment was simply challenging the thought that a bootcamp is necessary for being exposed to technology. There are plenty of free resources online from which to learn. If a bootcamp helps jumpstart that, great. But picking up the next framework (while similar) will require diving in on your own.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The money is always in selling the shovel, not digging.

</comment><comment><USER19> $20,000 is about half of what my 4 year college education cost (although it's more expensive now, certainly). That seems incredibly expensive for a bootcamp. I'm obliged to ask what on earth that money is going towards, besides directly into somebody's pockets.

> Another observation, most people who get in, are already qualified people, > with top university degrees.

I'm afraid to ask how large their student loans could be, this bootcamp included.

<comment><USER20> When did you graduate? Between 2009 and 2013 my college cost was roughly $40k per year. This was about the average for similar schools (RIT). My wife went to a small liberal arts school during the same time and spent roughly $50k per year.

$20k seems like an incredible bargain, but my view is probably warped.

<comment><USER19> 2009-2013 as well, (accredited) state school (of which I am a resident), cost me a little less than $10,000 per year for a Computer Engineering degree. However, my junior year, engineering classes level 300 and above increased by 25%, continually increasing per year until they were 100% more expensive. I narrowly dodged that bullet.

Perhaps the west coast is cheaper? $50,000 per year seems like lunacy to me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Thank you for sharing this. There needs to be a better system for bootcamp shoppers, but until then, these kinds of posts will probably save others lots of money.

<comment><USER22> I agree.

</comment></comment><comment> dan-b Drills, close quarters, hard work sounds like boot camp. App academy changed my life. "Anyone who tries for 6 months can get a job" really? You think that education is expensive? How much did you spend at college, and what job were you qualified for after that?

</comment><comment><USER23> This post reads like the author holds the school responsible for the students success. Programming does not work that way. You MUST make yourself successful. Even giving a minutes thought to a schools "result stats" entirely misses the point.

Taking this to the next level, I don't think people should be paying to go to any sort of coding school. Spend the money on a second monitor and living expenses and sit at home and work on building something real. There is no better, quicker or more effective way to learn, and every bit of knowledge that you need is published on the Internet for free.

Stop learning, start doing.

<comment><USER24> I think this is a popular opinion that's just not realistic. There is a >0% of the population (much greater IMO) that is more productive learning in a structured environment. For those people there is an amount >0$ that they would be willing to pay for that structured environment. To say otherwise is basically just a glib, "Well I did it so why can't you?"

<comment><USER23> There is no "structured environment" when you get a job in programming. You are given goals and you need to get the result through learning and problem solving and just trying to make the damn thing work.

If the only context in which a person is capable of operating is one in which they are "taught" then they aren't suited to programming.

You have to do it on your own eventually so many as well get started on the task of becoming good at that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I had a good experience at MakerSqaure. I wouldn't disagree with some of the points brought up - at certain times the work is more solo-based and I too wondered what the instructors were being paid for. The "best practices" point is something that could definitely be more emphasized from a curriculum standpoint. This is kinda tricky when talking about React (for example) as best practices in a lot of ways are still being adopted.

In my case, the outcomes have been good (graduated earlier this year and make $20k more than my previous job) but I would agree that it's been an uphill battle getting an interview and negotiating salaries when there are more junior developers in the market. (HR/MKS markets grads as being more as "mid level" which is accurate for some - but it really is a spectrum.)

Overall I recommend these programs to people who are passionate about the field - but a lot might be motivated to attend for the wrong reasons.

</comment><comment><USER26> (I'm a cofounder at Hack Reactor.)

It's always a bummer when an alum would not recommend the program. I hate reading posts like this and I'd love to buy the poster a beer and learn more so we can do it different next time. (Email is in profile!)

Here's a bit of inside baseball:

This post is representative of a troubled period at our school. We had a couple of overlapping key problems and recent alums have been less supportive of the school. We care and we've made big moves to fix it. 1) Candidates were gaming the admissions process -> we rewrote it. 2) Students only had access to 2014 data and didn't know how it was calculated -> we published our 2015 data (and some stuff on 2016) and we published the world's first guide to "how to publish employment statistics that aren't bullshit", and we ramped up messaging to students "expect that your job search might be harder".[A] 3) Students stopped knowing who we were and stopped feeling like they could trust us -> we bought back two leaders to focus full-time on the campus (vs working at the umbrella organization). Lots of smaller changes as well.

Even during this difficult period, students are generally having a great experience and getting an ROI that we are proud of. Our most recent NPS measurements have all been above 80, which is bonkers. (This means that nearly everyone is a 9 or a 10 on a 1-10 scale of "how likely are you to recommend HR to a friend?")

There are a lot of details in this post that I don't disagree with. Eg "Ironically the number of lectures drops dramatically after the first week." This is true and we tell students about it during w1. It's the correct design decision. Etc. For other students, those same details have added up to a different gestalt. We care and we try to fix things when things aren't adding up. The diagnosis is not linear (you can't just fix the problems that alums cite) but we listen and try to sort out the right decisions.

I empathize with a lot of things going on and I want recent alums to know we care. I also think it's bonkers that our 98% placement rate in 2015 (94% in 3 months, ~85%ish in 3 months for one recent cohort) is being cited like it's weak sauce. That's a towering accomplishment of staggering magnitude in my books, and we charge $20k because the median student gets a ~$50k raise and we employ lots of staff to make that happen.

<3, Shawn

[A] [http://www.hackreactor.com/student- outcomes](http://www.hackreactor.com/student-outcomes), [http://reactorcore.com/wp- content/uploads/2016/05/StandardSt...](http://reactorcore.com/wp- content/uploads/2016/05/StandardStudentOutcomeMethodology.pdf)

<comment><USER27> "we charge $20k because the median student gets a ~$50k raise"

Horseshit alert if I've ever heard one.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, my raise was more along the lines of $140k. But I went from Shift Lead Walgreens to contract Web Developer at Google, so... there's that.

<comment><USER28> Yeah, im gonna call bullshit on this one too.

You got into google because google actively recruits military vets, not because of the bootcamp experience, which might have helped get you over the hump, but unlikely caused it.

It took you 3 years between shift lead and google.

~your lovely neighborhood ex-people search engine founder.

P.S. thank you for your navy service (in all seriousness)

<comment><USER4> Google doesn't care about veteran status when it comes to their contracted employees as that pool comes from the ranks of the staffing agencies.

As far as the 3 years since Walgreens goes... \- 1 year spent in college for CS before dropping out \- 1 year spent self-teaching and working for a startup where I learned what "jQuery" and "AJAX" and "PHP" did =p \- 3 months Hack Reactor \- 6 months contract with Intel \- currently at Google

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Ouch! As a hiring manager, the "Javascript only" model is a serious roadblock.

Nothing against node.js, but a candidate would be marketable to a broader range of shops if the program gave them a basic grounding in Python and SQL. Python is well accepted for both web servers and sysadmin type scripting. SQL is the most common choice for databases. I don't think either one would be a incremental burden and would really open up the number of potential employers for the grads.

<comment><USER4> Out of curiosity, what kind of scripts can you write in Python that you cannot in Node.js?

Don't get me wrong, Python is great and has a number of really great number crunching libraries just a pip away, but if all you're doing is developing web apps and hashing out some scripts via the terminal... they'll need to know JavaScript for the client - but do they really need to come away with two languages after 3 months?

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Ugh, how could anyone hope to teach programming by beginning with "Data Modeling and Classes?" That stuff only becomes interesting after you've become enthralled by getting the computer to do stuff.

<comment><USER31> I thought the same thing - weird way to start off.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This maybe a bit off topic, but hopefully someone can provide some insight.

Do Udacity nanodegrees fall under the same category as these bootcamps? What is the quality one can expect there?

</comment><comment><USER32> Full disclosure: I am part of the instruction team at Hack Reactor. This amazing team that I work with are completely committed to our students, their experience and their success. I have colleagues who almost don't go home, who work weekends, obsess over how to help our students succeed. We lose sleep. We worry. Truth is, I find the tone of this article dismaying knowing what these remarkable people do for our students and knowing how successful most of those students go on to be.

Shawn responds with some details about recent changes we had to make to address, among other things, applicants figuring out how to game our admissions. For a few cycles there were notably more students than usual who struggled with the program, not getting out of it what other students do and who subsequently struggled in the job search. That placed a huge demand on instructional resources which has impact throughout the student body.

Whether those students got in by deliberate exploitation of vulnerabilities in our process (some did) or earnestly researching what HR wants and studying "to the exam" is immaterial -- they entered unprepared for the program. Regardless, they received the same world-class curriculum as our phenomenally successful students. I don't believe it's coincidental that the most vindictive account of a student's experience at Hack Reactor came hot on the heels of that challenging period in our history.

I do want to address a few assertions that were made that suggest a deliberate attempt to mislead readers. The Hackers In Residence are not Instructors at Hack Reactor. They aren't represented as such. HIR's are not intended to be experts in technology nor to provide answers to all possible questions the current students provide. Any instruction they provide is either ad-hoc coaching, whiteboarding collaboration, in the form of brown bag talks they offer or by presenting toy problem solutions in the morning.

What they are is a group of very gifted and empathetic engineers who are sharing their talents with other students, coaching them through problem solving, providing first line Help Desk support, pitching in on other efforts at the school while they continue their own studies beyond the scope of our curriculum. They are among our brightest students who choose not to go immediately into the job market where they can command impressive salaries but rather stay to learn and study more and to support other students. They're fabulous, talented people.

More specifically, HIR's are recent grads who understand the experience of the current students and who know from direct recent experience the kinds of support they found most helpful or most hoped for and seek to provide that support to students. Questions that are beyond the scope of their understanding are escalated to engineers (like me) on the Instruction Team. They are an additional set of eyes and ears that allow me to even more insight into the experience of my current students than I can gain on my own.

As to the lectures and the difference between the first half and the second half of the program. The curriculum is very specifically designed to develop autonomous engineers. It is WHY our grads are successful. They don't excel in the workplace IN SPITE OF that structure. We guide them more early in the program where they need more support and very consciously, over time, reduce the hand-holding in favor of their own discovery and collaborating with classmates to learn. Mentors and Lecturers continue to provide support and instruction as needed during the latter half of the program.

With respect to languages. Many schools teach more than one language. Not many schools prepare engineers as well as we do. Hack Reactor is not a Javascript school. We use Javascript as a context to teach software engineering. Our students often tackle new languages on their own in the second half because they are well-prepared and appropriately autonomous. We've had students and student teams use Swift, Python, Ruby on Rails, Rust, Processing, dabble in IoT, ... And HIRs tackle Scala, Haskell, and more. That's not in spite of the program, that's because of the program..

I understand that a critical reader will have to take my response with a grain of salt but I think it's reasonable to ask readers of the Medium article to do their own research and contact alums for direct feedback before drawing conclusions.

<comment><USER11> >"...the most vindictive account of a student's experience at Hack Reactor ..."

You give yourself so much benefit of the doubt, but offer none to the author, who you've decided is out to get Hack Reactor? That one swipe at the former student is more concerning than the rest of your comment is reassuring, to me.

An alternative reading of the situation, if you're not seeing one: the author has attempted to better herself by one common approach in the programming world, and having a bad experience, she is sending a warning back to others who are seeking the same improvement, telling us, 'this may be the wrong direction.'

<comment><USER32> I do not represent the school, I speak only for myself and believe it's reasonable for me to express an opinion as someone who believes in and works hard for our school and our students. Further, 1) I am not tone deaf. The author's disdain was thinly veiled and their accounting was full of exaggerations and inaccuracies. This wasn't a simple sharing of how they program works and how it didn't meet their needs. It also raises concerns because I am dismayed that they apparently didn't raise any reasonable concerns they may have had during the program when I and my colleagues were in a position to improve their experience or they would have reported it differently here. Why do you suppose they wouldn't give us that opportunity to make their experience more fruitful given their investment? Constant iteration and openness to feedback is a regular mantra around HR. I wonder (reasonably) if there isn't something else going on here than they report. And 2) I sought to share another perspective. I provided full disclosure about my role in the first sentence, highlighted some specific skewed observations made by the author and encouraged readers to investigate for themselves.

Seems reasonable to me.</comment></comment></comment>


Clemency petition for Ross Ulbricht reaches 7,000 signatures in less than 4 days - <AUTHOR> https://www.change.org/p/freerosspetition-we-seek-potus-s-clemency-for-ross-ulbricht-serving-double-life-without-parole-for-a-website-realdonaldtrump-free-ross <comment><USER2> > _Ross is condemned to die in prison, not for dealing drugs himself but for a > website where others did._

Unless these transcripts are entire fabrications, he was rather more hands-on with other criminals than this petition is letting on: [https://www.wired.com/2015/02/read-transcript-silk-roads- bos...](https://www.wired.com/2015/02/read-transcript-silk-roads-boss- ordering-5-assassinations/)

<comment><USER3> The violent charges were dropped during the investigation. In effect, he was not judged based on such allegations.

Wikipedia:

> "Ulbricht was charged with money laundering, computer hacking, conspiracy to > traffic narcotics,[26][30] and procuring murder.[27] The charge of procuring > murder was removed from the indictment[31]"

31 refers to: [https://www.dailydot.com/crime/silk-road-murder-charges- ross...](https://www.dailydot.com/crime/silk-road-murder-charges-ross- ulbricht/)

<comment><USER4> He was judged (but not charged) on these allegations:

>The charge of procuring murder was removed from the indictment[31] although the evidence was factored into Ulbricht's sentence.

<comment><USER3> That last part of that sentence has a missing citation. Do you have a source for that?

<comment><USER5> the quote's from wikipedia

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Well . . . the charges themselves were all for non-violent offenses. But part of the reason why the sentencing was so harsh was that whole thing where he paid to have five people killed.

> "I find there is ample and unambiguous evidence that [Ulbricht] commissioned > five murders to protect his commercial enterprise," Forrest [the judge in > the case] said, leaving out one alleged attempted murder for which Ulbricht > was charged in a different case.

\-- [https://www.wired.com/2015/05/silk-road-creator-ross- ulbrich...](https://www.wired.com/2015/05/silk-road-creator-ross-ulbricht- sentenced-life-prison/)

<comment><USER3> Maybe you conveniently forget that there was no such proof and that is why the "procuring murder" charge was dropped by the prosecution.

> Of the six murder indictments trumpeted by the U.S. government in the days > following Ulbricht's Oct. 2013 arrest, five have fallen off the table and > the sixth sits untouched in a separate indictment (legalese for an unproven > allegation) that was purposefully left out of the upcoming trial.

> Prosecutor Serrin Turner used the murder-for-hire allegations to get the > judge to deny bail. Now, Turner isn't even going to charge Ulbricht with the > murders.

> Why have six of the most important accusations been left as yet uncharged?

> "Maybe you don't have that proof," criminal defense attorney Jay Leiderman > told the Daily Dot. "Maybe the proof isn't as good as you thought it was."

> There are a couple of other possibilities that deserve mention. First, there > may be informants out there that the prosecution doesn't want to expose, > that they want to use for other cases, so they're willing to leave half a > dozen murders uncharged in order to protect him. Second, they may have > determined that a relevant informant is unreliable and can't be used in > trial.

> Either way, the murder accusations are buried and uncharged.

from: [https://www.dailydot.com/crime/silk-road-murder-charges- ross...](https://www.dailydot.com/crime/silk-road-murder-charges-ross- ulbricht/)

<comment><USER6> I quoted someone who was intimately involved in the trial saying there was ample and unambiguous evidence. Your theory on why those charges were not included is one of a number of possible explanations. Another possible explanation was that they felt they had enough to nail him sufficiently on the other charges, and didn't want to bother to prove unnecessary additional offenses.

<comment><USER7> >Another possible explanation was that they felt they had enough to nail him sufficiently on the other charges, and didn't want to bother to prove unnecessary additional offenses.

Your argument is equivalent to: "As long as a conviction feels good, it doesn't much matter if the due process of law is followed" . It's the equivalent of arguing for a system that is ok with police breaking into a house without a warrant as long as they find something illegal.

<comment><USER6> > As long as a conviction feels good, it doesn't much matter if the due > process of law is followed

What? I don't believe I said anything about "feeling good" anywhere in my comment, so I struggle to fathom how my argument can be equivalent to an argument that includes that term.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> For everyone mentioning Ross hiring hit men to kill people. He was never charged with that. Prosecutors commonly fabricate a story to paint a picture of a defendant for the jury. We will never know for sure if Ross actually did this but he's innocent until proven guilty.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for that. For those who want to read more, go to [https://freeross.org/making-a-murderer/](https://freeross.org/making-a- murderer/) (link to Ross's charges and Ross's indictment and more) Ross's charges at trial were all NON-VIOLENT.

<comment><USER9> that is completely non convincing

<comment><USER8> Regardless if it's convincing or not, he's not guilty of the crime.

Imagine this: you steal a bag of Oreos from a 7-11. You are sent to trial. Then the prosecution says you also killed some dude. When all is said and done, you are convicted of shoplifting and receive an insane amount of time in prison but were never actually charged with murder, wouldn't you think that the jury was manipulated?

<comment><USER10> No, I wouldn't. Because the jury has nothing to do with the sentencing. The prosecution also wouldn't just make up the story of killing some dude; there would be some evidence to link me to that action.

Stop pretending that Ulbricht is some kind of saint, and that there is no evidence of him doing this.

<comment><USER8> I don't disagree that there may be some kind of evidence to link to that action. But I do believe that evidence can be tampered with to create the illusion. Seriously, a chat transcript is what people cite as evidence? We as a society should doubt accusations until they've been proven to be factual.

There's been numerous cases of people being exonerated of a crime [1] after spending years of their life inside prison.

I'm not trying to pretend that Ulbricht is a saint. He deserves to be in prison for running an illegal market. But if that's all he was ever convicted of, then I believe that the punishment of a double life sentence doesn't fit the crime.

* [1] - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wrongful_convictions_i...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wrongful_convictions_in_the_United_States)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> He tried to have 5 people professionally executed. He broke the law and facilitated others breaking the law because he felt laws took away his personal liberties. He is incompatible with this society and he's dangerous..

</comment><comment><USER3> And meanwhile Paul Le Roux, who is actually a real drug kingpin and who has ordered the murders of several people across the world (with a well proven track of evidence) is not in prison and is working for the DEA.

[https://magazine.atavist.com/the-next-big- deal](https://magazine.atavist.com/the-next-big-deal)

Makes sense.

</comment><comment><USER12> I think life was much too severe. Yes he did bad things, but people who actually murdered other people get out of prison, why can't he?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Guys, for those who want to bring up the unproven, uncharged murder stuff, please read [https://freeross.org/making-a- murderer/](https://freeross.org/making-a-murderer/) Ross's been smeared in the media enough, let's just help the guy.

<comment><USER10> No, let's not help the guy. He's not deserving of help. And despite you wanting to claim the murder stuff is "unproven and uncharged", the evidence of his involvement is pretty clear.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> "In my eyes, FriendlyChemist is a liability and I wouldn't mind if he was executed, but then you'd be out your $700k."

"I understand, and that is great news about Xin [being kidnapped]. If I understand the situation, he is the one responsible for your loss."

"I would like to put a bounty on his head if it's not too much trouble for you. What would be an adequate amount to motivate you to find him? Necessities like this do happen from time to time for a person in my position."

"It doesn't have to be clean, and I don't think there are any funds to be retrieved"

"Don't want to be a pain here, but the price seems high. Not long ago, I had a clean hit done for $80k."

"I've only ever commissioned the one other hit, so I'm still learning this market."

"Excellent work."

So deserving of clemency...

</comment><comment><USER14> Listened to American Kingpin on audiobook during a recent trip. It was pretty entertaining if anyone wants more information on this topic.

</comment><comment><USER15> So this guy ordered hit men to murder ppl. Of course his dear mom left this out in the petition...

</comment><comment><USER16> I'm a little out of the loop here, but wasn't the conviction also related to hiring a hitman to kill someone?

<comment><USER7> >wasn't the conviction also related to hiring a hitman to kill someone?

No and that's the legal issue. He's being imprisoned for a crime he crime he hasn't been convicted of.

<comment><USER10> No, he's not. He's imprisoned for the crime he was convicted of. The judge, having discretion on how much time he should be imprisoned for, took into account the defendant's character.</comment></comment></comment>


Development History of UnReal World RPG - <AUTHOR> http://unrealworld.fi/urw_devhist.html <comment><AUTHOR> UnReal World, or UrW, is a unique graphical roguelike RPG taking place in the Far North long, long ago. It brings you a realistic game world rich with historical atmosphere in which northern folklore, knowledge and way of life play an important part. The atmosphere and game features are highly original and compelling. The world of the game is based on the ancient Finland in the late Iron Age. Throughout the years, UnReal World has been praised for its depth, realism, atmosphere and immersion.</comment>


The Internet Doesn't Love Anything. It Is Not a Human Being. - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/articles/life/the_good_word/2014/06/the_internet_loves_the_internet_hates_no_the_internet_is_not_a_person.html

<comment><USER2> I disagree. Saying that the internet loves something is similar to saying that "information wants to be free" or that a certain material is "hydrophobic". None of these things are "sentient" and so can't have opinions, desires, or fears, right? Well, maybe but what gives us "sentient" beings opinions, desires, fears, etc? I reckon it's just some kind of emergent phenomena. Well, the internet's "love" of cat photos is similar to this. Probably.

</comment><comment><USER3> It does exhibit emergent behaviors that are arguably lifelike. Mostly its still human driven, like the worlds biggest Ouija board _(1)_. It will get lots more interesting when it becomes mostly machines interacting (and effecting the physical world) thanks to the IoT.

 _(1) And it seems to have spelled out "I can haz"._

<comment><AUTHOR> Remindes me of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Watched_Over_by_Machines_of...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Watched_Over_by_Machines_of_Loving_Grace_\(TV_series\))

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Sophism; _The Internet loves X_ implies _People on Internet love X_. Moreover, the Internet is for Cats [1]

[1] [http://theinternetisforcats.com/](http://theinternetisforcats.com/)

</comment><comment><USER5> Good that we have cleared that up. So, after that, could anyone explain to me how Washington can keep making all those laws and far-reaching descisions about our lives? Isn't it just a collection of buildings?

</comment><comment> guard-of-terra Internet is not a human being, but one might argue it is to some point alive; and that it even responds to irritations.

</comment><comment><USER6> The internet is clearly very frustrated about being described as human.

</comment><comment><USER7> Why not ? One of the main properties of neural networks, like the human one, is that many of them act just like a single one (provided they communicate), only smarter.

In fact, your brain is not a single piece of brain matter. There are 3 "main" sections to your brain. That, and they're doubled up on 2 sides. Shoot all 3 on one side, and that human will respond almost as before, with very minimal loss of function (assuming the resulting bleeding doesn't kill the person of course).

That's not where it ends, the cortex is further subdivided in ~300 regions, each of which is to some extent independent. For instance, they have their own separate connection to the spinal cord. That means you could shoot 299 of them, and the person would not die and still respond like a human being to some extent. There are caveats, like that only 4 of those regions are connected to the eye, only 4 are connected to the ear, so chances are if you kill off most of the brain, it'd be a blind and deaf human being, but ...

So the internet should respond, in the other direction and only to some extent (because communication is very slow), like a human being.

</comment><comment><USER8> It's not just the Internet. It's also "them". And "us". No such thing!

"Everyone knows" is, like, a modern prayer. You just say it, and then everything else becomes true. Everyone knows you can just say 'everyone knows something' and you'll have described the Godhead, and/or thus God itself. Which, everyone knows, doesn't actually exist.

The Internet is an electronic godhead. Did everyone not get that briefing at the entrance door?</comment>


Navigation for the Visually Impaired Using a Google Tango RGB-D Tablet - <AUTHOR> http://www.dan.andersen.name/navigation-for-the-visually-impaired-using-a-google-tango-rgb-d-tablet/

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a project I've been working on for the past couple of months, using the Project Tango tablet for a navigation system for people with visual disabilities.

It uses pose estimation and point cloud data to (1) build a chunk-based voxel environment of the user's surroundings, (2) render a set of depth maps surrounding the user, and (3) use the depth map and OpenAL to generate 3D audio that gives indications of where mapped obstacles are.

I don't have it at a state where folks can try it out, but I did do a writeup of my approach and wanted to share it.

Demonstration video (with quiet audio) here: [https://youtu.be/EnNuDiJazBs](https://youtu.be/EnNuDiJazBs)

</comment><comment><USER2> This is awesome, great job, I think you've just given humans echolocation.

If someone was given a similar device at an early age that was semi- permanently attached to them, would their brain possibly be able to create a map of the room?

There have been previous attempts but the Tango device didn't exist then so the hardware was bulky and usually required a backpack.

<comment><AUTHOR> I definitely think it would be possible. I find it interesting to think about eyesight in the same way -- even though an image is projected onto our retinas, there's not a little homunculus looking at our retinas to see the image; it gets translated into electrical signals that our brain interprets. There seems to be a great amount of plasticity in the brain that lets us remap senses and view tools as extensions of our bodies.

There has been some prior work on using depth cameras for navigation for the visually impaired. For example, a smart cane can detect objects beyond its reach and give haptic feedback. Microsoft Research did some work with putting the Kinect on a helmet and giving audio cues for navigation ([http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/184208/VisionForTheBlind....](http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/184208/VisionForTheBlind.pdf)). What I'm interested in is taking that sensory input and making it less immediate by giving it a memory -- letting it build up a picture of an environment rather than needing to point a device at something in order to know something about it.

One big issue is figuring out how to sonify depth information so it's useful. One simple approach is to do a sort of sweep across each frame from left to right, letting each row of an image correspond to a certain pitch. I don't think this is a good approach, as it seems very vision-oriented and is likely to sound just like noise. Maybe if someone was using it from birth, but for relatively fast training I doubt that approach. Other approaches do more interpretation -- Microsoft's work detected faces, walls, and floors, giving each a distinct sound for greater recognition.

<comment><USER3> > What I'm interested in is taking that sensory input and making it less > immediate by giving it a memory -- letting it build up a picture of an > environment rather than needing to point a device at something in order to > know something about it.

Have you tested this approach with blind users? I think building a picture of an environment is a good task to offload to the brain and a good skill to have/develop for blind people.

> One big issue is figuring out how to sonify depth information so it's > useful. One simple approach is to do a sort of sweep across each frame from > left to right, letting each row of an image correspond to a certain pitch. I > don't think this is a good approach, as it seems very vision-oriented and is > likely to sound just like noise.

I think this is a quite good approach, but agree it has a high learning curve. However, that high learning curve might reward the end-user with a system that is more flexible. By preprocessing the input and generating audio based on the detected patterns you limit the applicability of such a system. That being said, a generic system that gives "unfiltered" output and has additional cues you can set for example for fast approaching objects might be useful.</comment></comment></comment>


What Einstein Figured Out About Software Architecture - <AUTHOR> http://blog.quixey.com/2012/11/29/what-einstein-figured-out-about-software-architecture/

<comment><USER2> I understand and endorse the idea here.

It seems, though, that there must be some important distinction between "action at a distance" in physics, and "action at a distance" in software, that's being passed up.

In particular, "distance" in software is surely a function of "distance in mental space", rather than simply the number of lexical-scope boundaries crossed, or the specific number of containing modules. Do we have some way of formalizing this intuition of "distance", such that we could actually use it as a design measure?

<comment><USER3> Is there anything here that offers more insight than keeping your DB in the same datacenter as your app servers?

<comment><USER2> er, yes. "Locality" here doesn't mean keeping everything in the same place, physically - it's talking about keeping causes in the same modules as their effects. Different "space" entirely.</comment></comment></comment>


Who Decided It Was Bad to Be Fat? - <AUTHOR> https://www.sapiens.org/column/curiosities/fat-acceptance/ <comment><USER2> Doctors in the 70s equated obesity with bad health. I have a vintage doctors office scale that has the model name health-o-meter

Look at the pictures of people in the 70s and it was rare to see what we do now.

Maybe hauling a whole shopping cart full of Mountain Dew 2 liters and drinking it doesn't lead to good health.

Doctors don't preach it anymore because people don't listen so why bother?

</comment><comment><USER3> This is an interesting perspective.

When I look around me, I don't see anyone over the age of 60 that is obese. Where did they all go?

<comment><USER4> They died from obesity related pathology</comment></comment>


An Open Letter to FedEx - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@otterley/an-open-letter-to-fedex-ab4abbc9b090 <comment><USER2> > FedEx's claim that it "has never set or changed rates for any of our > millions of customers around the world in response to their politics, > beliefs or positions on issues" is specious at best. On the contrary, the > logic is quite clear:

An interesting letter. And let's be clear - the NRA has done more than many to obstruct attempts to address the blood shed by gun violence. I despise them for it.

With that said, FedEx's statements are quite consistent with their actions and positions. They don't provide discounts based on politics, beliefs, or positions on issues. They provide discounts based on membership in an organization that represents a bunch of customers. NRA membership is not the same as political alignment - it requires membership fees and I know at least one person with a lifetime membership who doesn't support the NRA's politics.

It may be worth noting that while the NRA's deal with FedEx is by definition only available to NRA members, NRA members are not the only people who can benefit from group discounts.

To the author: have you considered the possibility that FedEx might be telling the honest truth in this matter?</comment>


Show HN: Spatially Embedded Video Chat - <AUTHOR> https://veeparty.horse/#hacker-news <comment><USER2> yea, not giving hw permissions to something that doesn't explain what it is

<comment><AUTHOR> oh yeah that makes sense! I just drop people into the space -- it's supposed to be a 2D space for video chat, including a sense of distance, i.e. there are people who are in earshot and others who aren't!

I'll figure out a way to explain things when people enter.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What was wrong with SOAP and WSDLs? - <AUTHOR> I'm a new grad web developer and I've pretty much exclusively worked with REST apis as everywhere seems to preach their benefits.
The other day I happened to work on something that involved an old Java EE app that was using a SOAP based API.
I was blown away.
It seems like with SOAP the API is so well specified. I can read a single file and know the exact request and response types down to the exact types of the data structures?
Not only that but I can automatically generate client libraries for my API?
This might be naive but SOAP seems worlds better than REST from my impression.
REST feels so wishy washy and undefined as if no one actually understands how it should actually work. I've seen otherwise really good developers put verbs in the resource paths, and some operations feel really awkward to model in REST.
Furthermore it seems to rely on the developers to write good API docs which might get out of date easily.
To me it almost seems like REST vs RPC is like JavaScript vs a strong typed language. It seems better at first but falls apart when you start needing stronger structure and guarantees.
Now with that said, I wanna know why SOAP is actually terrible.
I've heard a lot of hate towards it and seeing as it sounds like it was abandoned I'm assuming I'm missing some crucial flaw here...
Was it about interoperability?
I can see how it's easier to setup a quick request to a REST API in any language compared to XML but I'd have thought generated client libraries would solve this issue. <comment><USER2> There isn't anything specifically _wrong_ with SOAP and for some applications it's still the right choice. As with everything "use the right tool for the job", whether it's SOAP, REST, DCOM, GraphQL, CORBA, ONC RPC, Thrift, DCE, RMI, Avro, or $SOMETHING_ELSE.

That said, I think two major things gave SOAP a bad name and caused people to look to alternatives in many situations:

1\. Lack of interoperability between major implementations. One of the whole selling points of SOAP was that you should be able to implement a SOAP service on, say, an IBM S/360 running COBOL, and then consume that service from a VB app running on Windows 2000, in an app that also consumes a SOAP API written in Java running on a Solar box. In reality, issues in the various implementations - whether intentional or otherwise - made it far harder to achieve that lofty goal than it should have been. That was especially true early on. Things got better over time, but that really dinged SOAP and the whole WS-* stack in the eyes of may people.

2\. The performance overhead due to XML (both the parsing, and the raw message size due to XML being a little bit verbose).

Arguably a 3rd factor was the apparent complexity of things like XML namespaces and XML schema, although I personally think that factor is a little over-stated. Namespaces and schemas aren't actually all that hard to understand.

Anyway, this industry tends to be _very_ faddish and once JSON came along and became the next big shiny thing that got rid of the verbosity of XML, along with schemas and namespaces, everybody suddenly jumped on the XML-RPC bandwagon and, later, REST.

<comment><USER2> _... a Solar box._

That should, of course, read "... a Solaris box".

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_web_service_specificat...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_web_service_specifications) Pick a WS-* - any one - and start reading its spec. "The Enterprise", that's what happened.</comment>


Show HN: WebEngage - feedback and short survey widget. Need your inputs - <AUTHOR> http://webengage.com

<comment> avlesh-singh WebEngage lets you collect feedback contextually on your website. Checkout the tab in action on the right hand side at <http://webengage.com>. Notice the "attach screenshot ..." feature. We have done it to make UI bug reporting simple. Also, one can build their own feedback form using our form builder.

WebEngage also lets you conduct short, targeted surveys on your site. A quick demo on this page - <http://webengage.com/?demo=survey-checkbox>.

We moved out of beta 2 days ago and need your inputs on the tool and insights on how to make it better. Do try a realtime demo on your site - <http://webengage.com/#demo-tab>

Disclosure: I am a co-founder at this company.

<comment><USER2> If I may: Please remove all screenshots of your product from your homepage (or at least try and crop the images so that they focus on one particular thing you know people are looking for). Also get rid half of the text. Then get rid half of what's left. Try to [s|t]ell me a story. In no more than one line of text, explain what this does and why I will love it.

(sorry for being so direct, but that's me)

Now.... I've been looking for a thing like this for ages! When I was building a JS-heavy app I was constantly worried about how people actually see it, what would happen if just one thing went wrong etc etc. At the time I didn't find any tools that "let the user send a screenshot and some feedback, in one click".

If I may ask, how did you do the screenshot thing? It's not "live" (as in the actual HTML/CSS of the page I am viewing) is it?

<comment> avlesh-singh Sure you may rudasn. I agree w/ your feedback on the screenshots. Will get the needful done.

The screenshot feature is as live as it gets. We post the HTML/CSS to our servers in realtime and generate the screenshot for you.

Now, if I may - when do you plan to WebEngage on your sites? :)

<comment><USER2> Well.. I'm in the process of building my first "for real" web app. If all goes well, I should be releasing a beta in a month or two. That's when I will need it.

IIRC, Google+ had a similar feature during the beta that allowed you to "select" a section of the page and send it as a screenshot. I found that pretty cool.

<comment> avlesh-singh We plan to enable a few annotation abilities on the screenshot. Would request you to give us a try once you are ready.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Neat service! A few comments: * Put the value prop and the subtext closer to indicate they are related? And set the subtext font size to more readable. * Maybe "Choose a plan" is redundant in the call to action link? * Under the What does Webengage do? It'd be nice to have shorter explanation in larger font so it takes less cognitive load and stands out (which is what you'd want). Disclaimer: I know the founder

<comment> avlesh-singh The reason we have those big explanatory text explaining the product was to address documentation. We needed to educate users on the whole targeting capabilities inside our surveys. That said, I know it ain't the best way to do it. Will cut the flab.

Thanks for the feedback.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've been using WebEngage on my site and it has helped me many a times when people encounter some problems on the site and they send me feedback along with the screenshot. The screenshot feature helps a lot.

All the best guys :)

</comment><comment><USER5> Interesting! I'm from Mumbai too. Developing an open source survey compiler. Perhaps we could meet up ...

<comment> avlesh-singh Sure, we should. Please say hello to avlesh at webklipper dot com

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Liked your "try a demo". Super cool screenshot feature in the feedback tab. Can I customize the colors ?

<comment> avlesh-singh Glad you liked it. Yes you can. Moving forward, we'll also let you change the text "feedback" in that tab.

<comment><USER6> Thanks! will try it out on my site and send you the feedback

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Very cool product. I might sign up.

<comment> avlesh-singh Awesome! Thanks a lot. Look forward :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> i before e except after c

"Start recieving feedback. "

on the how it works page!</comment>


Gmail fights image spam with OCR - <AUTHOR> http://www.google.com/mail/help/fightspam/spamexplained.html

<comment><USER2> That's pretty cool.

But there could be a reverse CAPTCHA where spammers send images with text that OCR engines can't recognize.

Any public breakthrough in OCR to solve the spam-CAPTCHA would actually hurt efforts to stop spammers who could beat CAPTCHAs to signup for more accounts. How ironic :)

<comment><USER3> Spammers have employed this technique since roughly about the time they started sending images. See here for some examples:

<http://www.jgc.org/tsc.html>

Also, real OCR is too expensive to do at the volumes of mail being sent today. Gmail is likely using an OCR-esque technique that has lower precision but is much faster to process a given image.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't suppose they use tesseract, though? I tried it recently, and it didn't recognize anything. Admittedly my test was not very thorough.</comment>


Remind HN: Father's Day - <AUTHOR> At least, it is in the US. Go, do something special! <comment><USER2> HN remembered. I wonder if my kids will. :-)

(Actually we never paid that much attention to greeting card holidays. So if they dont call, it's my fault in raising them to be all around skeptics.)

<comment><USER2> Hey, they called. (I knew the suspense was killing you guys. :) They are good people. I love them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> If I knew where my father was or how to contact him, I would! Alas, I will pay homage to the Great Father of us all, and pray for my mortal father, wherever he is.

</comment><comment><USER4> Sadly, Dad's been gone for 18 years and my last grandfather passed away last year and I'm only 29. I'll be raising a beer to their memory though.

<comment><USER5> Me too. I'll join you. Here's to our fathers and grandfathers. And to their sons.

I'm glad you brought up your grandfathers. Both of mine led very difficult lives and made great sacrifices so that their children and grandchildren could have a better chance than they did. Whenever I have doubts about my project (which isn't often), I remind myself that they came here so that I could do this. Kinda puts things in perspective.

<comment><USER6> Right there with you guys... I lost my Dad about three months ago... he was my best friend.

I'm with you on the grandfathers too... It makes me proud to think of all the ancestry behind me - behind everyone really. All the people who have worked so hard to get us and the rest of humanity to this magical time.

Sometimes when I'm feeling down, I watch this little clip on youtube - I don't have an ounce of Viking ancestry, but I like the message:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RN-no1Ka7yU>

Lo, there do I see my father.

Lo, there do I see my mother.

And my sister and my brother

Lo, there do I see the line of my people

Back to the beginning.

Lo, they do call to me.

They bid me take my place among them

In the halls of Valhalla

Where the brave may live forever.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> What is the point of celebrating something at time intervals that correspond to one rotation of the earth around the sun? Isn't that completely arbitrary?

<comment><USER8> Does that line of thought inevitably lead to nihilism? I mean, isn't life just as arbitrary?

<comment><USER9> Almost all of life is arbitrary and meaningless. Denying this is not particularly enlightened, and ultimately tends to get rejected by the intellectually curious. On the other hand, seeing absolutely no meaning results in wasted time. The least bad answer seems to be leading a balanced life, with a few elements that are very important, from which meaning is created.

<comment><USER10> so, to summarize, Yes but there's no point getting all upset about it.

<comment><USER11> Richard Dawkins has a quote along the lines of, "Why do we have to look at a beautiful planet and demand a reason behind its being here? Can't we appreciate it for what it is?"

So it is with life. Perhaps in the long run we'll all be dead and the universe will cave in, but in the meantime the things we do and say matter, and there is beauty in the world to appreciate. So I went to the boardwalk with my father and brother and we all had a terrific time, and having a good time was reason in itself to do it.

Once you give up the religious/gamers' view that everything you do has a score, you can appreciate things for what they are rather than for any ultimate result.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Or even a phone call...just do something.

<comment><USER13> An email is the best I can do. I don't like talking to my father.

<comment><USER12> That falls into the "something" category :).

<comment><USER13> I know. Makes me a little sad though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Not in Australia. September 6th here.

</comment><comment><USER15> Not in Romania. We don't even celebrate this.

<comment><USER16> Just wait until the flower/holiday cards industry gets bigger.

<comment><USER15> Looking at the way we imported Valentine's Day and Halloween, it could be possible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> "A father knows when to be a kid, specially when he needs to be a man"

Play with your kids, if you have them.

Hug your father, while you have him.

</comment><comment><USER18> Remind HN: Tuesday is June 23rd and the Monday after that is June 29th.

<comment><USER11> Remind HN: Meaningless sniping may be useful on other sites, but here we all try and contribute to the discussion.

<comment><USER18> What discussion? You know, when I told my dad how you guys took my karma away from me for making a joke about a post about something I should have as a reminder in the calendar on my phone, it really ruined his Father's Day. I think I might even have seen the beginning of a tear, but he manned-up and held it back.

<comment><USER11> I might forgive you for being an asshole if you were particularly witty about it, but you're not. You're sniping for no reason.

<comment><USER18> I'm poking a little fun at these types of threads because let's face it, they have nothing to do with this site. And anyone who needs a Hacker News post to remind them when Fathers Day is and what its purpose is... is clearly missing the point of Fathers Day.

Bottom line, I'm kidding around. You can give me the benefit of the doubt of making a little joke with no ill-intent... or you can call me an asshole. I'll leave it up to you to decide which is worse.

<comment><USER11> Heh. I called you an asshole in regard to your second post, not that original one. I actually agree with its intent: These posts are rather silly. But snarking about it wasn't the right thing to do, IMHO.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Warzone 2100: A Free and Open Source Real-Time Strategy Game - <AUTHOR> https://wz2100.net/ <comment><USER2> I am still waiting for a strategy game which gets near to the Total Annihilation experience (the most satisfying strategy experience I had so far). I am waiting since 1997 (20 years)! What I would like to see is real use of terrain features, monumental maps and units which are well designed. Take a look at the Prophet from TA:Escalation: [0]. 2 naval cannons, 2 plasma batteries, 2 flak guns with built-in multitasking.

[0][[https://images.discordapp.net/.eJwNxkEOgyAQAMC_cC-7wGYFP0MIE...](https://images.discordapp.net/.eJwNxkEOgyAQAMC_cC-7wGYFP0MIErTRQmA9Nf17zVzmq-5xqlXtIn2uANsxcxubntJGqkXX1upZUj- mzu2CJJLyfpWPTDBhCZ4QmZ3xFJ6DZRNwYfJESI44WDA2WhcNx9cDEYN-96p-f1VVJAw.GAe1ysUqLULZdL03aFIy- ihPduU)]

<comment><USER3> A few years ago SpringRTS, and in particular the BalancedAnnihilation mod [0] were active and playable. There is also Planetary Annihilation [1] (that I used to play competitively online, a few of the top players are ex-StarCraft II Grand Masters).

[0] [https://springrts.com/wiki/Balanced_Annihilation](https://springrts.com/wiki/Balanced_Annihilation) [1] [http://www.uberent.com/pa/](http://www.uberent.com/pa/)

<comment><USER4> Eh, there is also, with the same Engine([https://springrts.com/](https://springrts.com/)) , and improved gfx and ux:

Zero-K (www.zero-k.info) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUcqY4GfRpI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUcqY4GfRpI)

TheCursed [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiBh8l200oo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiBh8l200oo) [http://www.indiedb.com/games/the-cursed](http://www.indiedb.com/games/the- cursed)

BalancedAnnhilationReloaded: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TK0u2OYLubo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TK0u2OYLubo)

Evolution RTS: [http://store.steampowered.com/app/291150/](http://store.steampowered.com/app/291150/)

Spring:1944 [http://spring1944.org/](http://spring1944.org/) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76jFZvpvwoA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76jFZvpvwoA)

KernelPanic: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doF7owZ0blk&fmt=18](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doF7owZ0blk&fmt=18)

And various Original TA Derivatives. Try some, have fun.

<comment><USER5> I've played Warzone, Zero-K and SC2. I think Zero-K is the better of the three. Warzone's huge tech tree is overwhelming and I believe it doesn't really add to the game, because it's likely that only a few tech paths are actually viable if one talks competitive play. SC2 is pretty and all, but suffers from hard-to-solve balance problems. Zero-K has solid gameplay elements (like terrain deformation and good unit control) a great variety of units available to all players to master, and it handles nicely a dozen of players without population caps. The only problem is the small player base.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I played a little bit years ago. I didn't like how the map was zoomed in so far, I wanted to zoom out more. I messed with the source code to let me zoom out more and shared how to do it. They told me I was cheating so I never played again.

<comment><USER7> Well that's rude at best. If your patch gives you a better game play to the point of being considered "cheating", then maybe it should be made part of the game. Because now cheaters can use it silently and lough about other players stuck with their narrow view ports...

<comment><USER8> It used to be part of the game, not 100% sure why they ever changed it but iirc it had more to do with technical limitations than game dynamics... also not sure why anyone would call it cheating if they understand the game well. I would have never banned you from my servers. Lots of people call anything cheating when they aren't good enough to win. All the more reason for neutral game servers rather than biased player hosting.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, I was told the game had to be shitty because some players still had pentium 3s. This argument was ridiculous as I was playing on a eee-pc (single core intel atom) with an external 19" monitor. My hardware was too good it wasn't fair? I started playing because it was open source, I thought players would be encouraged instead of discouraged from patching the source.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I played this game so much when it came out. Really great strategy game.

I tried playing through a campaign using the open-sourced engine a while ago but it felt like the pathfinding had taken several steps backwards since the original game. You really start to feel it in the later missions, where the pathfinding becomes the biggest hurdle - your units get stuck while retreating and so get destroyed before they manage to return to a repair station. Never did manage to finish it because of this.

Too bad, because in all other respects it's great. But the pathfinding makes it unplayable for me once a decent number of units are involved in fighting.

<comment><USER10> Total Annihilation also suffers from really bad path finding when you get above a certain number of units.

Luckily, for TA, it's a really simple patch to increase the number of pathfinding cycles.

[http://www.tauniverse.com/forum/showthread.php?t=42529](http://www.tauniverse.com/forum/showthread.php?t=42529)

What's the problem with pathfinding in Warzone?

<comment><USER9> > What's the problem with pathfinding in Warzone?

I haven't looked at the algorithm so can't explain what's going wrong from that side. But essentially, a lot of warzone maps have tight corridors that only barely fit 2-3 units side by side. A big part of the game is the tactical squadrons where you have a commander and assign armies to them, and then you can configure the army so units automatically retreat to repair at a certain damage threshold. So it's normal to have a huge army advancing and at the same time have a smaller number of units automatically retreating through the same corridor. When a unit's calculated path is blocked by another unit, they'll both sort of wiggle around turning a bit in any direction and advancing, doing this dance until they break free. This takes a long enough time that your damaged retreating units are dead by the time the gridlock is resolved.

This was also a problem in the original codebase, but it feels like it's a lot worse with the current wz2100 code.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Does anyone have a list of open source games such as this one? i.e. that are rewrites of older games

Popular-ish examples:

* [https://freeablo.org/](https://freeablo.org/)

* [https://openmw.org/en/](https://openmw.org/en/)

<comment><USER12> I've found this – [http://osgameclones.com/](http://osgameclones.com/)

My favorite ones (apart from OpenTTD) are:

\- [https://github.com/CorsixTH/CorsixTH](https://github.com/CorsixTH/CorsixTH) (Theme Hospital)

\- [https://openrct2.website/](https://openrct2.website/) (Roller Coaster Tycoon)

<comment><USER13> 0AD (Age of Empires) [https://play0ad.com](https://play0ad.com)

<comment><USER12> Yeah, i love 0 A.D., but i don't consider it a "rewrite". There are at least two ongoing attepts to create open source AoE:

\- [https://github.com/angered-ghandi/OpenAOE](https://github.com/angered- ghandi/OpenAOE) (AoE I)

\- [https://github.com/SFTtech/openage](https://github.com/SFTtech/openage) (AoE II)

HN posts about openage:

\- [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10830652](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10830652)

\- [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8511084](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8511084) (with some links to other interesting games in the comments)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I don't play games too often, but have enjoyed this in the past. As far as I could find, this was the only once commercial game that opened sourced it's engine AND data files.

Majority of previously commercial games do not open source the data files, e.g. FreeSpace and Quake.

apt-get install warzone2100

Done.

<comment><USER15> Saga of Ryzom went open source with creative commons assets. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryzom#Source_code_and_assets_f...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryzom#Source_code_and_assets_freely_released)

Tho on second thoughts I think the server side quests and world map may not have been released, so it probably does not count.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Not sure why this is posted. It's an old game, no particularly note worth releases in the last month.

It's definitely a fun RTS, one of my favorites, and opensource.

<comment><USER17> I think it's nice to see order stuff that people might not be aware of on HN from time to time.

I'd not heard of it, and it looks great. Wonder how feasible a iOS would be? (Currently supports Windows and Mac so at least somewhat portable).

<comment><USER8> Sort of supports Mac... No one on the current team has any Mac hardware. Myself and a couple others occasionally make unofficial builds but that's been about it for the last year or two.

As far as iOS, as with many open source projects, a major issue is the licensing probably can't pass the App Store rules.

<comment><USER18> > As far as iOS, as with many open source projects, a major issue is the > licensing probably can't pass the App Store rules.

Are there actual documented incidents of GPL or other FOSS software being rejected from the iOS App Store due to the source code license?

<comment><USER8> The GPL in particular is fundamentally not compatible with the App Store re distribution clauses.

VLC for iOS being the precedent setting example from a few years back.

To answer your question directly, I'm not sure of cases where Apple will outright reject the initial submission of some OSS app - especially if you aren't totally up front about it. But clearly re VLC they will pull it once it is brought up (also leaving to distributing developer open to liability depending on how unhappy the contributors are)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> It's sad that RTS (Real Time Strategy) games are more or less dead for more than a decade.

I still play 10-20 year old RTS games like Age of Empire series, Age of Mythology, Empire Earth, C&C Generals from time to time. Especially playing skirmish mode against hard AI on random maps is really great.

Several spun off genres like Tower Defence, MoBa sprung off as Mods from Age of Empires series and WarCraft 3. Since 2009 also the Facebook games like Farmville, et al and Free2Play casual games implemented kind of RTS mechanics.

On consoles various unsuccessful RTS games like C&C 4, Halo Wars 1 and some failed Free2Play efforts like C&C Generals 2 meant basically the end to Triple-A RTS games as we knew them. The RTS genre was the best selling Triple-A genre on PC, even stronger than shooter and RPG, back in the late 1990s after all.

Now that all old genres like adventures or RPG (except RTS) got a successful revival, it would be great to get new Triple-A RTS games for PC.

<comment><USER20> The UI is the problem. Controllers or touch screens are just not precise and/or fast enough. I could see VR bringing back RTS however, simply because top down view on a map is much easier to implement than first person. It's like the old graphics constraints (which also made RTS popular because it was far more believable than FPS for a while) applied to a new input dimension (movement).

Personally I hope for a return of the RTS Battlezone which combined both. My favorite game still.

<comment><USER19> RTS doesn't work with Controller (without simplifying the gameplay, which would sucks, aka no base building, not hundreds of things to manage, see Halo Wars 1 and C&C 4). But Mouse, Touch, voice and gestures works fine.

Rise and Fall (the spiritual successor of Empire Earth), was a good RTS that allowed one to zoom-in and play in 3rd person with one's hero character (similar to Dungeon Keeper).

Battlezone (1998) was interesting too - first person shooter combined with RTS incl base building, similar was C&C Renegade. And Operation Flashpoint 1 (2001, now called AMA) had such a mode too.

But playing complex games like Watch Dogs 2 on PS4 nowadays, which has similar mechanics with the hacking tool and the quadcopter (you can control cars and what not while steering an quad copter while playing a third person character) - I am the opinion that nowadays, a complete non-simplified RTS would work on consoles just fine, even with a controller.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> jon-wood I owned a copy of this before it was open sourced and used to play some epic multiplayer games with a friend against the computer. The big difference this has to other RTS games is the heavy emphasis on artillery - by the late game you end up with artillery pieces which can rain down destruction across most of the map, and counter battery radar to destroy that.

The unit designer is also neat, allowing you to build custom units out of various bodies, propulsion methods, and weapon systems.

<comment><USER8> Nowadays many players disable artillery (or the major end game versions of it) for a very different game dynamic.

<comment> jon-wood Well that takes all the fun out, my friend and I are both notorious turtlers and would end up playing six hour matches with a slow crawl of artillery moving back and forth across the map.

<comment><USER21> That sounds like Warzone 1914.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I remember playing this on the PS1

The coolest thing about this game is that you could directly play as any unit like it was a third-person action game

<comment><USER23> Sounds like C&C: Renegade

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Seems like a cool testbed for game AI. There's even a NullBot included from my quick research :)

</comment><comment><USER25> Reading this triggered my memories of playing Black Nova Traders as a teen. Just checked and seems like that project hasn't gotten much love in the years since I quit playing it.

It'd be fun to have a kickstarter campaign to fund raise for new versions of old open source games.

</comment><comment><USER26> While we talk about free and open source reimplementations - is there anything similar to Sim Tower? I quite enjoyed that game, and haven't seen anything like it since.

</comment><comment><USER27> Has there been any significant graphical updates since release?

<comment><USER8> Since what release? They did have a fairly major graphics update at some point but in the last several years the entire project has been languishing at best.

<comment><USER28> If the game is working today, in what sense is it "languishing"? We don't say that commercial games made years ago are "languishing," we may even consider them quite successful if they haven't been touched since release, so why the double standard?

<comment><USER8> Primarily a reduced number of games available in the lobby on a regular basis; I would imagine that a commercial games that once had a large number of players and now has fewer would also be considered languishing.

Also a lack of a current build for the Mac OS (an issue since the network play compatibility is tied to the game version)

No double standard, I used to be quite active in the gameplay and also contributed a little to the code itself - the community around the game just isn't what it used to be.

Edit: If you're involved in the wz2100 project directly and have other information, obviously I'm wrong here, but otherwise I'm just passing on my perceptions from many years of involvement on the sidelines.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Have also a look at [http://osgameclones.com/](http://osgameclones.com/)

</comment><comment><USER30> Personally I'm looking forward to Deadhold[1] which doesn't involve resource management, focusing instead on unit formations and tactics (a revival of Bungie's Myth series).

[1][http://www.deadhold.com](http://www.deadhold.com)

</comment><comment><USER31> Is there a .dmg version? I couldn't find one.

</comment><comment><USER32> Warzone 2100 was a really good game.

</comment><comment><USER33> Honestly this being on the first page of HN I was expecting to see something comparable to 0AD (probably the best RTS open source game out there), but this game really does look like it belongs in the 90s.

<comment><USER34> That's because it IS from the 90ties. It was initially (commercially) released in 1999.

<comment><USER35> be nice if they could add shader support etc to it.

<comment><USER4> I think they could- but the problem is, the more up to date your pipeline gets, the more the amount of work necessary grows. You cant have just one high-poly-well textured unit. You need to remodel and re-texture all the Units. Same goes for all GFX- like for example adding CC like cloud-shaders for the map- you then need the shaders on the units. Its one huge mountain of work avalanching into your project, once you breach the dam.

You can avoid part of this by using procedural units- but that easily gets out of hand, making the units non-distinctive or physical impossible.

The best option actually is player involvment, as the players build the units. But that is tough to balance. Oh, almost forgot: RTS Game made by some Zero-K Devs on the side [http://www.istrolid.com/](http://www.istrolid.com/)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Wrong - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/this-is-hard/wrong-acacd043229b#.qlde6t28b <comment><USER2> Ah, but who does the CEO work for?

Just as the CEO will fire a VP who failed to execute on what the CEO asked, so will the board fire the CEO for living up to their expectations.

But boards usually want things like revenue growth... stuff shareholders care about. Capital doesn't care about diversity because there's no concept of a market where greater diversity has a value which can be traded.

All of which is of course another way of saying the problem is systemic. As we know. But there is more to the system than the CEO. (If we're talking founder CEOs that could be a different story, they could explicitly define the firm as one where diversity is a first-class goal.)

Basically, I am agreeing with the thrust of the article but saying that the problem is even worse.</comment>


How physics gender gap starts in the classroom - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-44141840 <comment><USER2> > Women are the majority of K-12 teachers

> Women are the majority of high-school graduates

> Women are the majority of university entrants

> Women are the majority of university graduates overall, and in the majority > of fields.

> Primary and secondary education overwhelming favours girls.

At what point can we just stop and consider that maybe women are just choosing not to do physics & maths for some non-biased related reason?</comment>