Ask HN: Which organizations migrated from GitHub? - <AUTHOR> With recent announcement of acquisition of GitHub, one can observe quite a spike in GitHub imports into GitLab. Any prominent figures or it is just small developers and organizations?
Also any open source planning to migrate?
Ref: https://monitor.gitlab.net/dashboard/db/github-importer?orgId=1 <comment><USER2> A somewhat more provocative question: does it really matter that Microsoft acquired GitHub? I'm not a fan of Microsoft's products and services nor am I a fan of their old business practices (I'm old enough to remember their mantra "It ain't done 'til Lotus won't run!" back in the MS-DOS days) - but what's the concern _now_?</comment>


Graph database reinvented: Dgraph gets $11.5M to pursue unique, opinionated path - <AUTHOR> https://www.zdnet.com/article/you-can-go-your-own-graph-database-way-dgraph-secures-115m-to-pursue-its-opinionated-path/ <comment><USER3> Congrats on funding round, we need more options in this space. I'm a Neo user today, and I've said before that while I don't think most people will switch to graph databases, at some point I do think most new projects will use them. I chose Neo precisely because of py2neo.

The decision to adapt GraphQL instead of supporting Cypher, what would you say were the big trade offs?

As a startup, your price point is in the 20k/y ballpark, but GrapheneDB/Neo comes in a lot lower. What would I get for paying that much more?

I find that the audience for something that operates at the level of abstraction that a graph does tends to be different than the user who makes decisions based on lower-level features. e.g. design level problems vs. optimization problems.

Would you say more that you can get Mongo and Redis (+redisgraph) users to switch to Dgraph, or instead more that the main customers for graph databases are still in school right now and deciding what tech skills will underpin their careers?

Fascinating space and looking forward to trying the product.

<comment><USER4> (Dgraph founder here)

> The decision to adapt GraphQL instead of supporting Cypher, what would you > say were the big trade offs?

Cypher was built around SQL, with the idea that people are used to SQL. Therefore, by having something similar, people would find it easier to adapt. Many years later, I'd say it still hasn't gained as much popularity beyond Neo4j as sometimes projected.

We bet upon GraphQL in 2015, because it was easy to understand, worked with JSON and resulted in sub-graphs. While Cypher and Gremlin return lists of things. One can go from subgraph to lists, but not the other way around, because relationships are lost.

Within 3 years of draft spec, GraphQL has taken the developer world by storm. Developers find it easy to wrap their heads around and enjoy working with it. In fact, GraphQL+- (our language) has become one of the USPs of Dgraph.

> Would you say more that you can get Mongo and Redis (+redisgraph) users to > switch to Dgraph, or instead more that the main customers for graph > databases are still in school right now and deciding what tech skills will > underpin their careers?

We have heard from many user who would have used MongoDB or SQL if not for Dgraph. With Mongo, you get scalability, but at the cost of query complexity and transactionality (/correctness). Keys and Docs are nice, but they don't let you use relationships to interact with a wider dataset. With Dgraph, you get scalability, while also gaining a much richer and sophisticated querying ability, transactionality (distributed txns), correctness without losing query performance. My blog post says more about this.

Redis is a cache, so people are not directly comparing it against Dgraph, a persistence-first database. One could use Redis to perhaps store Dgraph results.

<comment><USER5> Hey Manish! Congratulations to you and your team on the round! It's a phenomenal achievement.

You mentioned transactions... I work for MongoDB so I just wanted to add that MongoDB does have ACID transactions since version 4.0. Distributed transactions will be included in the upcoming 4.2 release. There's more info on distributed transactions in the 4.2 release here if you're interested: [https://docs.mongodb.com/master/core/transactions/](https://docs.mongodb.com/master/core/transactions/)

By the way, it's awesome to see you're using Go. I just got into it recently and it's such a nice language to work with.

<comment><USER4> Good to hear Mongo would have distributed transactions. Go is awesome. I picked a t-shirt from Mongo's booth at Gophercon, nice stuff!

<comment><USER5> Oh I was just at GopherCon! I was on the Mongo booth.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Hi there, I lead product at Dgraph and I'll be happy to answer any questions you might have.

We're very happy we're finally able to share our fundraise, and this is just the beginning of many more features and improvements!

PS: we're hiring ;) [https://dgraph.io/careers](https://dgraph.io/careers)

<comment><USER7> I work with hypergraphs, where edges have an arbitrary number of nodes. I'm quickly looking through your documentation, Discuss, and GitHub issues/roadmap to try and find out if edges may have more than two nodes.

This has been asked about already: [https://github.com/dgraph- io/dgraph/issues/1#issuecomment-40...](https://github.com/dgraph- io/dgraph/issues/1#issuecomment-404801622)

While we have your attention on HN, could you comment? (Sorry if I missed this information elsewhere.)

Thank you!

<comment><USER8> Hi Richard,

What applications/problems are you solving using hypergraphs? There is definitely a dearth of high performance hypergraph processing engines/systems.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Serious question: what are some practical examples of graph-database backed features providing significant value to "common" software applications (e-commerce, CRUD, CMS, CRM, etc.)? I lack a strong understanding of graph databases and their usecase and tend to learn best by seeing them in use in domains that I do understand.

<comment><USER10> Using neo4j in a commercial app for healthcare data as a primary store, using cypher and graphql

<comment><USER11> Do you use the Neo4j GraphQL integration? [1]

Or some other approach for building your GraphQL layer on top of Neo4j?

[1] [https://grandstack.io/docs/neo4j-graphql-js- quickstart.html](https://grandstack.io/docs/neo4j-graphql-js-quickstart.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The blog post announcing this is quite informative: [https://blog.dgraph.io/post/how-dgraph-labs-raised- series-a/](https://blog.dgraph.io/post/how-dgraph-labs-raised-series-a/)

<comment><USER12> The post states "Most other graph databases or layers are built as sidekicks."

What specifically falls into that? As someone new to the space, I'd like to understand if he is referring to things like Neo4j, ArangoDB, etc..

<comment><USER6> Most graph databases are being used as secondary systems, often used as indexing for other databases, etc. We believe this is due to a lack of features or performance at scale.

Our goal at Dgraph is to be used as main storage similarly to how people use Postgres or Mongo.

Happy to ask Manish (the author of the post and CEO of Dgraph) for more details!

<comment><USER13> Congrats on the funding! I've been looking into Dgraph (and also played a bit with Badger), as well as other graph databases as a way to store chronographic event data, while enabling rich relationships between the observed artifacts belonging to each event. The problem is that the solutions I find seem an ugly hack compared to a relational solution. Can you point me to any specific Dgraph documentation or case studies for these kinds of workloads?

<comment><USER6> Let's chat! We're working on improving our docs specifically regarding the data modeling aspects.

If your use case is open source we could even use it as one of our case studies :)

firstname.lastname@example.com

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Their non-standard GraphQL query language is a huge problem to adoption: [https://github.com/dgraph-io/dgraph/issues/933](https://github.com/dgraph- io/dgraph/issues/933)

Cloud managed Dgraph instances would also be nice.

<comment><USER4> We're working on that for sure. ETA end-Q3 2019.

<comment><USER15> Working on standardising dgraph's graphql? Or working on a managed cloud version?

<comment><USER6> GraphQL+- will still be a thing, since GraphQL doesn't provide all of the things we need to manage a database.

That said, we're working on a pure GraphQL support, which will help with any kind of integration with other GraphQL projects. This is really exciting and will hopefully help many that do not want to spend their time learning Cypher or Gremlin and already know GraphQL.

Another project we're working on is offering Dgraph as a service. We're currently doing this with some of our customers and so we have the expertise and trust on our product necessary to run this service at scale. The ETA for this is not as clear but I do expect to have a private alpha by the end of the year.

I hope that helps, if you have any other questions feel free to join us on [https://slack.dgraph.io](https://slack.dgraph.io) or [https://discuss.dgraph.io](https://discuss.dgraph.io), or reach me directly on firstname.lastname@example.com

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Can anyone recommend readings on what are the trade offs between graph database vs key value (whether its column base cassandra, or key value base aerospike...etc) and traditional acid compliant db (postgresql)

<comment><USER17> Depends how much time you have...

Fifteen minutes: "How to Choose a Database" by Ben Anderson ([https://www.ibm.com/cloud/blog/how-to-choose-a-database- on-i...](https://www.ibm.com/cloud/blog/how-to-choose-a-database-on-ibm- cloud))

Three hours: Jepsen analyses of distributed systems safety. Kyle tests software ranging across the database spectrum.

One week: Designing Data-Intensive Applications by Martin Kleppman.

Disclaimer: I work with Ben and think he takes a really nice tact on this subject, while it may be orthogonal to your immediate question regarding trade-offs.

<comment><USER6> Thanks for sharing these, cool handle name btw :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18>
      > ...they showed Dgraph to be 10 times or more faster than other options (naming names, which we won't), there is nothing to show for this at this point. Jain said Dgraph may release some benchmarks in the future...

That is pretty dubious to make claims without benchmarks.

I'm a competitor, also Open Source and VC-backed, and there is a long line of Databases publishing benchmark for at least baseline tests:

\- [https://redis.io/topics/benchmarks](https://redis.io/topics/benchmarks)

\- [https://gun.eco/docs/Performance](https://gun.eco/docs/Performance) (mine. Also see [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_WqBuEA7s8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_WqBuEA7s8) for benchmark against 100M+ records/day, 100GB+ data)

\- [https://www.datastax.com/nosql-databases/benchmarks- cassandr...](https://www.datastax.com/nosql-databases/benchmarks-cassandra-vs- mongodb-vs-Hbase)

\- [https://www.arangodb.com/performance/](https://www.arangodb.com/performance/)

etc.

Please please please don't hype, just publish results, even if they're basic tests.

<comment><USER6> Hi there,

We are not hyping, we're blogging about our fundraising success while working on our new release which will include a series of benchmarks which we'll be happy to share with all the details, obviously including source code and hardware setup.

Until then, feel free to get in touch with us if you have any specific questions or need help with performance analysis!

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Thanks for a having a Docker Swarm HA deployment recipe !! [https://docs.dgraph.io/deploy/#using-docker- swarm](https://docs.dgraph.io/deploy/#using-docker-swarm)

quick question - im concerned about the underlying storage here. You dont seem to be using any exotic filesystem, so what's really happening ? what's the fault tolerance story in case a node dies ? If i add a new node to the swarm, will it automatically recover. any way of debugging, etc ?

What's the rule of thumb for number of nodes, etc

Also..im not sure if you noticed, but the name of one of your component "Dgraph Alpha " is poorly chosen. In case you were not aware, warning bells start ringing in devops teams when they pattern match anything starting with "alpha".

</comment><comment><USER20> I've looked into graph databases a few times. I feel like there's a use case I'd love to apply it towards more seriously but I always stop after not fundamentally "getting" the "gains" out of it.

I'm doing quite a bit of NLP and similar conceptual structures of edges with unstructured / structured relationships to content and I I'm always wondering if there is some boon to utilizing a graph.

I guess I lack some success stories where I can see the wins.

I get a sense that there was an attempt like noSQL back in the day with graph - and it has its specific cases but it's not massively used for general use cases. And a new sense that there's an emerging thought leadership on doing graph db's a new way that is more general.

I love new tech! I just want to know how to use it for the unknown unknowns :).

</comment><comment><USER21> Congrats on the round, and well done - I am quite impressed by Dgraph so far.

Big question for the founders: how are you going to fend off AWS when you will get bigger? (see what's happening with Elastic, MongoDB, etc)

Also, what prevents you from changing the license down the road?

<comment><USER4> > Big question for the founders: how are you going to fend off AWS when you > will get bigger? (see what's happening with Elastic, MongoDB, etc)

Just judging by the stock price, at $100 and $150 approx today, Elastic and Mongo stock are doing well. I don't see them going down as badly as the media projects it to be.

Think our current license is pretty good. Can't predict far future, but at least in the near future, I don't see a reason to change that. It's not something we're contemplating right now.

<comment><USER21> I don't want to sound arrogant, but I think you are underestimating how important this topic will be in the coming years, especially if you will be successful and your company will grow significantly.

I know the space really really well, and have worked at AWS from 2008 to 2014. Most large enterprise customers are worried about this, especially because it might mean that the supporting company (MongoDB, Elastic, etc) will not have an easy way to survive in the future.

Right now you are capturing the long tail of the market, and you can grow a lot just with that. But eventually you will need to get enterprise customers, and that's when this topic will surface.

I don't want to be an alarmist, just saying that thinking about this ahead of time might be important for your company.

Tangentially, I am bullish on Elastic, less on MongoDB. My 2 cents.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I am curious on the language choice of Go. Why not C or C++? Apologies if this was already answered.

<comment><USER4> I'd love to talk about this at length. Having built distributed systems in Google Web Search with C++ for over 6 years, I still enjoy the manual memory management model than a GC based model. Identifying and fixing memory leaks is easier, because that's in your control as a language user. Making a GC work better is beyond. In fact, that'd be the biggest gripe I have with Go. Wish Go had a manual memory control mode, I'd take it in a heartbeat.

Alright, now that I've criticized Go, time for why I chose it. Go code is simply more manageable and readable over time. Tools like gofmt are habit forming. Go does memory management, but doesn't put everything on heap. You still get a lot of control over pointers, something that other GC based langs hide from the user.

Go tooling is the best I've seen and closely replicates what we had at Google. Go profiles are almost copies of what Google had and the fact is that they're part of the language is incredible.

Go allows normal devs to run thousands of goroutines, utilizing all possible cores of the server well. That is just not possible with other languages. And not as simple with C++.

Go is a DELIGHT to work with as a programming language. If Go weren't around, I'd be writing Dgraph in C++. Go is perhaps slightly slower on a per-thread basis, but it more than makes up for it with easy to build concurrent systems.

In fact, both Dgraph and Badger outperform many other systems written in C++ and Java. So, you only gain performance with Go. What you do lose is ability to tightly control memory deallocation, but that's just GC for you.

P.S. If you want to shout Rust: Sorry, I just don't know much about it. And don't plan to switch.

<comment><USER22> Thank you for this reply, very informative and personally, I love hearing about design decisions and tool choices.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> The Faq says "If your data doesn't have graph structure, i.e., there's only one predicate, then any graph database might not be a good fit for you."

I know what a predicate is, but I don't understand how it is being used here. Can someone explain how I can determine if my data has a graph structure? What sort of predicate do we have here?

<comment><USER4> Think of a JSON map as a document or an entity. Then the keys would be predicates, and the values would be either references to another JSON map (document/entity) or a value (like a string, int or something).

{"uid": "0xabcd", "friend": [{...}, {...}], "name": "HN user", "age": 21 }

This is a valid JSON for Dgraph. It means, the overall JSON map is an entity of UID, 0xabcd. It has friends (other maps), name "HN user", and age 21. Here, "friend", "name", "age" are predicates.

<comment><USER23> Thanks for the reply mrjn. So a predicate includes a relation, but we take it from its logical point of view. (Rather than in an RDBMS, where we contort the relation so that we can see it from the perspective where it has a cardinality of 1.)

And the notion of one-ness of the predicate comes not from the fact that there's only one relation, but the fact that there's only one _logical value per predicate_ - here, we have two values of `friend` which cannot be conveniently coded in an RDBMS without the use of a join table.

So do I correctly interpret your faq "when not to use Dgraph" as saying "Dgraph is probably overkill if predicates naturally have a single value - that is, join tables are rare and you can naturally put foreign keys in the object they logically belong with, rather than in the table where they have a cardinality of 1".

This makes me think my other by @thundergolfer is probably wrong (sorry) - actually, an ecommerce site would benefit from an efficient graph db since you have an order, and now you want to find all the items in it, so the link from an order to an item should be associated with the order. Yet in the standard model, as with his, once you've found the order now you have to filter through the items to find the ones which reference the relevant orders; indeed, this is almost the only way that relation will ever be travelled - <USER2> backwards.

I appreciate your time @mrjn. I like to hope you can benefit from answering my silly questions because someone can improve that faq. I'm trying to pick the right db for a personal project but I never expect to make money from it so I don't feel like I can give you any direct benefit from your time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Why did you stop supporting remote employees?

<comment><USER4> We have generally coalesced into remote offices, which have enough folks in there to help each other. We've also started encouraging pair programming, so engineers can question each other more and review code together.

We still have remote employees, in fact, 4 of them are remote. But, it's considered on a case by case basis. The biggest issue with remote comes down to individual personality, i.e. how communicative and independent are they. Some people make great remote workers. But, I'd say many don't.

When an engineer is at office, they are team-motivated, more likely to get help without asking and avoid getting stuck.

<comment><USER10> Management by walking around?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> How "most advanced graph database" does not supports already standardized SPARQL query? Have you found anything wrong with standard SPARQL?

<comment><USER6> We are happy to get new feature requests on github.com/dgraph-io/dgraph!

SPARQL is something we're considering but we haven't heard much interest from any of our customers so it's not very high up on our roadmap.

I'd love to chat with you to figure out how adding this could help your use case though. You can reach me at firstname.lastname@example.com.

Cheers!

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Can someone explain to a complete n00b what you need these graph databases like Neo4J and Dgraph for? I've just built some small business SaaS always on MySQL.

</comment><comment><USER27> Did I understand the feature table correctly that backups are an enterprise feature?

</comment><comment><USER28> Somebody please look at Actian's Versant Object Database (now called "Actian NoSQL") and just clone it. You'll make very big money.

</comment><comment><USER29> Cool!

</comment><comment><USER30> Congratulations on the funding, I've been following the project for a while (your tech blog is great) and am especially fond of the spin-off project Badger[1]. I'd like to ask a few questions and make a few "content requests" for the tech blog if I may, since I see @campoy is here and @mrjn will probably stop by later =)

 _Some things I 'd love to read about on your blog_

1 - I'd love to read more on the local information retrieval strategies you use for Badger, especially if you have use cases that are comparable to sequential reads (something that Kafka does, but with a structure optimized for magnetic drives) or ISAM style indexation (traditional SQL databases), and how you leverage the metadata byte to speed things up (this has been touched on only superficially on the blog afaik) along with other specialized features/operations Badger supports;

2 - Some insights on how Dgraph's data model influenced the design of Badger, and what parts you decided to explicitly generalize for other use cases, and what use case constraints have you purposefully decided on (aside from the obvious ones like SSD optimized, etc);

3 - Any progress you might have made regarding why some queries in Badger take longer than in RocksDB. That so far has been the biggest cliffhanger in the tech blog, I've been waiting for the sequel to that one for some time now :)

It's difficult to find good resources where people go in depth on these database engineering topics, but your blog is a very good one and a joy to read. Thanks for not simplifying things and keeping it very technical!

 _Some questions relevant to the post and Dgraph itself_

4 - When I (and I assume many others) see "Enterprise Features" on databases that is kind of a turn off. That usually correlates to keeping separate codebases that are being manually kept in sync (which has problems on it's own), and it sometimes feels like it's gatekeeping some pretty crucial features (e.g. better backups) which make people either accept a more vulnerable architectural situation, or makes it unsuitable for a few use cases for lack of such features. I do understand and respect the need to make money to keep Dgraph being awesome, but have you considered something like the CockroachDB approach (selling support + mandating a license to sell the DB as a managed service)? If you did, why did you turn it down and what would make you reconsider it? On a second note from a maintenance perspective, how are you planning to handle the "feature flagging" and "repo syncing" of community and enterprise editions?

5 - As someone who's considered using Dgraph in the past, something that I found interesting is that graph databases in some use cases alleviate some of the same data modelling woes that Datomic does[2][3]. How would you diff them apart and what would you say they differently excel at?

6 - Graph databases sit in a spectrum of use cases, where some people want a system to work similar to a traditional RDBMS but with more flexible/powerful data modelling capabilities, and some people might want to load up big graph- heavy datasets for analytics purposes (i.e. loading a giant product catalog to map product relationships and either do a bunch of batch queries to feed a secondary dataset or keep it live for realtime queries on a recommender system). How would you place Dgraph and it's strengths/weaknesses in this spectrum? What alternative solutions would you recommend for the places where Dgraph would be unsuited for?

Sorry for writing too many questions (which will probably take up a lot of time to answer) but many of these things (especially on the second half) are not explicitly said anywhere, and are valuable knowledge for making an informed decision on a database product.

[1] [https://github.com/dgraph-io/badger](https://github.com/dgraph-io/badger)

[2] [https://augustl.com/blog/2018/datomic_look_at_all_the_things...](https://augustl.com/blog/2018/datomic_look_at_all_the_things_i_am_not_doing/)

[3] [https://augustl.com/blog/2018/datomic_look_at_all_the_things...](https://augustl.com/blog/2018/datomic_look_at_all_the_things_i_am_not_doing_cont/)

<comment> lucas-wang I'm Lucas, and I'm a backend engineer working for Dgraph Labs. A quick comment regarding 4: Cockroach DB is also employing the "Enterprise Features" model [https://www.cockroachlabs.com/docs/v19.1/enterprise- licensin...](https://www.cockroachlabs.com/docs/v19.1/enterprise- licensing.html)

<comment><USER10> Security features should NOT be limited to enterprise only. Performance, monitoring, advanced query capabilities are much better options. Security should be table stakes for ALL software today. Please reconsider.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Has the word opinionated become a meme recently? It seems to be everywhere these days.</comment>


Rotary Cellphone - <AUTHOR> http://justine-haupt.com/rotarycellphone/ <comment><USER2> There is a classic 60s/70s era rotary phone, vaguely similar to a princess phone, where the dialling mechanism is inside an extra-beefy handset. Not a lineman's phone, but a regular consumer's phone.

If a unit like this could be shoehorned into one of those, I'd buy it in a heartbeat.

<comment><USER3> The Western Electric Trimline Phone, available in both touch tone and rotary dial. It also supplied the dial in this build.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trimline_telephone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trimline_telephone)

[https://img0.etsystatic.com/047/1/5765656/il_570xN.731185188...](https://img0.etsystatic.com/047/1/5765656/il_570xN.731185188_rsx3.jpg)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Love this so much. The small display is also definitely something I'd like on a phone simply to display small information bits that then don't need the full powered up display.

On that note is there a good conversion (as in, make it into a USB keyboard) write-up for mechanical typewriters? I've seen one commercial kit before, but didn't follow through so far, even though I've got two still lying around.

<comment><USER3> There's USB Typewriter, though they're on hiatus.

[https://www.usbtypewriter.com/collections/typewriters](https://www.usbtypewriter.com/collections/typewriters)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is great, but the arguments about how this is Actually Very Practical And Not At All Just A Fun Concept are laughable.

</comment><comment><USER6> That's amazing. It's beautifuly well built.

I don't know how people can have the talent, time and energy to do this as a hobby.

</comment><comment><USER7> Cool, though having recently used a rotary phone to navigate a phone menu I'm glad they died out.

<comment><USER2> > used a rotary phone to navigate a phone menu

That's impossible. Rotary phones use pulse dialling exclusively, but phone menus/trees require the tone dialling of push button and touch-screen phones. I have never heard of any phone menu/tree, even at the dawn of their implementation in the late 80s when rotary phones were still common, supporting pulse based dialling.

<comment><USER8> Pulse to Tone converters are a thing. It's possible to use a rotary phone with one on things that expect DTMF tones, which is pretty much the entire world now.

Though, honestly, if you're the type to use a pulse to tone converter to keep your pulse phone alive and in use, you probably enjoy using it on a modern phone tree.

<comment><USER9> Or you paid way too much in AT&T equipment fees for decades before the breakup of Ma Bell and very much were going to get your money's worth for that $1000+ phone. My grandfather obstinately didn't want to replace a kitchen rotary simply for fun sunk cost economic reasons.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is anyone doing a VPOS with card reader and printer for the iPad? - <AUTHOR>

I don't mean iPhone only, but instead as a Universal app for iOS. <comment><USER2> There are all kinds of them...

Lightspeed: <http://www.lightspeedretail.com/ipad/>

Shopkeep: <http://www.shopkeep.com>

Silver: <http://ncrsilver.com/>

Verifone MPOS: <http://mpos.verifone.com>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. I'll check them out.</comment></comment>


Livecoding.tv (YC S15) Is Twitch.tv for Coding - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/29/yc-backed-livecoding-tv-is-the-twitch-tv-for-coding/ <comment><USER3> I've done coding through twitch and checked out livecoding.tv before deciding whether I wanted to stick to twitch or move there, since I do/did game streaming on twitch. I ran across several concerns about livecoding.tv such as they don't show you the current viewer count of a stream while listing the streams, they show only the total views, and they specifically require logging in to accomplish anything on the site.

I ultimately went with Twitch as Livecoding.tv has a fairly small userbase, the above negatives from livecoding that haven't changed in months despite the feedback, my app is gaming related, Twitch offers me bots that can help manage and improve the experience, and finally it can help grow my viewerbase for non-coding related streams.

Edit: For proof that they were asked to remove the login requirement months ago [http://www.reddit.com/r/WatchPeopleCode/comments/2zmw29/i_am...](http://www.reddit.com/r/WatchPeopleCode/comments/2zmw29/i_am_jamie_from_livecodingtv_here_to_answer_your/cpkuup9)

<comment><USER4> Hey - sorry we have not addressed your feedback, its crap and we should be doing better :/ All I can say is we are a small team doing the best we can, and we have had some growing pains. However, that is really no excuse so I am sorry about that.

Yes we do have a relatively small userbase relative to Twitch, but I guess the reason you would want to come to our site is that our community is focussed on coding, not just entertainment.

Edit: you should be able to watch streams without logging in now.

<comment><USER3> I just want to clarify that wasn't me who originally made that request. I ran across it while reading up on livecoding.tv awhile back.

You don't see much content not served up on YouTube, unless it is a subscription or pay per video. There are certainly a ton of coding videos, yet you don't see a coding centric site. Twitch is already moving toward expanding into other categories such as programming and game development. The only way I see livecoding.tv beating Twitch is if one can get more regular viewers due to the focus on coding and then offer better features around coding, perhaps things like monetization of past videos and tools to edit them. Perhaps a read only ide similar to collaborative editors that allows viewers to follow along with their own font settings, theme, and navigate through the project (I could expand upon that in a lot more detail). I do wish you guys the best of luck as I'd like more Twitch alternatives.

I'm also glad to see the login requirement gone and will try it out to see how many viewers I get without relying upon WatchPeopleCode.

<comment><USER4> The way we hope to differentiate ourselves is by being really focussed on livestreaming as an educational tool. Definitely there are many features we would like to develop, but it is still early days yet!

Awesome that you are going to try out Livecoding.tv, hope you enjoy it and let me know if you have any more questions/feedback!

<comment><USER5> If you could figure out a way for a viewer to live "fork" the code they're watching, make their own changes, then send a merge request, you might have something very interesting on your hands.

<comment><USER4> that would be pretty cool!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've been doing research into code live streaming since I might do it sometime soon. One of the most important things about live streaming is archiving, so people who aren't online and free _at that exact moment_ can still get value from the stream. Twitch has VODs, YouTube and Periscope auto-archives.

I attempted to load the archive of the linked Stephen Wolfram video and hit this: [http://i.imgur.com/m1TEJHS.png](http://i.imgur.com/m1TEJHS.png)

 _Seriously?_

According to the sign-up blurb on the right of the window, forced-signing-in- to-watch-videos is the intended behavior, which puts a _lot_ of doubt on the startup sign-up metrics provided. I will never use this service.

<comment><USER4> Hey, Jamie here from Livecoding.tv, sorry you don't like the login to watch requirement. This is something we will definitely consider removing in the future. :/

<comment><USER7> It's put me off immediately, unfortunately.

<comment><USER4> You should be able to watch livestreams and videos without logging in now. :)

<comment><USER8> If I'm not mistaken, wasn't there huge criticism of the login requirements when this was first posted on HN? That was the most vocalized feedback I saw back then.

Glad to see you guys have realized it's a bad idea though.

<comment><USER4> we try ;) (slow learners!)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The tagline is "watch people code products, live". The word "products" appears in almost every piece of copy on the front page. Why not just "watch people code, live"? Why the focus on _products_? What about open source code, personal projects or other things that will never be sold?

Classifying streams by programming language is also kind of odd. Lots of projects use multiple programming languages. A better classification might be what general kind of code is being written (machine learning, graphics, UI, web frontend/backend, games, etc).

That said, I'm very interested in this and hope to see it succeed!

<comment><USER4> Hey, Jamie from Livecoding.tv :) We decided to focus on products in the beginning as we really wanted to help people succeed in building something from A-Z, not just learn a portion of it.

That said, we definitely have a broader focus now and have people doing all sorts of amazing things with code, so thanks for your suggestion!

Classification of streams is also something we are hoping to improve over time so we really appreciate your feedback!

<comment><USER10> If the entire point is to watch someone code something from scratch, why is there no dates on the videos? How can you follow a series from beginning to end if you have to randomly guess which order a series is in?

<comment><USER4> Reply copied from another answer: Hi - frankly the usability around discovering videos right now is not great, I totally recognise that. I appreciate your suggestion and we will definitely be finding ways to improve it, including adding dates

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I had a very poor experience with one of the founders from livecoding while he was courting me to stream there. I asked for basic information such as whether a potential viewer requires a login to view a stream (Yes) and whether a potential viewer requires a login to participate in chat on a stream (Yes) and he was very abrasive and offputting. When I said I wasn't comfortable participating due to his attitude he claimed I wouldn't be a good fit for streaming and derided me for not just creating an account and figuring out the answers through trial and error.

When asked I suggest people stream on youtube.

<comment><USER12> Yeah , wasn't this site on HN a couple weeks ago with Wolfram coding ? I remember it as the 'site that tried to make me sign up to watch a stream.'. So this story doesn't sound surprising..

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I use Twitch.TV all the time (I have it up right now) and I signed up for livecoding.tv when I initially heard of it, but backed out before committing to anything.

My #1 concern is this:

On Twitch.TV I would never watch someone who is completely quiet. Half the time I have Twitch up as a passive form of entertainment. Similar to a radio talkshow going on in the background.

When I'm developing software... I don't talk. I might do an odd grumble to myself every once in a while, but the loudest thing in the room, by far, is my keyboard.

Are you expecting developers to talk out their thoughts as they type? Are you expecting people to just stare at a quiet developer's workflow and try to glean information?

Also, this comic strip comes to mind: [http://www.commitstrip.com/wp- content/uploads/2015/06/Strip-...](http://www.commitstrip.com/wp- content/uploads/2015/06/Strip-Conf%C3%A9rence-de- champion-650-finalenglish.jpg)

TL;DR: Why would I as a developer want to use your service? What do I gain from it?

<comment><USER3> > When I'm developing software... I don't talk. I might do an odd grumble to > myself every once in a while, but the loudest thing in the room, by far, is > my keyboard.

I have previous experience streaming and so immediately got myself in a mindset of talk talk talk. In fact, I stopped working on my project and had an hour or so conversation with viewer/viewers about JavaScript frameworks and a bit of a deep dive on React. To be fair, I've always been someone who yells at the screen while gaming, so extending that kind of behavior of saying what you're thinking while coding isn't too hard for me.

<comment><USER14> What's your stream? :) I'm trying to "get into" JavaScript again after abandoning its brokenness. I'm looking to see people's workflow and you seem like a knowledgeable person.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> "You don't have adobe flash" " please download it"

Yeah sorry no, it's why I don't use twitch and it's why I won't use livecoding.tv

<comment><USER16> You might like [https://github.com/chrippa/livestreamer](https://github.com/chrippa/livestreamer)

<comment><USER15> It's great however there is no plugin yet available for livecoding.

<comment><USER17> [https://github.com/chrippa/livestreamer/pull/978](https://github.com/chrippa/livestreamer/pull/978) just submitted a PR, enjoy!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Is there any special consideration/feature to help prevent streamers from sharing secrets (keys, tokens, pw, etc)? Sharing secrets is easily done by accident and can go unnoticed by the streamer.

<comment><USER4> Hmmm this is not currently something we have any special feature to address currently, except that if you realise you have shown the world a password or credit card details ( it has happened!) they the best thing to do is stop the stream and delete the video immediately. We are currently exploring other ways we can help prevent this.

<comment><USER19> Letting people have a 30-60 second delay in the stream might help a lot in being able to go and remove it before damage has been done. aside from that I don't have any ideas myself

<comment><USER4> Hmmmm not a bad idea, though that would put some friction in the interactive nature of it, which is really important to us. We haven't had a lot of problems with people showing passwords etc so far as people either 1. have two screens or 2. just use window capture to avoid showing something they don't want to.

<comment><USER19> window capture sounds like a pretty good suggestion for the time being. It'll at least mitigate what can be revealed. It wouldn't work for everything but there's definitely a balance to be found I bet. The delay is essentially how traditional broadcasters manage it (with a shorter delay since there's someone monitoring it separately) so it might still work out for this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I've never streamed coding before (or anything) and ended up going with livecoding.tv vs Twitch to start with because of the smaller userbase (I guess it felt a little less intimidating...like there was a big chance that nobody would even see my stupid boring stream ;))

It's been pretty good so far, though I've only streamed a couple of times. People actually DID end up watching the stream and participating/asking questions about the project.

So far the one annoying thing with the site has been that there's a video autoplaying each time I go to the home page. I want to go straight to my dashboard or at least stream view when already logged in, and ideally not have an autoplaying video/banner taking up the entire space of the home page above the fold.

</comment><comment><USER4> Hi guys - Jamie here, one of the cofounders of Livecoding.tv. If anyone has any questions about the site feel free to ask me and I will do my best to answer!

<comment><USER21> Why do you require creating accounts in order to view stuff?

<comment><USER22> Yes thats very annoying don't do that. Requiring login for commenting/chat is ok, but just for viewing is not.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> The first company to do this without making me install Adobe Flash (i.e. use webrtc and other existing technologies to do this) will be the first site I ever use.

Right now, when I see "You must install Adobe Flash to use this site", I close the tab and never return.

<comment><USER24> FWIW, you can use Twitch without installing Flash in certain cases. If you happen to be using OS X and Safari, you can add "/hls" to any URL to have it play without Flash. If you're not averse to installing software, you could look into Livestreamer [1] that plays the stream in VLC. The advantage in both cases being improved fidelity and reduced battery consumption.

[1] - [https://livestreamer.readthedocs.org/en/latest/install.html](https://livestreamer.readthedocs.org/en/latest/install.html)

<comment><USER17> Just submitted a PR for livecoding.tv support as well: [https://github.com/chrippa/livestreamer/pull/978](https://github.com/chrippa/livestreamer/pull/978)

I coded it live as well (heh), you can check out the vod on my channel [https://livecoding.tv/ell](https://livecoding.tv/ell)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I know there are good reasons why it's not included, but a pet peeve of mine is when sites like these do not allow you to sort by viewer count. I think sorting options would be useful for this, especially once more people start streaming on it.

<comment><USER4> Definitely something we should add - thanks! You can actually already sort by viewer count for videos, but not currently for livestreams.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> How about a plugin to your IDE where you can share certain folders live to your audience so they can jump around the source code while you stream. Or a way for the streamer to paste syntax highlighted snippets live to their audience.

</comment><comment><USER27> I'm a huge fan of streaming coding, mostly because of Markus Persson and the Ludum Dare streams (one of the first [http://www.twitch.tv/notch/b/293076467](http://www.twitch.tv/notch/b/293076467) where he builds a dungeon crawler, skip ahead a bit).

The big downside for me though is the login requirement just to watch - <USER2> don't think I'd watch Twitch if I had to login just to see streams. I think getting rid of that would really help you guys grow - code streams are pretty addictive once you start watching.

<comment><USER4> If you check now you should be able to watch without logging in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> This looks great! I used to watch some live streams on [http://www.watchpeoplecode.com](http://www.watchpeoplecode.com), but stopped due to time constraints. There is definitely a lot of value in watching the workflow nuances of experienced devs, but I found that the value was too few and far between. I still watch from time to time, but found pre- recorded/edited video tutorials to be more efficient, although many of the nuances and passive learning benefits are lost. Perhaps, edited livestreams would work well.

<comment><USER29> I keep intending to buy this - it's Kent Beck writing code using TDD. [https://pragprog.com/screencasts/v-kbtdd/test-driven- develop...](https://pragprog.com/screencasts/v-kbtdd/test-driven-development)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> The benefit of watching it live is that you could potentially ask questions.

The benefit of recording is that you can increase the playback speed or fast forward.

Audio annotation is a bonus in both circumstances.

<comment><USER4> Totally agree!

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I've done a few streams on this site now (my channel is at [http://livecoding.tv/ell](http://livecoding.tv/ell)) and my biggest issue so far is the bitrate enforcement. My bitrate fluctuates randomly sometimes and the website straight up boots me off my stream and shuts it down until I can reconnect. Really annoying. I've stopped using it as much mainly because of that.

<comment><USER4> Hey, sorry you had a bit of trouble streaming. If you are getting errors, you can add 'livecodingtv' on skype and someone should be able to help you with your setup!

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> @jamiegreen, if you're reading this:

      - your notification email should not come from "support"
        (at least give the sender a good human-readable name)
      - it's good that you're showing a featured stream on the front page
        but there seems to be no way to get to their profile page from there

Overall I found the site has come along nicely since I last visited, good job!

</comment><comment><USER32> I understand, the website is limited to coding - but what are the features that make it different from twitch.tv.. until now, I would always look at the streams on [http://www.reddit.com/r/WatchPeopleCode/](http://www.reddit.com/r/WatchPeopleCode/) to watch people code.. I dont see, this being any different from twitch

<comment><USER4> I don't think we are trying to compete with Twitch on features, what differentiates us is our focus on live education rather than being for entertainment (though some streams can be pretty amusing!). Further, members of our community are passionate about coding or learning to code, so it is a different audience than Twitch's audience.

<comment><USER33> but i can go to twitch and find live coders. why am i going to another platform when i can just use twitch for everything?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Looks cool, but I was a bit miffed by the use of the WeChat logo as a chat icon on your /livestreams/ page (next to "join Q&A live chat") (see: [http://www.wechat.com/en/](http://www.wechat.com/en/)) when in fact you are using Candy Chat ([http://candy-chat.github.io/candy/](http://candy- chat.github.io/candy/))

Looks like this was done somewhat intentionally, since in your HTML you have

        <i class="fa fa-weixin"></i>

(Weixin is the Chinese name for WeChat)

</comment><comment><USER35> Why not just use Youtube? If you think setting up OBS is too much of a hassle, you can use Hangouts on Air with the screen-sharing feature. I've been streaming myself coding for the past two months. There have been no hiccups.

<comment><USER4> Each to their own ;) We are trying to build a community focussed on live coding education, which is more focussed than you will find on Youtube for example.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Ok, I'm going to bite. And as I am clearly a dinosaur, it's a big bite, but ... Why?! Could someone explain the benefits to watching someone code? It would be like watching someone write a novel. Mostly thinking?

Could you recommend the best one or two - I should at least watch an exemplar before rejecting this out of hand (never had the like in my day, watch someone punch cards out? like watching this new fangled wireless radio).

I guess It's like people listening to game music, will be mainstream in six months

</comment><comment> liviu- I wish I could filter videos by whether there is any live talking on the stream -- I prefer listening to someone walking me through their thought process along with watching them code.

<comment><USER4> Good call - we should add something like a 'silent' tag that people could add.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I am confused. I just loaded up the site and a video of a guy playing metal on an electric guitar started livestreaming. Unless he connected his guitar to his computer and code is being written, I don't see how this is live coding... It's the LinuxFromScratch stream: [https://www.livecoding.tv/jegas/](https://www.livecoding.tv/jegas/)

</comment><comment><USER38> Hey Founders!

Is there any way to embed your player on another website?

I see you use jwplayer, and I'm not sure how to embed that unless i mangle together some javascript myself.

Something like an iframe that i cant feed

livecoding.tv/:streamer/:embed

would be nice

(Background, i work on a stream browsing website: overrustle.com and some of my users requested to have streams from your site embedded there)

PS: chat embed would be great too!

<comment><USER4> Hey!

Not currently able to embed livestreams or chats, but this is something we definitely have in mind to develop, its just a question of priorities. You can request this feature here: [http://roadmap.livecoding.tv/](http://roadmap.livecoding.tv/)

Good luck with your site - looks cool :)

<comment><USER38> Thanks! I found the most relevant idea here, and I upvoted it

"API – Technical Specification May 2015"

[http://roadmap.livecoding.tv/?p=45](http://roadmap.livecoding.tv/?p=45)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> It'd be awesome if they supported more timezones. It is always annoying to calculate the time difference

<comment><USER4> Yeah currently the schedule 'should' calculate your timezone and display streams on your time - however it is currently not perfect ;)

<comment><USER39> Yeah, I'm quite aware of the struggle with timezones. You apparently try to pick the timezone based on my ip address, which is often good enough, but there are better solutions. I think you should be able to get the timezone with javascript and convert it on the client. This is the best solution IMHO but that requires javascript. You should also aways offer a dropdown dialog with _all timezones_. You currently only have 5 timezones to choose from, none which I live in. All in all, you should do: If the user has already selected a timezone, use this one. This is the most accurate option, you'll ever get. If that was not provided, try to use javascript. If the user does not use Javascript, fall back to the IP address.

<comment><USER4> Alright thanks for the tip! Sincerely appreciated :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I just find an easy method to free download twitch videos at [http://www.allavsoft.com/how-to/twitch-video- download.html](http://www.allavsoft.com/how-to/twitch-video-download.html) Hope it is what you are looking for.

</comment><comment><USER41> I'm curious about the way they power the streams... I see they're using django as web framework, but for live streaming... which media server? looks like Nginx's rtmp module in dedicated servers? why a flash videoplayer and not html5?

<comment><USER42> HTML5 video doesn't work with live video unfortunately, while flash RTMP streaming does. Alternatives include MPEG DASH and Apple HTTP Live Streaming, but not all browsers support them.

<comment><USER41> I recall that being a limiting factor 3-4 years ago when I was working with RTMP & P2P/RTMFP, but in mid 2015? I thought HTML5 was ready for live video... Reading now about Media Source Extensions (I just discovered the API) I guess we're _finally_ around the corner... =)

[https://w3c.github.io/media-source/](https://w3c.github.io/media-source/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> After registering yesterday my inbox got flooded with email notifications. I'm unable to switch them off from my mobile since the page is somehow broken. Please add a "disable all" link to the emails without the need to log in.

</comment><comment><USER44> I really love this idea, as someone still in the early stages of learning programming.

<comment><USER4> Makes me very happy to hear that :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Go to the site first thing I see is black-dragon-walking though-flames.gif (with "JEGAS MAN-CAVE stand by" scrawed in the top right) and some barely audible speech over terrible (pan flutes, really?) music.

<comment><USER4> Oh dear :/ I guess you saw jegas when he went for a smoke break... sorry your first experience wasn't the best!

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Why are so many of the streamer profile field's required? Some of the fields contribute little to the streamer's channel and yet are required.

E.g. "Languages I want to learn" and "Favorite Line of code"

<comment><USER4> Good point - I think we just wanted a balance between having an empty profile and having too many requirements, but perhaps we leaned too far in the required fields direction!

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> I'm wondering if there are people who are streaming their closed source code..that might be against their company's privacy agreement. So in theory majority of streams should be about opensource projects.

</comment><comment><USER48> Does anyone know what technology is used to providing streaming? Both in terms of the broadcaster and the viewers. There doesn't seem to be any big open source projects in this space from what I can tell.

<comment><USER49> Check out nginx-rtmp [1] and ffserver [2] (from the ffmpeg team).

[1]: [https://github.com/arut/nginx-rtmp- module](https://github.com/arut/nginx-rtmp-module)

[2]: [https://www.ffmpeg.org/ffserver.html](https://www.ffmpeg.org/ffserver.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Looks really, really interesting, but I don't really feel like installing Flash. There's this thing called Livestreamer that works really well (not only) with Twitch.

<comment><USER4> Yeah it would be good to get rid of it at some point - need to check with my cofounder why we use it but I agree flash isn't great.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Collaborative a.k.a Pair Programming is really neat. I've done that in patches and found it really interesting and insightful. But that was some 6yrs ago.

</comment><comment><USER52> IIRC this started out on reddit with a Google spreadsheet to schedule streams. They've come a long way, I'm excited for the journey!

<comment><USER4> ah the good old days of the Google Spreadsheet (well 3 months but it seems like an age :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> What are the benefits of live a opposed to pre recorded? Ability to ask questions and get immediate responses?

<comment><USER4> Pretty much! The interaction is a key part of it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> I just find an easy method to free download twitch videos at Allavsoft. Hope it is what you are looking for.

</comment><comment><USER54> I tried it. I wasn't a fan of streaming @ 15 FPS w/ a max bitrate of 1,500 Kbps.

<comment><USER4> Sorry you didnt have a good experience. :/ Did you have problems with your stream quality? Normally our setting should be enough to have a good quality stream and if you have trouble you can get some help from our support team on skype to make sure your screen is clear and readable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Hey, looks cool. But Flash? Seriously guys ...

<comment><USER4> Copied from another reply: Yeah it would be good to get rid of it at some point - need to check with my cofounder why we use it but I agree flash isn't great.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> Aww, no Haskell category. Please add one? :)

<comment><USER4> We still get people coding haskell! I think for us it is difficult but we have to draw the line somewhere, as everyone wants their favourite language to be a top category.... not sure how best to solve this at the moment!

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> This is awesome :-) Thanks for the link!

<comment><USER4> Glad you like it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> Any plans for Linux support?

<comment><USER4> you can already stream from Linux, just use this software: [https://obsproject.com/download](https://obsproject.com/download)

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> Allow me a small tale.

I remember on #lisp at Freenode IRC, there was a helpful soul that would help folks by telling them to click a link. Upon landing on the page, the person being helped would see a mirror of the helper's Emacs buffer being updated live as they coded against a Lisp image and the results would show.

Lispers, always seeing ahead of everyone else.

<comment><USER21> I used to do this using termcast.org (via telnet). It's a simple and lightweight way to show people what you're coding.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> Might as well make a twitch clone for people painting fences

<comment><USER4> :/ sorry you think that!

<comment><USER61> Yeah, GP post is unnecessarily negative. I think this is a great idea and knew there was always a space for it.

Twitch has really changed the entertainment scene (millions of people individually consuming hours of streamed content a day). More importantly, there's a large subset of Twitch streamers who don't just stream for entertainment purposes, but for education as well. Often times, watching someone do a thing is a lot more instructive than reading about someone doing a thing.

There are people getting much better at video games by watching informative streamers. There's no reason to think that, eventually, live stream coding will be another popular form of learning to code as well.

GP post makes me sad, honestly, due to how willfully ignorant that opinion appears to be and the fact that it's so unnecessarily negative towards something that can legitimately help a bunch of people.

<comment><USER4> Thanks - nice to get positive feedback as well :)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Biometrics: A Gift, a Curse? - <AUTHOR> https://surfshark.com/blog/biometrics <comment><USER2> It pretty much means that nothing is safe on this planet anymore, well, at least nothing that deals with digital world. Yeah biometrics sounds scary, how can they get stolen from a freaking picture you post on social media. But it is still a convenient way, more convenient than passwords. I guess I will keep using them, at least until the world implement the social point system like in China, then biometrics is just another way to track where people are every minute and what are they doing. I would actually say that biometrics is a curse, but a curse we won't get rid off

</comment><comment><USER3> I would say curse.

This article, like so many others, focuses on ways in which the tech isn't strong enough, isn't secure enough -- rather than ways in which it's not desirable at all: privacy, anonymity, right to be forgotten.

</comment><comment><USER4> As with all tech, whether it's a blessing or curse depends on how it's used, and what it's used for.

Given the way biometrics is currently being used in general, I'd say it's a curse.</comment>


Ask HN: What do you do for a living? - <AUTHOR> Please keep your answer brief and generic (i.e. no company/product names), only state a single occupation per reply, and upvote an existing reply instead of submitting a duplicate. Feel free to comment under an existing reply, if you want to get more info or state an opinion... <comment><USER2> Subaquatic Ceramic Technician

<comment><USER3> Nice. How did you get there?

<comment><USER4> Not sure if OP is joking, but I knew a guy in grad school who did underwater ancient archeology. He spent every summer scuba diving in the Black Sea pulling up old pots. Sounds like nice work!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Vehicle commander on a CV90[1] in the Swedish Army.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combat_Vehicle_90](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combat_Vehicle_90)

</comment><comment><USER6> Software QA. <voice persona='Ed Grimley'>As manual as manual could be, I must say.</voice>

</comment><comment><USER7> Currently: Front End Developer. Hopefully I'll be transitioning into e-commerce business sole proprietor soon.

</comment><comment><USER8> Marketing Junkie, Operations Handler and Growth Hacker by day, partial coder and blogger by night.

</comment><comment><USER9> Now a startup CEO but my background is in project/program management and software engineering

</comment><comment><USER10> Opinion... I hate that the only person who will see the number of results is the OP.

</comment><comment><USER11> software engineer

<comment><USER12> Possible equivalent titles: Developer, programmer, architect, engineer, hacker

<comment><USER9> Sometimes, not always. People call themselves "engineer" a lot, but have no idea what "engineering" really is, which is more of a focus on the process than the technology. Therefore, developer and programmer are theoretically distinct from "software engineer" in strict terms. Too bad no official certification process exists for software engineers as does other fields of engineering.

<comment><USER13> Not yet, but perhaps soon [1]

[1] [http://theinstitute.ieee.org/career-and-education/career- gui...](http://theinstitute.ieee.org/career-and-education/career- guidance/licensing-software-engineers-is-in-the-works)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Credit Risk Specialist by day / web developer and writer in the early a.m.

</comment><comment><USER15> Data scientist (statistician)

</comment><comment><USER16> Student, and occasionally, freelance graphic and web designer.

</comment><comment><USER17> Entrepreneur, Technology officer and a full time geek.

</comment><comment><USER18> customer relations and PR specialist at an insurance company and software engineering freshman

</comment><comment><USER19> Systems / Network Engineer

</comment><comment><USER20> Financial Analyst (FP&A)

</comment><comment><USER21> Medical insurance software.

</comment><comment><USER22> IT client support...

</comment><comment><USER23> Front office quant

</comment><comment><USER24> Merchant Mariner

</comment><comment><USER25> security analyst / pentester

</comment><comment><USER26> developper and student

</comment><comment><USER27> student</comment>


Www.vim.org is broken - <AUTHOR>

The main page on the site is blank as is the download.php page.  :-( <comment><AUTHOR> And it is fixed now. It was only down for a short while. Whew.</comment>


Rogue code led to Gmail shutdown - <AUTHOR> http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c5dd4574-06a3-11de-ab0f-000077b07658.html

<comment><USER2> > "That's just not acceptable," said Matt Cain, an analyst at Gartner, the IT > consultants. "It was poor thinking-through of a code change. In a corporate > environment, you can't just tell your CEO it was bad luck."

And that's the sad part. In a corporate environment, you need to go tell your CEO that it was your subordinates fault, for being incompetent, that your $1 mio e-mail infrastructure went belly-up for a whole day, and it took three man-weeks in overtime to fix it, and that the subordinate was fired, and that you're going to spend $5k hiring a new guy, who's probably less qualified.

On the other hand, to say that the corporations zero-maintenance $50/year Google accounts was down for an hour, and it was bad luck, is just plain unacceptable. That's obvious.

</comment><comment><USER3> Someone who knows Richard Waters should suggest he looks up "rogue" in the dictionary. One would think from the title that it was nefarious code instead of simply faulty code. That might lead you to believe it was a sensationalistic title designed to pull eyeballs to an article that is simple regurgitation of the previously reported facts.

<comment><USER4> Yes, the title is what ft.com used, so sevib didn't do anything wrong, but it's still link baiting since it's completely wrong (i.e. ft.com is confused), so flagged.</comment></comment>


A Change to Google Code Download Service - <AUTHOR> http://google-opensource.blogspot.in/2013/05/a-change-to-google-code-download-service.html

<comment><USER2> Somebody said the next thing will be for Google to depreciate SMTP. This makes me think they are on a good way to it.</comment>


National Debt as a Roadtrip - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5fL469k9qc

<comment><USER2> It's a very cute video that shows the growth in the national in miles per hour along a map across the US. I still think Bush and Reagan were nut cases and Obama is cool.</comment>


Russia loses £33m satellite over programming error - <AUTHOR> https://news.sky.com/story/russia-loses-33m-satellite-over-programming-error-11187545 <comment><USER2> Perhaps more precisely, over a user error, since it seems the users failed to input the correct coordinates of their launch point.

UNLESS the specifications called for dynamically determine the initial position of the rocket using on-board GLOSNASS receptors. But strangely, I doubt that was in the specifications.

So again, NOT a programming error, but either a USER or a SPECIFICATION error would be my bet until more information is known about it. Thank you.

</comment><comment><USER3> It looks somebody just reused proven software+configuration without taking into account that configuration was no longer applicable. So this case is a classical deployment error.</comment>


Learning to run 100-mile marathons thanks to the science of self-control - <AUTHOR> https://qz.com/1019928/i-went-from-sedentary-academic-to-100-mile-marathon-runner-thanks-to-the-science-of-self-control/?utm_source=qzfb <comment><USER3> I run ultras and mountain races. I ran one this Friday night into Saturday morning - a 12 hour overnight trail race where I managed 100K (62mi) in 11 hours and 23 minutes.

Anyway, let's throw out willpower and even genetics for a second so I can bring up something: In today's age, virtually no one is even remotely close to their physiological limits.

Literally, hundreds of people (elite marathoners, a few ultra marathoners, cross country skiiers) out of billions of people are bumping up against physiology. These people will do anything for the smallest performance gains (1%).

Really, if you have not achieved a level where you are ~5-8% body fat and run consistently at 100 miles (or more) a week, you are not anywhere that close. Trust me. This is kind of even standard for competitive college distance runners - and even they are likely making mistakes that hold back their development (diet, drinking, running too many miles at too fast of a pace, etc.)

Yet we can take someone who is 20% body fat, and runs 10 miles a week. You will find this person finishing an 100 mile ultramarathon. It's not that uncommon, if the time cutoffs are liberal. 18 minute miles is walking pace.

The author even mentions he didn't think he was obese. He just didn't know the reality of things, I'd argue. He had to have this concept of willpower (concentration) to learn. And to change his diet and training habits. And even his understanding of what is possible.

It's magical to chalk things up to grit - but there is so much process of knowing how the lows feel during a race, what to eat while training, how fast to do each run while training, how much to run while training, how to stay hydrated while racing, how to get nutrition while racing, etc.

"Tough" or "in control of self" to me is too emotionally loaded.

Edit: I almost feel bad writing this because it takes some of the magic that gets marketed about it. But this is a science-oriented crowd and should be exciting to know there is more of an opportunity for the objective than a lot of people believe.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, it's a little frustrating to have some person say to me "Oh yeah, I ran a marathon too!". Ok, yeah, you completed it... six hours slower than I did. You walked a marathon.

I'd disagree though that the grit/toughness thing to me is too emotional. My marathon time is 3:38 - reasonably fast for an amateur, but nothing blazing. ~8 minute pace. I know that getting that time faster is 100% about my commitment level. I know I could be faster, but I just don't want to invest the time and pain in it. I enjoy running, but I'm not trying to be super competitive.

So I think it is emotional for 99.9% of people. Only those .1% of people you mentioned are hitting the physical limits, as you said.

In other words, I agree with your facts, but I think the interpretation is wrong (or I'm misunderstanding). The key ingredient is the willpower, the consistency, and that comes from an emotional place.

<comment><USER5> Well then I'm sure it's frustrating when a professional who runs a Marathon in close to 2 hours, hears you say the same thing.

<comment><USER6> I'm no 2-hour-marathon pro, just a has-been mediocre collegiate runner, but there's some understanding of the effort levels and dedication that are required, no matter the accomplishments. But there are runners, and there are joggers, and there are joggers that call themselves runners and post "26.2" stickers on their cars.

By analogy, there's a difference between an HN celebrity, someone who does programming for a living at a typical skill level, and someone who claims to be an engineer - but cannot complete FizzBuzz.

<comment><USER7> Marathons are harder for people who run them in 4 hours (assuming they tried as hard as they could). They are on their feet longer, and have to coerce their mind to push that much longer. It is just a different race for mid and back of the packers. Further, training is much the same. You might run 50-60 miles in a week because you can go faster. A slower runner might dedicate 30 or 40% more of their time to achieve that many miles. It takes the same mental effort to run at a 4 RPE (RATING PERCEIVED EFFORT on a scale of 1-5) as it does for an elite. The elite just has genetics on their side. I used to feel much the same way you do, but truly those "joggers" slogging out a 4 or 5 hour marathon giving it their all after months of running 9+ hours per week. They are runners too.

Ultras are also far less populated by folks with an elitist running mentality. It is more about being in nature and a personal journey, which is why Ultra appeals to a certain crowd. Olympians and the guy down the road have more in common with their running experience than not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm sorry, but this is all gobbledygook.

Nice ad for "sword" sportfood products, though.

For one thing, running 100 mile races isn't a very good standard for willpower or self control.

There is virtually zero use for this capability, so whether you spend 5-10 hours a week to do so or not isn't really a question of self control.

It's a question of what activities/hobbies you want to pursue in your free time.

Staying fit is a good-for-you type of thing, but you don't have to do anything close to that level of training to stay fit.

My advice, whether you want to get/stay fit or achieve some athletic endurance goal is to _make sure you find a way to enjoy the training_.

It takes consistent long-term training and you wont't have to worry about your willpower Or self control if you enjoy doing it.

Along those lines: _start slow_ \- the hardest and most painful part is getting started. E.g., use a C25K program; _find your own goals_ \- whether that's completing 100 mile runs, or a 5K PR, or 1000 miles this year, or an 8:00 pace or a 365 day running streak or whatever.

<comment><USER9> > There is virtually zero use for this capability [running 100 mile races]

That's a major point of the article, given it's discussion of the spillover effect: "The bottom line: Practice self-control in one area of your life, and you can apply it in other parts, too."

<comment><USER8> It's nice that practicing willpower improves willpower, even across activities.

But that doesn't suggest that's the best way to do it generally, or that running in particular is an effective or efficient way to do it.

Look, I get it. I run and it takes time so there's pressure to justify it.

But I don't see why the basic truth isn't enough: he enjoys it and it staves off his feelings of impending mortality. (In this case, I suspect he may also be trying to monetize it, but who knows.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The willpower hypothesis is one of the larger tire fires in the disaster that is reproducibility in psychology research.

[https://www.google.com/search?q=willpower+reproducibility](https://www.google.com/search?q=willpower+reproducibility)

<comment><USER11> Easy, the tire fire is specifically in social psychology research. Other areas of psychology (e.g. cognitive, developmental, personality, etc) have their problems but in most cases no more so than other disciplines.

<comment><USER12> To be fair, the reproducibility crisis is widespread throughout many, many areas of science. There are many tire fires all over the place; people just started noticing it in a widespread way with social psych:

[http://www.nature.com/news/1-500-scientists-lift-the-lid- on-...](http://www.nature.com/news/1-500-scientists-lift-the-lid-on- reproducibility-1.19970)

Also, to be fair, the willpower hypothesis that was discredited is really about ego-depletion, the idea that willpower is (or reflects) a finite resource that is used by an array of neuropsychological processes. It's not that crazy of an idea, as there are many limits in human behavior and physiology.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm a bit evangelical about low-carb, high-fat (LCHF) diets nowadays, especially keto. Personally, I'm not at the fitness level where I could conceivably run a marathon. Maybe a 5K or a half. But the article mentions him hitting walls as he hit certain mile markers, and having his wife help him reach the finish.

This guy: [https://youtu.be/96VZFklUM_Q](https://youtu.be/96VZFklUM_Q) runs ultra marathons, using fat for fuel. He leaves his fellow competitors in his dust because he doesn't have to carry glucose packets to keep his body fed. Instead, he finishes his race with an avocado and bison jerky.

<comment><USER14> As someone currently training for the SF Marathon, here's my perspective on low carb and glucose packets.

Low-ish carb is great. It helps you endure long runs overall and it's a good habit in general. Especially for recovering after the race and getting all those calories back.

During the long run itself however, glucose packets are absolutely necessary. You run out of glycogen stores every 45 minutes or so. That's when you start cramping up and having trouble. A glucose packet gives you some caffeine (helps with stamina and pain tolerance), and some electrolytes (helps with cramping and hydration), and some 100 calories of sugar (helps with glycogen levels and mental fortitude).

Crucially, you _aren 't_ replacing all the calories you burn. That's impossible. In a 4 hour marathon I burn between 2500 and 3000 calories. The packets replace only 500 calories.

The difference between packets and no packets is that with packets, I am able to be a human person after a marathon. Far less cranky, far less tired, generally feeling okay. Without the packets, I'm basically a walking zombie.

That said, it took a lot of practice to figure out the right timing for those packets, to train my body to absorb them and so on. It's definitely not something you want to start experimenting with on race day. That's a recipe for puking.

<comment><USER15> The first time I tried a packet (GU gel) in a practice run, I nearly puked. It tastes like liquefied bubble gum and the taste stuck with me for the next 30 minutes. Which ones work well for you?

<comment><USER16> You really have to try different brands and flavors to find what works. It seems to be very personal. I have friends who can't use gels, and instead eat chewable gummies instead (one swears by straight gummi bears, others use the Gu and PowerBar prodicts).

Personally, I've switched to mostly liquid nutrition, currently using a custom blend from Infinit. For 6+ hour races, I'll supplment with a PBJ sandwich or a bar of some sort.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I have finished six or seven 100 mile races.

I've observed that the only apparent constant among all finishers is above average fitness, a reasonable approach to food and drink while racing, and a _total commitment_ to finishing.

Every race has some bare foot runners and some Hoka devotees. You see fat people and thin people. Old and young.

Every finisher suffered tremendously, yet he or she refused to quit.

<comment><USER18> _Every finisher suffered tremendously, yet he or she refused to quit._

I'm touching these words on my monitor. I can feel the pain. Ugh ...

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Willpower or not, I feel like running is really a great thing to do. Will Smith once said (or quoted, don't remember) that one should two things - <USER2> and read books. I definitely agree with that. I used to practice sports a lot, football and basketball and that had a positive effect on my teamwork ability.

However, only when I started running I noticed how much this sport can influence one's life. There are no shortcuts, talent has almost zero influence, and it depends only on you how well you perform. I started about a year ago, more seriously about 3 months ago, and I already see how much I'm improving in other areas of life.

<comment><USER20> How does talent have almost no influence? There are many genetic factors that would impact how strong a runner is.

You mention football and basketball, which are essentially a series of short sprints. Sprints are _much_ healthier for people than 100-mile marathons that will essentially bathe your body in cortisol.

[http://www.marksdailyapple.com/the-evidence-continues-to- mou...](http://www.marksdailyapple.com/the-evidence-continues-to-mount- against-chronic-cardio/)

<comment><USER21> It seems like the more paleo/crossfit "celebrities" contradict popular nutrition/exercise science, the more popular they get. I don't get it. The most influential figure in this space was probably Dr. Robert Atkins, who suffered multiple heart attacks, congestive heart failure, and hypertension. Why are people espousing the same junk science to be seen as credible sources?

<comment><USER20> Yes, obviously we should keep living on mostly grains, the same thing used to fatten up cattle for slaughter. I wonder why it hasn't worked yet to make everyone healthy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> d--b This article angers me.

1\. the guy is only an example. Willpower alone will not make you run 100 mile-race. You need the right body as well.

2\. most people don't try and run 100 mile-races because they have better things to do

3\. willpower and success: seriously this is really self congratulatory. running 100 miles does not make anyone a more succesful person.

4\. no mention of endorphines and running addiction?

<comment><USER4> Nonsense. Unless you have some kind of disability anyone can run a 100 miler. That is completely true.

You need to get in shape first, obviously, but unless you have a condition that prevents you from doing that, you can do it.

I get the impression you haven't done much distance running, because the article is spot on when he says it's almost exclusively about determination.

#2 just seems like you're being a dick. #3 is unprovable, and #4 is something I rarely hear any serious runner talk about, and it certainly isn't the reason I run at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> a counter-point: [http://nautil.us/issue/45/power/against- willpower](http://nautil.us/issue/45/power/against-willpower)

<comment><USER23> thanks, that was a really interesting article. Unfortunately it focused mainly on what "willpower" is dubious and not so much on what it is instead that helps one resist a craving. Only at the end the author wrote that the drinking lawyer had to much stress (underlying problem). But that isnt really a good general answer/explanation. I once read the book "the power of habit" and maybe that is the answer (its habits we need to control) but I am not sure.

<comment><USER24> In order to resist a craving you must have a craving, and that's why I don't like to think of it as will power.

Edit: Maybe it's easier to talk about power to do things.

<comment><USER25> I think the cravings deplete themselves over time as you don't indulge them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> > And so I set about fortifying my sense of self-control, based on the > following factors: [Standards, Monitoring, and Strength]

> Strength: ... I built my mental strength by running even when I didn't want > to—when I was sore, stressed, or sleepy.

He built his will power by doing things he didn't have the will to do? One of the pillars of his self-control is that he has self-control? Maybe I'm missing something or jumping on the easy mockery, but this seems circular or common- sense.

<comment><USER27> I don't see a problem with this. Habits are self-reinforcing, good or bad. If you can interrupt a bad habit once, or start a good habit once, you give yourself more momentum for the next go-round. You have X probability of successfully doing it the first time, and you may or may not do what you set out to. But whether you do affects the probability that you'll do it the next time. And I'd be wary of anyone that claims that they never, ever, have any say in the matter when it comes to doing something once, even if it's hard.

I do agree with you in that by this same logic, you have a better chance of arriving at great self-control if you start with decent self-control.

<comment><USER28> >I'd be wary of anyone that claims that they never, ever, have any say in the matter when it comes to doing something once, even if it's hard.

When I hear "I don't have a say in the matter" I read frustration, not dismissal.

I'd posit that when people say that, they don't mean it literally. Or, rather, it's the best they can articulate the internal struggle. I've found the language I know (English) to not provide me with the tools to describe the nuance of the sensation of lacking self-control or willpower.

What I describe going forward is hard-won from long term introspection, and it still falls short of effectively communicating what I am really trying to say.

I would wager that, for a not insignificant fraction of people, when they tell you they "don't have a say in the matter" they are trying to articulate the feeling/sensation of having the intellectual understanding of the situation i.e. (paraphrased for brevity) "I should do X because it has benefits Y and Z, instead of A which has downsides B and C" but where merely having that understanding is insufficient to compel (willpower, initiative, motivation, w/e) themselves to action, for however long they choose to linger on it in their mind.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> "Bill Gates spent thousands of hours learning to program"

Sure, and so did thousands of others. Bill Gates clearly didn't become a modern Croesus because he was a better programmer, this is just trying to shoehorn Microsoft into the at once self-evident and ludicrous 10000 hour idea.

<comment><USER9> > "Bill Gates spent thousands of hours learning to program"

Here's the full quote: "Bill Gates spent thousands of hours learning how to program computers—but he only had that opportunity because he had the good fortune of having parents who supported his education."

I think you're in violent agreement that 10,000 hours isn't sufficient.

<comment><USER30> I thought Gates success is because he was good at business and good at leading company.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> The fact that so many of the comments here are focused on running and its pros/cons and not on the actual point of the article (self control) ... its kinda strange for HN to completely miss the point by such a big margin...

</comment><comment><USER32> It should be: how I learned to run 100 miles marathons due to having a high lactic acid threshold

</comment><comment><USER33> Research suggests a genetic preponderance towards physical fitness. With self control, you can make it to what your body can maximally achieve. But no amount of self control can guarantee the finish of an ultra-marathon if you're genetically not designed for it. PBS/Nova [1] took a shot at the question - "Can anyone run a marathon?", and found a certain lot more likely due to their genetics.

[1] [http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/body/marathon- challenge.html](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/body/marathon-challenge.html)

<comment><USER34> Most people just walk these ultras, probably anyone healthy can do that with enough time to prepare.

As well, probably anyone healthy can slowly jog a marathon with enough time to prepare.

But not everyone can qualify for boston, or make the olympics.

<comment> ultra-jeremyx Go ahead and try it! How hard could it be?

[http://ultrasignup.com/](http://ultrasignup.com/)

<comment><USER34> I'm sure it would be extremely hard for me to mostly walk 100 miles at once.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I think what's good about fitness goals, is that they're all very achievable. If you are motivated, you're chances of success are almost 100%. There's not a lot of factors out of your control apart from the limits of your own body. In that sense, they're good for moral and confidence. If you struggled at other things, taking a goal whose success is in your hand, and for which failure has no consequence is a good way to test if you're the problem or not.

</comment><comment><USER36> People die and people deal with it in different ways. I'm not sure what is unique about this. Lots of people learn to get in shape for marathons.

<comment><USER37> And if they all wrote about their experiences, I'm sure we'd read some of their articles, too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Doing sport as a hobby is pleasant. If you want test willpower, try sitting totally bored on playground every day because it is good for kids, try to come home sooner despite peer pressure and career hit because you matter for kids.

Alternatively, try doing boring work you hate for hours because bills needs to be paid. It is less pleasant then doing sport you like.

</comment><comment><USER38> I favorited this post because the top level comments are a perfect HN self- parody.

</comment><comment><USER39> Can someone explain the point of all this? Is this to challenge your own ability to stick to a plan? Is it to impress others? The motivation alludes me entirely.

</comment><comment><USER35> I didn't see any science in this article. I was disappointed.

</comment><comment><USER40> chewable caffeine tablets? what could possibly go wrong with a combination of those and ultramarathons? (/s)</comment>


Should we send all of America's economists away for a few years? - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2011/06/06/should-we-send-all-of-americas-economists-away-for-a-few-years/

<comment><USER2> OK, but only if we send all lawyers away for a 3 year holiday, too. "Intellectual Property" lawyers can stay away even longer!</comment>


The Upside – A New Podcast Hosted by Uptake CEO and Entrepreneur Brad Keywell - <AUTHOR> https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-upside/id1177741477?mt=2 <comment><AUTHOR> A new interview podcast that steps inside the minds of today's brightest. It's fascinating and the host is an incredibly successful entrepreneur.

Soundcloud: [https://soundcloud.com/user-946426071](https://soundcloud.com/user-946426071)</comment>


Show HN: Remote debug and live update tool for Unity - <AUTHOR> http://u3d.as/sHr <comment><AUTHOR> This is a tool that I'm selling on the Unity asset store. It's a live update tool for builds that have been deployed to a device (e.g. phone, HoloLens etc). It's mostly transparent; it uses reflection to find all public fields and private fields marked up with SerializeField on all components of GameObjects in a scene. It serialises all that data and sends it back to the client running in Unity. Any changes you make in the tool in Unity are sent back to the server and committed to the GameObjects.

I actually think this sort of feature should be built in to Unity; a lot of AAA engines have things like this. It's really handy for debugging issues that only happen on device or for tweaking settings like UI layout on device. Deploying to some platforms like iOS and HoloLens can be time consuming when you just want to tweak something, because you have to build out to an Xcode or Visual Studio project, build the project, package/archive, and then deploy to the device.

Happy to answer any questions here!</comment>


Hiccup - a Python extension framework for Burp Suite - <AUTHOR> http://github.com/zynga/hiccup

<comment><AUTHOR> Hiccup is a framework that allows the Burp Suite to be extended and customized, through the interface provided by Burp Extender. Its aim is to allow for the development and integration of custom testing functionality into the Burp tool using Python request/response handler plugins.

While Burp is largely focused on web application security testing, the proxy functionality can also be of great use for broader web application testing tasks.

Check it out on Github - <https://github.com/zynga/hiccup/>

Example plugins - <https://github.com/zynga/hiccup/tree/master/plugins/disabled></comment>


How Greylock Partners Finds the Next Facebook - <AUTHOR> http://www.newsweek.com/2014/06/13/how-greylock-partners-finds-next-facebook-253329.html <comment><USER2> What an excellent article! It gives readers an inside look behind the "Sand Hill Curtain" and shows that these guys put their pants on one leg at a time just like the rest of us. It also shows that even at this level of the industry there is no blanket formula for success, no guarantee. No matter how much research, preparation, fact checking, linear regression analysis etc...is done, it still is a crap shoot and one's "gut" still plays an important role in the mix. That fact alone is enough to give the little guy with the oddballest idea hope and the will to try!</comment>