Sway 1.0 is not going to support the Nvidia proprietary driver - <AUTHOR> https://drewdevault.com/2017/10/26/Fuck-you-nvidia.html <comment><USER2> KWin developers decided not to play this game either and just ignore EGLStreams[1]. Gnome on the other hand budged and implemented an extra path.

The main point that Martin made back then:

 _> Overall we are not thrilled by the prospect of two competing implementations. We do hope that at XDC the discussions will have a positive end and that there will be only one implementation. I don't care which one, I don't care whether one is better as the other. What I care about is only requiring one code path, the possibility to test with free drivers (Mesa) and the support for atomic mode settings. Ideally I would also prefer to not have to adjust existing code._

KWin though has the benefit of supporting X11 which Nvidia blob users can rely on. Wayland only compositors are really in a tough spot, until this mess is resolved.

1\. [https://blog.martin-graesslin.com/blog/2016/09/to- eglstream-...](https://blog.martin-graesslin.com/blog/2016/09/to-eglstream-or- not/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Sway [1] is a tiling Wayland [2] compositor [3], in case anyone was lacking context.

[1]: [http://swaywm.org/](http://swaywm.org/)

[2]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayland_(display_server_protoc...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayland_\(display_server_protocol\))

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

<comment><USER4> Why does a window manager developer have to support specific graphics hardware in Wayland? Isn't abstracting away that kind of detail the first responsibility of a windowing system and/or framebuffer manager?

<comment><USER5> Wayland does not have the "window manager" concept. The compositor (which, for the lack of a better term, well, composites windows) implements the display server protocol as well. It creates and hands off surfaces to the clients, and those clients directly render their contents there. So it's somewhat akin to a window manager + some display server parts.

(Note: I have written very little Wayland-related code, and quite some time ago, so do not put too much faith in the explanation below).

Managing device-accessible surfaces is very obviously hardware-specific, so it was abstracted behind a number of mechanisms. One of these is the GBM API, which is implemented (classically) by everyone except NVIDIA, and is the API that sway is going to use.

NVIDIA's proprietary drivers do not support GBM, and NVIDIA is pushing for its own solution called EGLStream. EGLStream does solve several problems that GBM has, but it seems to me that what makes it most attractive to NVIDIA is that it is theirs (it is an open standard but has only one serious commercial implementation, on a single vendor's devices, so at this point it might as well be closed). If you are curious, there is a wider discussion on the topic here: [https://lwn.net/Articles/703749/](https://lwn.net/Articles/703749/) .

<comment><USER4> This is very useful context, thanks. I hope things standardize quickly, because having to worry about whether your terminal emulator is compatible with your desktop environment is compatible with your graphics card and kernel seems like it'd be a huge step backward for the Linux desktop. Xorg has been something I haven't had to even think about for the better part of a decade now, and that's the way it should be.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> In my early stages of learning to program, I had numerous issues with running Linux desktop on my Nvidia chipped laptop. I remember the frustration very clearly - I hardly slept for ~3 days trying to fix my broken Ubuntu installation and I was unable to continue with my programming exercises. I couldn't afford a new laptop, much less a MacBook, and Windows didn't support bash, nor did Windows have the community support that I needed. My feeling of failure in getting my machine to run was demoralizing, so much so that I considered quitting my pursuit of an IT career.

As painful as it was, I managed to get my machine working. But it led me to never trust an Nvidia chip for my Linux desktop ever again. I wish I had documented the insane finagling I had to perform just to get my machine in a workable state. Maybe a year later, I encountered another Nvidia issue on my Ubuntu laptop, and I posted my notes on a blog: [http://www.lukeswart.net/2014/05/nvidia-optimus-with- bumbleb...](http://www.lukeswart.net/2014/05/nvidia-optimus-with-bumblebee-on- linux/) I wonder how many aspiring computer professionals have quit because of the barrier in getting a Linux desktop to run smoothly.

I am indebted to the community members who devote their time and expertise online to help Linux desktop users. Even if they can be a little snarky :-) If someone is learning to program and only has a hand-me-down laptop with an Nvidia gpu, then a Linux desktop may be the only reasonable option. I just hope this can be more accessible. But as the author points out, Nvidia is only making this problem worse.

<comment><USER7> ha.

Had all those same problems with an ATI-chipped laptop.

Your problems were not nvidia-specific.

Also: Windows has supported bash for a very long time - under Cygwin. (also Cygwin used to have pretty decent community support, back in the 1990's).

I'll say this also: Ubuntu is probably the EASIEST distro to get into a working state; with either Nvidia or ATI. (the proprietary drivers have their warts - but the worst are in their installers) ... (as long as you aren't itching to get special features working, like power management, or switching, etc - those things DO work, and CAN be made to work, with given chipsets, and kernels, and driver revs - if you're smart, and lucky... for the rest of us, there's the open source drivers, which are generally pretty good, and have gotten MUCH better over the past 10 years).

<comment><USER8> I have been using ubuntu daily for the past 7 years with very few issues.

If you can buy a laptop that is known to work that is best. If you have existing hardware then it is sort of a crapshoot.

Desktop is easier. Just stick to intel (CPU, iGPU, ethernet, and wireless) and you will have no problems at all, and even with some realtek and broadcom stuff thrown in it usually works.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It is infuriating that anyone finds this to not be appropriate. Nvidia is the one that sells products and doesn't bother to care enough for their Linux users to work with the community. If you want Nvidia proprietary driver to work with Sway complain to Nvidia for how they've handled their driver for Linux for years.

We need more projects to do what Sway and Kwin have done.

</comment><comment><USER10> I dont disagree with this article, however its articles with this strong language and "better than you" attitude that gives linux a bad name.

<comment><USER11> NVIDIA repeats the exact same terrible behavior with Linux stuff over and over again (as the article put it, "throwing code/blobs over the wall and expecting everyone to change for them") and IMO they deserve large amounts of angry public criticism over it until they stop.

<comment><USER12> I kind of sympathise with NVIDIA in all this; they've got a very tiny and very vocal market share that behaves very very differently from their main customer base.

With Windows users NVIDIA know that they want pretty games and they want them prettier very year, and they also know that Microsoft is probably going to work with them to make that happen. They've also got game developers and hardware vendors lining up to get NVIDIA logos on their products.

Whereas in Linuxland, they've got a kernel, a billion side-projects that may or may not be widely used and they all want NVIDIA to conform the THEIR way of doing things, an angry Finnish gentleman who just shouts and swears at things he doesn't like, and a largely non-gaming and very fragmented user base that could be using any number of desktop environments/kernel versions/drivers etc. On top of all that, this menagerie only accounts for about 3.8% of the desktop market. And they're also kicking and screaming that NVIDIA isn't doing enough to support the things that they want to do.

Sure NVIDIA could be working faster to better support Linux by throwing more people and money at it, but they don't have to and until more people use Linux they don't really have much of an incentive to do so. They'll probably have better Linux support, eventually, and if that fits in with their business plan then that's fine. If you're a Linux user and NVIDIA doesn't do what you want it to do, then that's fine as well - vote with your wallet and buy from someone else.

<comment><USER13> _Whereas in Linuxland, they 've got a kernel, a billion side-projects that may or may not be widely used and they all want NVIDIA to conform the THEIR way of doing things, an angry Finnish gentleman who just shouts and swears at things he doesn't like, and a largely non-gaming and very fragmented user base that could be using any number of desktop environments/kernel versions/drivers etc._

There is one big elephant in the room here that you are missing and that is GPU computing. This is probably a big market for them now (Teslas go for a couple of thousand a pop) and the vast majority of it is on Linux. Their ecosystem with CUDA and CuDNN is pretty awesome, on the other hand, their driver has issues.

At any rate, it's a market that they cannot afford to lose. As OpenCL support for e.g. machine learning libraries such as Tensorflow is progressing they may not have a lock on the market as they have now.

<comment><USER14> >As OpenCL support for e.g. machine learning libraries such as Tensorflow is progressing

I wonder if the complex OpenCL API throws off many ML developers. Also I think they tend to focus on CUDA because there is much less chance of it breaking between devices. OTOH, each vendor has their own .so for OpenCL and they usually tend to be buggy and stay a point version or two behind.

This is the explanation I tell myself when I wonder why the _hell_ Google chose CUDA over OpenCL.

<comment><USER15> Also, on machines with mixed intel/nvidia setuos, why cant i use the intel solely for display and the nvidia soley for compute,why does the gpu have to be tied into the display system, its a pain in tbe ass. To use cuda you almost must make tbe gpu work as a display system.

<comment><USER14> You should be able to do that. You can use the Nvidia GPU in a 'headless' mode.

<comment><USER16> The issue is that on many hybrid laptops the nvidia card is wired to the display but the built in intel chipset isn't wired to the display or only wired to the HDMI port.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> If I want to play games on Linux in the same quality/speed as on Windows, I have to use NVidia. If I want to do Deep Learning in Linux, I have to use NVidia. If I want to plug 3x 4k monitors on Linux, I have to use NVidia. If you can't come to agreement with them, what am I supposed to do?

<comment><USER18> You just play games at marginally inferior quality. Our new work on Sway also will let you use multiple GPUs without any proprietary interfaces, so you can do 3x 4K on AMD too. Regarding Deep Learning, that's too bad. If you can afford a 3x 4K setup though you can probably afford to have a Nvidia GPU for Deep Learning and an AMD GPU for your desktop.

There are compromises you can make, most of them easy. None of this is my problem as the maintainer of Sway.

<comment><USER19> > None of this is my problem as the maintainer of Sway

So, in short, you're firing your Nvidia users? Sometimes it has to be done, but you'll have to be very clear that you don't want Nvidia users.

Passive-aggressive attacks in an indirectly linked blog post against the userbase and Nvidia themselves are not sufficient, you will have to just be explicit about it in your GitHub README.

<comment><USER18> Well, I'm firing my Nvidia proprietary driver users. Really, I never "hired" them in the first place. The ones who use nouveau are cool in my book. I don't feel the need to call this out in the README.

Also, this article contains pretty forwardly agressive attacks, I think.

<comment><USER20> Your users (those with 4 x 30" monitors like me) will be firing you as well. It isn't my fault that Nvidia makes superior GPUs and writes shit software :)

<comment><USER18> I use 4 displays, 3x 1080p and 1x 4K. I'm happy to lose users who don't do their research and misportray the superiority of Nvidia, though.

<comment><USER20> I do CUDA work (OpenCL is close, but not nearly as powerful) along with run big monitors. I've done my research, and there is Nvidia, and inferior options.

<comment><USER21> A friend of mine is doing heavy CUDA work at the Helmholtz research center in Dresden, and at the same time he's desperately waiting for AMD Vega cards to be in stock somewhere so that he can build a desktop without shitty drivers.

<comment><USER22> Reference Vega cards are available in stock. Check mindfactory.de for example.

<comment><USER21> Yeah, but the reference coolers are apparently not very good. Yesterday evening, my friend was pondering if he could remove the reference cooler and install an aftermarket CPU cooler.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> "Nvidia module taints kernel"

I remember seeing that scroll by on my Gentoo install about 15 years ago. This strange sentence actually got me reading deeply into the what and how of open source. I have been hoping for a nice Nvidia Open source driver since... Until Intel took that away, I'm not a gamer/deep learner so I always opt for Intel integrated graphics nowadays, saves money, hassle and power.

I always believed that if AMD/ATI got their S together and made a super nice open source driver they'd make a lot of money! Guess I've always over estimated the Linux users' market share.

<comment><USER24> The current open source AMD driver is supposedly rather nice. I'm seriously considering to replace my ancient GTX460 with a shiny new RX560.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I'm sure you're aware that they started a new open-source project for buffer allocation? gbm has some major design flaws which makes it not that great for most drivers and they have been trying to suggest alternatives.

[https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri- devel/2016-Octobe...](https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri- devel/2016-October/120067.html) [https://github.com/cubanismo/allocator](https://github.com/cubanismo/allocator)

<comment><USER18> Author here. I should probably mention this, I'll add some information. It's not all roses here, either, for what it's worth.

<comment><USER25> > Edit: It's worth noting that Nvidia is evidently attempting to find a better > path with this new GitHub project. I hope it works out, but they aren't > really cooperating much with anyone to build it - particularly nouveau. It's > more throwing code/blobs over the wall and expecting everyone to change for > them.

This is far from the truth. This is a piece of code that everybody has wanted for the longest time (surface allocation is far from a solved problem), the solution was discussed with the nouveau developers at XDC2016 and XDC2017. People from ARM and Red Hat have both contributed to the project.

[https://www.x.org/wiki/Events/XDC2016/Program/jones_unix_dev...](https://www.x.org/wiki/Events/XDC2016/Program/jones_unix_device_mem_alloc/) [https://www.x.org/wiki/Events/XDC2017/Program/#james_jones](https://www.x.org/wiki/Events/XDC2017/Program/#james_jones)

<comment><USER18> Here's a more recent article to get you up to speed: [https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Nouveau-...](https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Nouveau- XDC2017)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> From TFA:

> When people complain to me about the lack of Nvidia support in Sway, I get > really pissed off. It is not my fucking problem to support Nvidia, it's > Nvidia's fucking problem to support me. Even Broadcom, fucking Broadcom, > supports the appropriate kernel APIs. And proprietary driver users have the > gall to reward Nvidia for their behavior by giving them hundreds of dollars > for their GPUs, then come to me and ask me to deal with their bullshit for > free. Well, fuck you, too. Nvidia users are shitty consumers and I don't > even want them in my userbase. Choose hardware that supports your software, > not the other way around.

Now, contrast with [1]:

> I first heard about this from one of the developers of the hit game SimCity, > who told me that there was a critical bug in his application: it used memory > right after freeing it, a major no-no that happened to work OK on DOS but > would not work under Windows where memory that is freed is likely to be > snatched up by another running application right away. The testers on the > Windows team were going through various popular applications, testing them > to make sure they worked OK, but SimCity kept crashing. They reported this > to the Windows developers, who disassembled SimCity, stepped through it in a > debugger, found the bug, and added special code that checked if SimCity was > running, and if it did, _ran the memory allocator in a special mode in which > you could still use memory after freeing it._

[1] [https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2004/06/13/how-microsoft- lost...](https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2004/06/13/how-microsoft-lost-the-api- war/)

<comment><USER18> Author here. You know Microsoft engineers were paid 6 figure salaries to work on that, right? I have a Patreon where I make enough money to recoup _half_ of the _costs_ of maintaining these projects.

<comment><USER26> "I'm doing it as volunteer" is not an excuse for being unprofessional.

<comment><USER27> I would expect professionalism from someone I'm paying. I don't expect professionalism from someone who's basically giving me free stuff.

If someone offers to paint your fence for free, and your fence has some really nasty angles at some point, would you say the volunteer was unprofessional if they said "yeah I'm not going to paint that part"?

<comment><USER26> > I don't expect professionalism from someone who's basically giving me free > stuff.

Ironically, that's exactly what Microsoft has been saying about Linux during those bad old days. Linux was successful because its developers didn't say "If you want to talk to a professional, buy something else."

I'm not saying an OSS developer should bend over and take abuse from users. But I believe there's a line between that and calling users "entitled brats" just because they use vendor-supplied drivers for their $500 cards.

<comment><USER28> No, he's calling his users "entitled brats" because they come into his channel and bitch and whine and demand he support them... for free.

<comment><USER29> After the post and all his comments here I have my doubts that "bitch and whine" isn't actually "people ask me questions, I realize that they use Nvidia so their questions are by definition whining and bitching."

<comment><USER28> You're certainly entitled to your opinion, but as someone who has actually maintained widely-used open source software, you'd likely be shocked at the level of entitlement I've encountered among OSS users.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I bought a Lenovo Thinkpad W520 back in 2012. This laptop has an NVIDIA Optimus chipset, and for 4 years, I attempted to get triple-head support working under Linux (outputting to the laptop screen, and two monitors). Finally, in 2016, I was able to install the NVIDIA proprietary drivers through apt on ubuntu 16.04, and everything worked, including triple-head support.

Overall, all the hardware in the laptop is now working perfectly, and has been extremely stable. It took a long time, but I'm glad it's finally working using the proprietary drivers. Unfortunately, I haven't gotten this to work yet using nouveau. I'm currently running Mate and XMonad on X, and I have a feeling it's going to be a few more years before I will be able to run Wayland on this machine.

</comment><comment><USER31> Obligatory Linus rant on Nvidia: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVpOyKCNZYw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVpOyKCNZYw)

</comment><comment><USER32> There should probably be a user space layer that abstracts over direct kernel graphics APIs. There's no reason GPM vs EGLStreams shouldn't be an implementation detail.

Another note, a window manager author shouldn't have to deal with these sorts of issues. Puts into question the "wayland way." I guess this is what wlc and wlroots are for but seems like those approaches have flaws given there was a need for wlroots to even exist in the first place.

<comment><USER33> GBM already IS a userspace layer than abstracts over driver-specific kernel interfaces. That's the whole point.

You also seem to have missed the whole point of wayland's design. There is no separation between "window managers" and "display servers"; there are just "compositors". So naturally it is something that needs to be dealt with. wlc, libweston, wlroots (for which I am an author, responsible for the DRM/GBM code), etc., are designed to make it easier to write compositors and allow for more code reuse. So yes, someone using one of these libraries wouldn't need to deal with these details, but we're actually writing such a library.

<comment><USER34> > You also seem to have missed the whole point of wayland's design. There is > no separation between "window managers" and "display servers"; there are > just "compositors".

I think the point is that this design is bad.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I'm tired of iNVtel. I'm buying AMD gfx and compute next time. I'm not the power gamer I used to be, and their new stuff is powerful enough, while their cpu's are getting pretty awesome.

</comment><comment><USER36> I have exactly opposite experience. All my computers used to had ATI cards. I forgot the exact issues I had, but I remember reading all those issue FAQs basically saying buy Nvidia to solve your problem. I was always jealous to Nvidia owners for their Linux support, to then point I actually bought Nvidia. I didn't experienced any problems with Linux since then. I wonder when situation reverted being ATI better? And why I always have to be on the wrong side when choosing graphic card.

<comment><USER37> The situation is annoying. Up until recently, when you wanted high performance drivers for Linux you needed an AMD or NVIDIA card with proprietary drivers. The NVIDIA driver was a bit annoying in some ways, but those issues could be worked around. The result was a stable installation with great GPU performance. Meanwhile, the AMD driver was somewhere between unusable and terrible. It updated so slowly that you had to stay on ancient versions of X to even be able to use it. For users of rolling-release distributions, that's simply unworkable, and so they bought NVIDIA.

There were also open source drivers, which worked quite well, but they weren't even close in terms of performance. (Intel has always played nicely, and their official GPU drivers are open source and work well. Their performance falls into this same category.)

Recently, however, AMD has replaced its proprietary driver with a new, open source, high performance driver. AMD is now a serious choice. Sadly the tables have turned, with NVIDIA holding back progress on Wayland by not cooperating with the community.

<comment><USER21> Can confirm. If you have a card that supports the amdgpu driver, then the experience is great. Everything just works, and at competitive speed no less.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> There's also the new external imaage/fence and semaphore support in Vulkan. Which looks like it perform the parts done by gbm without referencing gbm explicitly.

Last I checked it was only in a mesa dev version. But it would be a standard hopefully everyone using Vulkan can support

<comment><USER39> Didn't Vulkan adopt EGL? EGLStreams is a Kronos open standard.

<comment><USER38> Nope. You use Vulkan WSI and Swapchain extensions instead of EGL. [https://www.khronos.org/registry/vulkan/specs/1.0-wsi_extens...](https://www.khronos.org/registry/vulkan/specs/1.0-wsi_extensions/html/vkspec.html#wsi)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Yeah NVIDIA's market share makes me sad. AMD seems to have become a much better team player last I checked.

</comment><comment><USER41> Just another reason not to care about the cadt.

</comment><comment><USER42> Thanks to the hype and bubble around ICO and digital mining, all the AMD graphic cards are way overpriced.

</comment><comment><USER43> Can someone ELI5 why one would want sway vs just using i3?

<comment><USER44> Sway uses Wayland, which is shiny and new and fast.

i3 uses X11, which is old and crusty and not particularly fast.

<comment><USER4> But apparently a big difference between X11 and Wayland is that people implementing X11 window managers don't have to go out of their way to support particular graphics hardware. I have never in almost two decades of using X11 on Linux found myself worrying about whether my window manager supported my graphics card.

<comment><USER45> That's because X11 is a standard, running on a stack of other standards (DRM, KMS, etc.).

Wayland is also a standard, that should be running on a stack of other standards (DRM, GBM, etc.), but then Nvidia comes along and goes "Fuck GBM. I'll make my own, incompatible "standard"".

<comment><USER34> No, that is because X servers only provide the mechanism (window system, graphics, events, input, etc) but not the policy while providing functionality for the clients to provide that policy themselves. So a window manager can be made with and rely only to functionality provided by X11.

On Wayland the "window manager" (compositor) has to provide both the mechanism and the policy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> > Nvidia users are shitty consumers and I don't even want them in my userbase.

Watch out, we have a wannabe Linus over here!

</comment><comment><USER47> Wow, so much vitriol. I'm glad I _don 't_ like tiling window managers [x]. Sway seems well done, so I would use it and then be annoyed by the maintainer.

Wayland, systemd, heck, that they removed ifconfig - these are all changes I understand and welcome from a technical POV, but that lose me as a user. The pinnacle of desktop linux was around 2009, afterwards usability seemed to regress. I'd love to use Linux, but currently I feel more comfortable on Mac or Windows.

Doesn't help that leading projects on the linux desktop often have such abrasive developers.

\----

[x] I tried them, but I found they are not really for me:

\- I need something that passes the coworker or girlfriend test: Other people should be able to sit down and use my computer.

\- Keyboard shortcuts don't actually make me faster. I find personally there is a lot of cognitive load trying to remember the keys to press, even after a lot of practice. I like to offload this to my eyes and arms, and use a mouse to e.g. arrange windows. That is the reason I gave up and now use arrow keys in VIM, and VS Code when possible.</comment>


Things I learned by pretending to be blind for a week (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://blog.silktide.com/2013/01/things-learned-pretending-to-be-blind-for-a-week <comment><USER2> Interesting that some commenters here seem to have an attitude of "let's build an app for the blind", "there is no hope for the blind" etc. I'm born blind and build software and do some accessibility consulting for a living. Fortunately we've reached times where the blind community can build software themselves.

An excellent example is NVDA[0], an open source screenreader for the Windows platform, mainly build by two blind guys. With Firefox, I think it is the best combination for browsing the web these days, even outperforming commercial screenreaders.

Oh, and if you want to know why semantics are important, grab a screenreader and read a HN discussion. The lack of nested lists and/or headings to indicate the relationship between comments makes it just a stream of comments without any structure. If proper semantics was being used, I could for example skip an entire subtree of the discussion if the starting comment didn't interest me.

[0]: [http://www.nvaccess.org/](http://www.nvaccess.org/)

<comment><USER3> > I'm born blind and build software and do some accessibility consulting for a > living.

I have little to add here beyond the fact that this is one of the coolest comments I've seen in a long time. :) Whilst I've long known _theoretically_ about the use of screenreaders and such technology, I've never had the chance to see someone using it in action.

It's good to see that it works and is at least somewhat practical.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> First, I applaud David Ball for doing this and sharing his results!

Second, one of the first web application projects that I was a part of I was assigned as the "accessibility expert". At some point during that project I was told that the reason it is termed "accessibility" is because it makes the resource (e.g., website, print page, whatever the resource) more accessible for everyone, not just for people with physical limitations. The development version of that application lived on an unmanaged, but live server for more than a decade before it disappeared; up until its disappearance the application was still functioning, and could even be used on a mobile phone. Most of the recommendations I made, all those years ago, went uncontested by my teammates, but every now and then I had to fight for some aspect and I would make the "accessibility benefits everyone" speech. The last teammember to visit our application before it disappeared admitted that it wouldn't have been able to run on the latest technology if I hadn't been so adamant about accessibility all those years ago.

</comment><comment><USER5> WARNING: strong opinions, e.g. flames, follow. Don't bother reading if you're easily offended.

At the rate we're going, most websites will _never_ be easily navigated by blind people. How do I know? Easy ...

My eyesight isn't as great as it was when I was younger. So I like to set my "Minimum font size" in Firefox to 18 pt. (Yes I know they're not technically considered "points" any more). That single simple change fucks up a lot of the web! Just that, nothing more. And it's something that any web designer could trivially test for.

And yet they don't bother! Why? Probably because they're mostly self-centered 20-something hipster douchebags, who can't even imagine there's someone with worse eyesight than they have. Or maybe their sense of "aesthetics" trumps any consideration of "accessibility". In other words: "Fuck off if you're too old to comfortably read 10 pt type. We don't need your kind on our website".

Worse, there are a few sites, such as Bloomberg, that somehow manage to trick Firefox into _not_ rendering their fonts at a minimum 18 pt, but instead render substantially smaller. That's right, some hipster web designer at Bloomberg went out of his way to make sure the text displayed is small. He's probably quite proud of this.

Firefox does works OK on 99% of the web in terms of font size. Unfortunately, stuff breaks in other ways. E.g. when a large minimum font is selected, text often simply disappears off to the right of a page. So then a search box is just not displayed at all, because it's off to the right of the page. Or text just disappears off the bottom of a block. Probably something to do with fixed widths, I don't know I'm not an HTML guy.

Chrome apparently has a large contingent of hipster douchebags working on it. Apparently the concept of "18 pt" is too technical for their genius IQ brains. So they just have simpler font size selections such as Small, Medium, and Large. Unfortunately not granular enough when compared to Safari or Firefox. And Chrome is also far worse than Firefox in displaying pages in tiny type, even when Font size is set to Large.

Still, lots of sites do it right. E.g. Hacker News is no problem. A very simple layout and very readable. (Now if they would only fix that expired link problem).

I repeat, I'm bitching about something that is trivial, a mere inconvenience, compared to what the blind encounter. And yet I run into many web sites and browsers that can't even get that little bit right. So what hope is there for the blind? No nope, none at all!

<comment><USER6> As a totally blind developer I have to disagree. Maybe it's a bit easier for me since I don't need to worry about font sizes but I'd say 95% or more of the web is accessible if you are good with screen reading software.

<comment><USER7> As another totally blind developer I'm going to have to either assume that you are not experiencing much of the web, or that you are simply lying. 95% of the web is accessible if you know how to use a screen reader? How about ... Google Docs, Google Analytics, Adwords, Github Gists, anything with SVG in it, all the unlabeled flash, all the unicode icons which don't speak, all the unlabeled links, all the unfilled alt text tags... Every single infographic, all the popup menus or modal dialogs or popovers which pop up at the top or bottom of the screen reader's virtual buffers instead of gaining focus when you invoke them, ... And then you have the stupid stuff. The JS library Github uses for tool tips renames the title attribute of links to original-title, which completely blows away the semantic meaning and means no screen reader is going to read it... But the clever author of the library got the right visuals so that certainly doesn't matter... Google Instant invites me to turn off Google Instant, to work better with screen readers... Instead of simply making Google Instant work better with screen readers. This is an oft-repeated strategy -- can't spend an hour to make your content accessible for the blind? Give the blind a lesser version of your product and call it a day.

I'm quite frankly terrified when I hear people on this and other forums go on about how the web is eating the desktop, because the web as it currently stands is a dreadfully inaccessible place.

This article has been on HN before, and I think my comment from last time might be worth reading: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5023447](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5023447)

<comment><USER6> We must use different parts of the web then. I don't use google docs, and if you really want an online word processor use the web version of Microsoft Word since they have made the effort to make it accessible. While it is not a good experience I was just able to create a gist, see [https://gist.github.com/jareds/8832236](https://gist.github.com/jareds/8832236) Most of what I use the web for is online shopping, reading news, and technical documentation. This is generally accessible although I do agree that web apps like Gmail leave a lot to be desired. That is why I use Mail on OSX or the mail app on my iPhone. The popups are annoying but usable. If something doesn't behave as expected then you should check the bottom of the page to see if something new appeared. I realize I am not an average blind computer user but in my case I will stand by my 95% comment. My 95% may be a lot higher than the average blind user though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> An aside but:

"I once realised when watching a DVD on my Playstation 3 that you can set the speed to 1.5x. Which means you can finish watching a 2 hour movie in only 1hour 30 mins and still understand what's going on. "That gives me 30 minutes of life back!" I said excitedly."

Or you can read the Wikipedia summary in 90 seconds and get 1 hour 58.5 minutes back but that's not really the point.

How about just don't watch the movie? There's no obligation to watch any of them and there are so many that there's always going to be something you miss however much you try and cram in.

Watching a movie is something which is meant to be a pleasure, or thought provoking, or profound or any number of things which are going to be largely lost at high speed. At that point you're just reducing it to consumption so you've seen it and maybe it's just me but what's the point of that?

<comment><USER9> Some shows are just paced too slowly, but still provide entertainment or enlightenment. Who are you to care whether a viewer watches such a show at 1.5x speed?

<comment><USER8> It's a comment on behavior I've noticed in myself.

A pile of DVDs became something I had to get through, ditto books, games or albums. Talking to others I found it wasn't just me - that somehow the important thing had been completing things and enjoying them had become almost secondary.

Recently I found myself listening to a podcast at 1.5x speed regularly and after a while it occurred to me that it was because I was resenting the time it was taking up and that the problem wasn't really that it was taking too long, it was that I wasn't really enjoying it but was listening out of obligation (it had popped up in the unplayed list, it must be played!). At that point I said a silent sorry to Mark and Simon and unsubscribed. I've similarly quit watching a bunch of TV shows and I'm far happier abandoning books or games part way through.

Seeing someone talking about watching a movie at 1.5x speed made me think of that - consumption over enjoyment. Yes there are movies and shows that can be watched that fast and still enjoyed but given the sheer volume of stuff out there is that really the best use of an hour and a half even? Surely there was something good enough that it warranted real time viewing?

Maybe it's not the case here but that's what came to mind.

<comment><USER10> I listen to all podcasts at 2x speed to the point where I can't even listen to them at 1x anymore because the voices sound unnatural. People talk about half as fast as people read so 2x just normalizes to a comfortable reading speed.

I watch basically all youtube videos at 2x as well (with the html5 player) to the point where I'll actually shut a video off if the only thing offered is the old flash player (and ditto applies to vimeo vids).

However, I've never had enjoyed scripted tv shows at 2x speed, I'll usually dial it back to 1.5x to watch. It's not in an effort to save time, it's that I genuinely find aural mediums better when sped up.

<comment><USER8> I find it depends on the podcast. Generally professionally produced radio is well paced and edited, chatty enthusiast podcasts on the other hand have, for me at least, a poor information density and I get why someone might listen to them sped up.

<comment><USER11> Some emotive content can get lost in the speed-up too, imho. A caring tone and cadence can turn into blunt sarcasm at x1.3 and above. I notice it interview shows like Fresh Air.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I dated a woman who was born blind. She could listen to JAWS speak text faster than I can read.

If you really want to know how your website "looks" to a blind person, ask one. Every state has an association for the blind. I am sure they would be happy to arrange a time to sit down with you. Expect some honest feedback.

</comment><comment><USER13> Very interesting article. I would love a followup about actual things you can do as a developer to make life easier for users with screen readers.

</comment><comment><USER14> I have nearly perfect vision, but I also use accessibility tools. I have uniform inverse color theme in all programs, IDE, all webpages and even in PDF reader.

I work 10+ hours a day with large (40"+) screens. White background was very aggressive towards my eyes and cause of many headaches. After adopting Solarized it went away.

In case someone is interested here are screenshots of my desktop and some webpages:

[http://imgbox.com/TiqtcFri](http://imgbox.com/TiqtcFri)

[http://imgbox.com/1PEM5M7U](http://imgbox.com/1PEM5M7U)

[http://imgbox.com/Tpyl5hrq](http://imgbox.com/Tpyl5hrq)

[http://imgbox.com/lxND4eoI](http://imgbox.com/lxND4eoI)

I use KDE and IDEA with Solarized color theme:

[http://ethanschoonover.com/solarized](http://ethanschoonover.com/solarized)

In Chrome you can use this page to filter colors. It has white/black list so you can set colors per domain:

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/change- colors/jbmk...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/change- colors/jbmkekhehjedonbhoikhhkmlapalklgn)

</comment><comment><USER15> Thank you. I would love an article about accessibility for people who must use voice commands or those who cannot use a pointing device. Dragon is fine with spoken keyboard commands, but much of the JavaScript out there borks site navigation by keyboard and control of normal browser functionality by keyboard.

</comment><comment><USER16> It's interesting that Facebook and Amazon have a terrible experience for blind users, considering their wealth of resources. I imagine it is common knowledge among blind users to expect the mobile site to perform better, if the desktop site is sucky.

<comment><USER6> I have no issue using the main amazon site with Jaws as a screen reader. I'm sure part of that is that I've been using Jaws for close to 20 years but it doesn't appear this guy used navigation by headers which makes amazon quite usable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> The article mentioned "w3m", never come across it before, although I do have "lynx" and "elinks". Really impressive.

<comment><USER18> w3m was (is?) the most popular way read html pages in emacs [http://emacs-w3m.namazu.org](http://emacs-w3m.namazu.org)

</comment></comment><comment> Jean-Philipe Hasn't this article been on HN already last year? [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5020421](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5020421) just with a slash in the end, as far as I can tell

</comment><comment><USER19> This reminds me of this wired article[1] when Steve Jobs died, whilst not directly related to blindness - it is touched upon - in my experience few firms have gotten it as right on accessibility as Apple, and _definitely_ nowhere close several years ago, I haven't checked much in the last few years on android.

The top comment on Jobs personally intervening when a bluetooth stack had a bug in an iMac is pretty touching too.

[1] - [http://www.wired.com/business/2011/10/steve-jobs- disability/](http://www.wired.com/business/2011/10/steve-jobs-disability/)

<comment><USER6> From my experience android accessibility is about where iOS was in iOS 3.1. Usable but iOS is better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> PDF files have similar issues. Acrobat can attempt to read them out loud, but unless the PDF author adds extensive annotations, Acrobat has no idea about the "structure" of the document.

For example, headers are just more text. Tables and figures that "float" to the top of a page, or in any other way interrupt the text, get read in the visual, not the logical, order. Images get "read" as a stream of binary data. Equations get mangled horribly. Etc. etc.

<comment><USER21> Is the .tex file typically easier to read/understand? Or is there a way to compile .tex into something that's easy to read and understand?

<comment><USER20> LaTeX, much like HTML, allows you to use either stylistic markup ("put this bit in a bigger font") or semantic markup ("mark this bit as a headline").

The PdfLaTeX typesetting engine can embed some semantic information into the PDF. However, it doesn't do everything. For example, I believe it does not handle the issue with "floats" that I mentioned [1].

I don't know whether there are TeX-aware tools for "reading" a LaTeX input file out loud (which is what I think you're asking about). But if there was such a tool, it might well be easier to understand, than listening to a dumb reading of the resulting typeset PDF.

It is possible to go into an existing PDF file and mark up a lot of these things, specifically in order to help the reader along. The webmaster where I work often has to mark up PDF files (usually generated from MS Word documents, rather than from LaTeX). I've never done it, though, so I don't know what's involved. My impression is that it's pretty painful.

[1] To make the issue with floats more explicit. You can tell LaTeX to add a figure, and to "float" it to the top of a page. The typesetting engine will do so. However, suppose the resulting PDF file ends page 4 with "The figure clearly shows..." and then starts page 5 with the figure, followed by "... two trends in the data." Then when the document gets read out loud, the reader will say "The figure clearly shows", then it will go into a spastic literal reading of the figure's contents, then it will finish up with "two trends in the data."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Like the article. It reminds me the book from Saramago that inspired the movie: Blindness ([http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0861689/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0861689/)). But it's important to note that it's completely different the case where a born blind person and a person that becomes blind. So it might be useful to speak with a born blind person and how they manage these web browsing tasks.

</comment><comment><USER23> Some newer HTML5 elements (Shadow DOM) are supported and some still have a ways to go. A coworker of mine wrote a great writeup about the state of the accessibility of the Shadow DOM in modern browsers. [http://substantial.com/blog/2014/02/05/accessibility-and- the...](http://substantial.com/blog/2014/02/05/accessibility-and-the-shadow- dom)

</comment><comment><USER24> Would it be possible to build 'An app for that?' (E.g. Blind people). Browser sites and stuff through the app.

<comment><USER25> That's what screen readers do; a popular one is JAWS: [http://www.freedomscientific.com/products/fs/jaws-product- pa...](http://www.freedomscientific.com/products/fs/jaws-product-page.asp)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> [http://motherfuckingwebsite.com/](http://motherfuckingwebsite.com/)

</comment><comment><USER27> The most useful information I found on accessibility was this video, which really showed me how the blind use the web:

"Victor Tsaran: An Introduction to Screen Readers"[1].

[1] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izrC4R7SsH4](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izrC4R7SsH4)

</comment><comment><USER28> This is one of the reasons I test all the sites I work on with links - I want to get a clue as to how it will work for someone blind. If were using a javascript menuing system we add a bottom nav that has discrete links for every page on the website.

</comment><comment><USER29> For a good 30 seconds I thought that the author had linked to a blank page, and that it was very elegant epitome of the experience of being blink (the article initially took unusually long to load on my phone).</comment>


Why Clojure? - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/appsflyer/why-clojure-a52d033769a8 <comment><USER2> Low signal-to-noise posts about Clojure are damaging to adoption because it doesn't say anything about why Clojure is a good option on the JVM.

Instead, I will try to give some reasons why Clojure is a good fit for high- performance stream fusion, which I presume AppsFlyer has to do a lot of:

\- [Onyx]([https://github.com/onyx-platform/onyx](https://github.com/onyx- platform/onyx)) for distributed, masterless, fault-tolerant data processing

\- [core.async]([https://github.com/clojure/core.async](https://github.com/clojure/core.async)) for CSP-style events through a channel abstraction. I miss core.async so much in every other language, I generally end up implementing a subset of the semantics.

\- [Transducers]([https://clojure.org/reference/transducers](https://clojure.org/reference/transducers)) for composable transformations, e.g.

        (filter odd?) ;; returns a transducer that filters odd
        (map inc)     ;; returns a mapping transducer for incrementing
        (take 5)      ;; returns a transducer that will take the first 5 values of a sequence

        (def xf
          (comp
            (filter odd?)
            (map inc)
            (take 5)))

        (into [] xf (range 100)) ;; => [2 4 6 8 10]

Note that _no intermediate data structures_ are created during these transformations, so it's super fast.

\- [Specter]([https://github.com/nathanmarz/specter](https://github.com/nathanmarz/specter)) decomplects navigation and transformation, pulling apart the "where" from the "how". In most imperative languages whenever the shape or performance characteristics your data structures change, you also have to update all the code that transforms it. Not with Specter.

\- Zach Tellman's [Manifold]([https://github.com/ztellman/manifold](https://github.com/ztellman/manifold)) provides event-streaming abstractions on top of async workflows like lazy sequences, core.async and Java's BlockingQueues.

<comment><USER3> Wait! What? That's what 'transducers' means?

Being new to Clojure I've been avoiding some concepts until later, but if they hadn't renamed old concepts, ie: higher order functions to transducers, maybe newbies wouldn't get scared.

<comment><USER4> That's not what transducers are, though. They're a "recipe" for a function composite. I'm simplifying things, but transducers compose to form a function that then executes against each element in the collection passed in. The main difference is that no intermediary data collections are created. There's more, and it's worth reading up on them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> At the risk of stating the obvious, this article doesn't really talk about why they picked Clojure beyond one or two superficial reasons.

<comment><USER6> Yes, it seems more like an advertisement for recruiting.

<comment><AUTHOR> it really isn't a recruiting advertisement, we only have R&D in Israel & Ukraine - but we will take it into account and add a drill down on the next article

<comment><USER7> It ends with "Want to write everything in Clojure? Join us"...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This article doesn't really say anything. Walmart is a much better example of "Why Clojure". Or anything that comes out of Rich Hickey's mouth, basically

</comment><comment><USER9> Everybody sees "Clojure" → click upvote → Read the article → regret it → look for downvote button → :( /me

<comment><USER10> unvote

<comment><USER9> made my day. Never saw it!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> hmm.. does Betteridge's law apply here?

<comment><USER12> No.</comment></comment>


Lynk and Co automotive unveil, specifications - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/us-autos-china-geely-idUSKCN12J2QE <comment><USER2> The overall concept is interesting, but an SUV with that passive-aggressive pseudomasculine styling just feels passé... Will be interesting to see the full lineup though.

(Also, is the brand really supposed to be said aloud as "Lynk and Co"? That sounds like a cheap clothes retailer. Maybe the association is intentional.)

<comment><USER3> I think it's a play on Ford's Lincoln Motor Company

[http://www.lincoln.com/](http://www.lincoln.com/)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Can you introduce me to contemporary state of essay art? - <AUTHOR>

I believe some HN readers enjoy reading good essays, especially since PG is one of the notable essayists (in my own opinion, at least).
I'm not from an English-speaking culture and English-speaking world still seems very foreign to me, so I don't know where to start looking for modern Borgeses. I've ran against one or two of them, like PG or Eco, but it definitely does not help me to see a big picture.
Maybe there is some magazine with reviews of new essays and authors, or even some books with essays (like a Hofstadter's one (not GEB)), or a blog, or you can just give me a few names. I love good essays, and they seem very valuable for me in this age of lame bloggers, but I need your help to dive in. Thank you
As you can see, I don't even know where such kind of question will be appropriate <comment><USER2> Perhaps you could tell us what you are interested in? There is at least one noteworthy publication in each field.

For general reading of good, longer pieces I can recommend: New York Review of Books (not only a book review magazine), Foreign Affairs (although I don't agree with their interventionist political stance), The Atlantic (popular with HN readers) and Harper's. I'm sure that you would find something in interesting in each of these, but again, please post what your particular interests are.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm interested in some "general" essays on something which can be named "philosophy", but is not limited by "pure thought".

I think that good essayist creates new "general" concepts and explains them with his wide knowledge. If his ideas illustrated by biological examples, they are not limited by biology.

If an essayist is great and his ideas are great, then his choice of science or area of knowledge is not really necessary be one of my favourites. (Again, that is my own opinion)

So I'd like to read about history, politics, molecular biology, programming on LISP language, literature, music, sociology, theory of chaos, magnetic fields and such - if ideas are good, they are applicable to my life and work, whatever I do; and if an area of knowledge is new to me, then I'll be more educated person then I was before reading essay. And that's what I value.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm a big fan of Venkatesh Rao - <http://www.ribbonfarm.com>. I find PG's essays interesting, but I don't think they're that notable (which is just my opinion).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the link.

My taste in essays have not even born yet :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you want a comprehensive anthology of great essays, try: Phillip Lopate, ed., "The Art of the Personal Essay: An Anthology from the Classical Era to the Present." [http://www.randomhouse.com/book/103559/the-art-of-the- person...](http://www.randomhouse.com/book/103559/the-art-of-the-personal- essay-by-phillip-lopate/9780385423397/)

</comment><comment><USER5> David Foster Wallace is full of nuggets. Check out "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again"

<comment><USER6> Pointing a new English writer at Wallace is like pointing a Lisp newbie at the SBCL compiler for a code sample.

I love his writing, but it is dense and hard to comprehend. It is not, IMHO, a good example for a beginning writer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> <http://www.aldaily.com/>

<comment><USER8> This might be too obvious, but edge.org

<comment><AUTHOR> do they have RSS feed or something?

<comment><USER7> [http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch_feeds?hl=en&q=li...](http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch_feeds?hl=en&q=link:http://www.edge.org&ie=utf-8&num=10&output=rss)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> George Orwell is one obvious suggestion, and I think he lives up to his reputation. "Shooting an Elephant", "A Hanging" and "The Spike" come to mind right away.

Slightly less obvious, I'm a big fan of Philip Gourevitch. He's somewhere between a reporter and an essayist. A lot of his essays appeared in _The New Yorker_ , and a group of them on Rwanda eventually became a book _We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families_. That is outstanding non-fiction writing.

</comment><comment><USER10> I have enjoyed Martin Amis's work, for instance "The War Against Cliché" is a compilation of his essays.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! I didn't know he was an essayist. His works are being slowly translated to Russian, but not essays yet (if I'm not mistaken). I'll try to find an original version of this book</comment></comment>


Manuscript – Project management, issue tracking, and support - <AUTHOR> https://www.manuscript.com/ <comment><USER2> I visited the link, I looked at a few things, I have no idea what it does. It's very buzz word ish, and seems like it just uses all these other services ( I'm not sure how it uses them ) and wants money?

If I was a little more cynical ( :D ) I'd say this is a parody site of "POW" front end with lots of empty words and weird diagonal banners trying to sell you some kind of woo

<comment><USER3> The 'how it works' page ([https://www.manuscript.com/how-it- works](https://www.manuscript.com/how-it-works)) has specifics, as does the feature tour: [https://www.manuscript.com/features/task- management](https://www.manuscript.com/features/task-management). If there's anything you're confused by, let me know.

<comment><USER2> I went to that page, it doesn't really tell me what it is. I'm not watching the video, should be clear from the text. I scrolled and read the text, it just makes bold claims, it's not really telling me at all how it works, whatever it is.

Seems like it's some kind of communication tool for teams? I dunno, kind of ironic if it is a communication tool that it's really not clear what IT is.

<comment><USER2> Here's all the text from the front page.... can you point out what bit tells me what it is?

Manuscript - Project Management for Software Teams</title>

                    Go beyond done
                    Craft great software.
                    Learn how Manuscript works.
                    The first 14 days are on us. No credit card required.
                    Building software

                    that matters…
                    is more than a race to close issues. We know every team can craft great software, you just need the best tools and the right information.
                      Best tools:
                      Manuscript provides all you need to make great software, including project management, issue tracking, and support, fused with just enough process to help you deliver.
                      Plus, there's robust integration with other best of breed tools like Slack, GitHub and Google Docs that's free and fully customizable, using the power of
                      Glitch — our friendly collaborative coding community.
                      Right information:
                      Manuscript shows you the issue and project info you need, alongside updates from your integrated tools.

As well as providing expert advice and insights from two decades of studying how great software really gets built.
                    Clear, upfront pricing.

                    We don't nickel and dime.
                    $10 per user, per month
                    It starts with software that ships on a predictable schedule, but goes far beyond that, with software that's trusted by your community, thoughtful about user experience, and responsible in the ways it treats people and data.
                  …is crafted by teams because no-one works alone, and we only get better when we learn from each other.
                    Why Choose Manuscript?
                    Based on the engine of FogBugz, the platform that pioneered bug tracking, Manuscript is a purpose built project management tool for software teams.
                  Crafted by Fog Creek Software, the creators of Glitch. We invented Trello, and co-founded Stack Overflow.

                      Learn how Manuscript works:
                    The first 14 days are on us. No credit card required.

<comment><USER3> 'Manuscript - Project Management for Software Teams', 'project management, issue tracking, and support' and 'Manuscript is a purpose-built project management tool for software teams' all seem like what you're looking for.

<comment><USER2> you know that tells me nothing right? Excel is a project management tool, A google doc is, Jira is, Youtrack is, basecamp is, zen desk is, github is, bitbucket is...... lots of people claim that, it's a crowded space, what I want to know is what toys are you going to give me, what problem are you solving?

<comment><USER3> Sure, but it is a literal answer to what you asked, 'what it is'. For what it does (the toys), I recommend the Feature Tour ([https://www.manuscript.com/features/task- management](https://www.manuscript.com/features/task-management)) and for the problem, beyond the video, the best source for now is the launch post: [https://medium.com/make-better-software/introducing- manuscri...](https://medium.com/make-better-software/introducing-manuscript- aa4aabdc0f6c). I'll get more from that added to the homepage. Thanks for the feedback.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I noticed the domain when logging in to Kiln, Fog Creek Software's hosted version control app/service, and decided to checkout the website. Based on the screenshot fragments, it appears to be a newer version of FogBugz. The marketing text even includes "Based on the engine of FogBugz".

My company's FogBugz sub-domain also seems to be already registered. Maybe they're going to migrate everyone from FogBugz automatically.

Anyone have an info about this? I haven't noticed anything in any emails from Fog Creek. Nor do I remember seeing anything else about this anywhere.

<comment><USER4> You're fast! :) We'll have an update with full details soon.

<comment><AUTHOR> I figured I jumped the gun somehow. Please tell me you're going to be adding Markdown support tho!

<comment><USER4> It's on the list! Two of my personal top requests to the team are Markdown & emoji reaction support. :)

<comment><USER5> Please do not add a :partyparrot: and give one the option to disable emojis or show text emoji only option.

<comment><USER6> I thought the party parrot was pretty funny at first but it and it's 10,000 variants we have on HipChat have gotten old pretty quick.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Thanks for adding us.

Here's a little background on why we built Manuscript:

We launched FogBugz back in 2000 as one of the first bug-tracking systems around. Since it launched, the platform has been used to fix over 50 million bugs, by tens of thousands of teams around the world. But recently, we've been thinking about "Big Bugs" [0], trying to imagine how we can address both the necessary parts of shipping software and the larger risks that too often get overlooked.

So today, we're using that same engine to create something new: Manuscript. See our launch post for further info: [https://medium.com/make-better- software/introducing-manuscri...](https://medium.com/make-better- software/introducing-manuscript-aa4aabdc0f6c)

[0] [https://medium.com/make-better-software/software-matters- in-...](https://medium.com/make-better-software/software-matters-in-the- world-f24d25b255d7)

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a really aggravating comment. It's content-less marketing drivel. You didn't 'build Manuscript'. You just changed the name of an existing hosted issue/ticket management service.

And you've made some cosmetic changes to the client-side code that uses the 'FogBugz engine' (back-end code).

And now you're spouting really insipid bullshit about "Big Bugs". Please excuse my intense skepticism about that being anything other than nothing.

There's a few things I still like about FogBugz versus its 'competitors' – creating a 'case' (issue/ticket) from an email, being able to create hierarchical trees of cases, and being able to search cases. But everything else has been stale for a long time.

You don't even have real integrated version control! Kiln is about as basic of a web wrapper around Git as possible. Or maybe the code reviews are okay? I don't know. I've never used them nor ever heard or read of anyone else doing so either. Why's Kiln off on its own? Hosting a Git repo isn't exactly trivial if you're offering it for free, but you killed the free plan a while ago and I don't think anywhere near as many people as are using GitHub have ever even known of Kiln.

The propose UX improvements are also very very un-inspiring. To whom is FogBugz – I mean Manuscript – going to be marketed? Because it certainly doesn't seem to be programmers.

<comment><USER3> Sorry to hear I've aggravated you! There's more to it than cosmetic changes. Relevant to your comment is the new integration experience, which leverages Glitch. This enables you to connect up your other tools easily, so you can use the best tool for the job, like GitHub for integrated version control. As well as other tools like Slack, Trello and Google Docs.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm sorry I'm being so aggravating too. We're hurt most by those to which we're closest! I've been using FogBugz for almost a decade now, and it's been overall really positive. But I'm sad that it hasn't really kept up.

You mentioned using other tools – "like GitHub for integrated version control". I can't understand why anyone would use GitHub _and_ FogBugz/Manuscript. GitHub already does pretty much everything FogBugz does, plus it's like 'embedded version control' instead of just 'integrated'.

Maybe Anil will push thru some fucking Markdown support tho before I'm finished migrating to GitLab. You guys (the extended Fog Creek family anyways) are probably half the reason why Markdown has been so widespread [i.e. Stack Overflow]. FogBugz has been marketed forever as being just for making software! How can you have relegated all of your users to using 'rich text' for so many years? Why?!

(Also, would you please add a 'description' to the cases so everyone can see, at the top of the case, a checklist [written in Markdown!] with everything that needs to be completed before the case can be closed? And how 'bout some case description templates too why'll you're at it?)

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the feedback, I'll pass those suggestions on.

One big reason why people use us with a GitHub integration is that GitHub is almost entirely used by developers only, and yet creating software requires input from people across roles and departments. Manuscript with GitHub integration means you can collaborate across your whole organization, and involve Design, Support, Marketing and other teams, while developers still get to use the version control system they want.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _$10 per user, per month. Clear, upfront pricing. We don 't nickel and dime. Introductory pricing._

Not to nitpick, but having "introduction" pricing doesn't seem to be very upfront.

<comment><USER3> Sorry if it's not clear. If you signup for $10 per month, that's the price you'll always pay.

<comment><USER8> Will you always pay $10 per month per user, or will users added later cost more per month?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Would just like to say that the website looks great and that I like that you reuse and repackage existing good solutions rather than reinventing the wheel.

Seems like a good option for an org that want more than Trello but less than JIRA.

</comment><comment><USER10> Someone educate me :)

How is Fog Creek allowed to do this after the sale of Trello to Atlassian? I would have expected some provision related to not releasing product/project management software for some period of time?

<comment><USER3> We don't see Trello as a competitor at all, that's why we integrate with it, just like we do with GitHub or Slack. And we use them both together every day at Fog Creek.

<comment><USER10> That's not really what I meant. What I really meant was that Manuscript very clearly does project management (it's even in the title of the site), which Trello did. I imagine that would be a 'no-no' in the Trello sale to Atlassian.

Or is that not the case, contractually?

<comment><AUTHOR> Manuscript is basically FogBugz, which is a Fog Creek product that predates Trello, so there must have been some kind of allowance for Fog Creek to continue to sell it. It's possible I'm wrong, but I'd be _extremely_ surprised if that was the case.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The same company that gave us Trello? Wonder what Atlassian thinks.

<comment><USER3> Manuscript integrates well with Trello: [https://manuscript.com/integrations](https://manuscript.com/integrations)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Why would you call a project management thing (or whatever this is) "manuscript"? Whatever it prints, definitely wasn't written by hand.

<comment><AUTHOR> They're not great with naming. [It _is_ one of the two or three hard things to do in computering!]

Their previous project is named [Glitch]([https://glitch.com/](https://glitch.com/)) for example.

And Manuscript is just FogBugz anyways, tho I've at least grown used to the original name.

<comment><USER3> I love the name Glitch ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

<comment><AUTHOR> It's cute for sure. But it also carries 'connotations' of (software) bugs, malfunctions, errors – and by 'carry' I mean that's the standard _meaning_ of the term!</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Internet 'is not working for women and girls', says Berners-Lee - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/global/2020/mar/12/internet-not-working-women-girls-tim-berners-lee <comment><USER2> This is interesting. I follow girls who code but it seems like nothing but bootcamps</comment>


Show HN: See the live location of your app users on a map - <AUTHOR> https://www.hypertrack.com/ <comment><USER3> Super seamless product providing a most necessary use case - <USER2> tracking location

We at Chaayos run a chain of chai cafes in India, and are working with Hyper Track on our food deliveries tracking

Awesome team and a product that is built for developers. Recommended

</comment><comment><USER4> Why do all the comments on this so far seem like paid promotion?

</comment><comment><USER5> Can this product be extended for government use?

On your website I saw the use case for "workforce monitoring", can there be more than 5 filters for tracking workforce?

</comment><comment><USER6> A product that has much needed use in developing countries to track aid trucks for providing meal services.

Product built by excellent team. Recommended.

</comment><comment><USER7> My team have checked the product and it sounds really promising.

Can the mileage tracking be connected with a payment app to pay the employees?</comment>


Cloudflare and the Wayback Machine, joining forces for a more reliable Web - <AUTHOR> http://blog.archive.org/2020/09/17/internet-archive-partners-with-cloudflare-to-help-make-the-web-more-useful-and-reliable/ <comment><USER2> Was worried about CF getting their claws dug into archive.org, but on reading, this is a decidedly non-evil deal, actually it sounds wonderful. Still, I worry if there might be some unseen long term interest in the archive.

Never forget Dejanews

<comment><USER3> Not long ago, CF has been blocking access from Tor. And they are blocking access from my web crawler sometimes. I don't like CF as they act as a police or gatekeeper to the origin website, deciding who to penalize and who do not, while pretending to be speeding up websites and protecting from 'threads'.

<comment><USER4> One of the first 100 people to use cloudflare when it launched.

Paying them today to speed up a couple of websites while protecting them.

They rock at making big things possible for very small companies.

<comment><USER5> Hey, me too! Do you have the first-users t-shirt?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This should be made very clear to Cloudflare users, ideally a warning next to the Always Online checkbox.

"Always Online" now can mean "Archive Forever" \- even when a site is pre- launch.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, I definitely expect this to bite some people, if I'm understanding correctly. A plausible scenario (among many) would be: soft launch a site, show it to some early stakeholders, have Wayback archive everything via Always Online, fix embarrassing screwups or oversharing in soft-launched version, publicize site more broadly, everyone in the world can rewind to version zero, regrets. I don't think the existing warnings really make clear that a soft launch is now a forever launch.

<comment><AUTHOR> The solution to this is... robots.txt. Otherwise your site might turn up in Google etc. Since it's archive.org that's doing the crawling and they respect robots.txt it won't get archived.

<comment><USER8> Archive.org does not respect robots.txt IIRC. I've run into this problem before with them. Ironically, I ended up blocking Internet Archive's ASN using Cloudflare.

EDIT: Internet Archive started ignoring robots.txt in 2017: [https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/internet-archive- rob...](https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/internet-archive-robots-txt/)

<comment><USER9> They only started ignoring robots.txt on US government websites (as that article also says)

<comment><USER8> That is not what the article says.

It says Internet Archive had _already_ started ignoring robots.txt on US government websites.

Now (since 2017) they ignore it on _all_ websites.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Normally I'd be upset about Cloudflare getting involved in anything good and pure like archive.org but this relationship, just suggesting new URLs to archive, seems harmless enough.

<comment><USER11> > I'd be upset about Cloudflare getting involved in anything good and pure

Why?

At least by FAANG standards, Cloudflare stands out to me as one of the good guys.

<comment><USER12> Just a reminder: Cloudflare with its standard settings is breaking the second and third world countries internet with their captchas on websites. This is discrimination in my opinion. As long as you are only in a first world country you will never notice.

<comment><USER13> I do almost all of my internet access from a 2nd/3rd world country and hadn't noticed?

<comment><USER14> Depends on the country/ISP probably. From the Philippines, Firefox with uBlockOrigin and PrivacyBadger hit captcha walls all the time; all that stopped as soon as I moved to Singapore.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Cloudflare is really neat unless you find yourself mysteriously blacklisted by them as a user.

Then suddenly the web is a much smaller place.

<comment><USER16> You can use archive.org to bypass the Cloudflare blocklist, especially considering the save page feature.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Good News.

I also recommend using Internet archive addon in browser. Clicking on it would archive the website. That way, you can archive pages you visit.

<comment><USER18> Or use this bookmarklet:

      javascript:window.location="https://web.archive.org/save/"+location.href

<comment><USER19> I use [https://web.archive.org/web/submit?url=%s](https://web.archive.org/web/submit?url=%s) and set the keyword to "rez". That way I can type "rez example.com" and it will send me to the archived version.

<comment><USER20> Why "rez"?

<comment><USER21> Short for "resurrect" maybe?

<comment><USER19> Yup!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Just how big are Internet Archive's servers? I can't fathom how they're able to store so much of the web in so many versions.

<comment><USER23> The Wayback Machine uses 9.6 PetaBytes. Total storage is 50 PetaBytes.

[https://archive.org/web/petabox.php](https://archive.org/web/petabox.php)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Next step, have CloudFlare start mirroring IA on their own servers so we have some redundancy in case IA ever goes bankrupt.

Ideally it would be a non-profit that does it, but as a last resort CF is one of the few companies I'd trust to do it right and do it transparently.

</comment><comment><USER25> Cloudflare is not vpn friendly.

I'm a privacy concerned vpn user and in my daily browsing I have to deal dozens of times a day with cloudflare captchas or in some cases with cloudflare total blocking.

<comment><USER26> Is using this chrome/fx addon a option for your use case?

[https://support.cloudflare.com/hc/en- us/articles/11500199265...](https://support.cloudflare.com/hc/en- us/articles/115001992652-Using-Privacy-Pass-with-Cloudflare)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> This is actually a really good symbiotic relationship that should foster the archival of a ton more content. Hoping to see this toggle enabled by default at some point.

</comment><comment><USER28> Interesting to find that, when I checked to see if I was using the feature, I had already agreed to the supplemental terms saying my information will be shared with IA.

(For others who need to opt out, [https://support.cloudflare.com/hc/en- us/articles/200168436-U...](https://support.cloudflare.com/hc/en- us/articles/200168436-Understanding-Cloudflare-Always-Online) describes how to disable "Always Online". There doesn't seem to be a way to turn off just the information sharing.)

</comment><comment><USER29> This clearly isn't to create some utopic 'more reliable Web'. In fact, Cloudflare severely undermines that, by pushing their centralised view of what the internet should be.

I was hopeful, but after reading this:

> "The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine has an impressive infrastructure > that can archive the web at scale," said Matthew Prince, co-founder and CEO > of Cloudflare. "By working together, we can take another step toward making > the Internet more resilient by stopping server issues for our customers and > in turn from interrupting businesses and users online."

It's plain to see that this is a money-making venture for Cloudflare. While I do like the added functionality, I personally can't see how this 'improves' the Wayback Machine. It's just going to place _more_ load on it.

</comment><comment><USER30> I don't like the idea of "we're tacking this onto an existing service lots of people have enabled". CF bit me recently by suddenly taking away proxied dns wildcards from free zones, as it's now a premium feature (breaking the security promise in the process by changing the wild card entry to non- proxied). I don't like surprises and opt-out changes in critical infrastructure.

It's one thing to use CF's Always-On service - you're a customer, you know you can remove your data from it. It's another to get the Internet Archive involved, who may or may not remove your data, and may or may not honor robots.txt.

<comment><USER28> Sending the details seems to be tied into clicking the 'Update' button in the Cloud Flare UI, which documents that clicking it you agree. So they might not be sending your PII to a 3rd party until they get your permission. Hopefully any automated updates are not violating customers wishes. Yes, it is annoying the features have been tied together for people who choose to have as little interaction with IA as possible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Wow, this is awesome to see. I hope this doesn't put a lot of load on the IA, though..

<comment><USER32> I would assume that when a site goes offline Cloudflare fetches a snapshot from IA only once and then serves this copy to all further visitors, unless I'm missing something?

Here's a more detailed description of the service from Cloudflare support pages: [https://support.cloudflare.com/hc/en- us/articles/200168436](https://support.cloudflare.com/hc/en- us/articles/200168436)

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Whatever fills web.archive.org is good!

Though, it would be nice if someone invented technology, that can erase all the 404 pages and redirects, that are archived, as well, as soon the page goes offline. Maybe a job for AI?

<comment><USER34> No.

Keep historical revisionism out of archive.org.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Has Cloudflare clarified their stance on which content they allow and disallow? They've wavered in the past and given how their service is basically critical infrastructure for the internet, I really want them to commit to free speech, avoid deplatforming, and avoid exceeding legal minimums.

</comment><comment><USER36> Side rant: Sure would be nice if the Wayback Machine showed actual snapshots of web pages, instead of "hybrid" snapshots where they combine old with new (maybe it's a setting?). I recently horked a website, and thought to check the Wayback Machine. Curiously, an edit I made that day was showing on snapshots dating back several years. Until I discovered how the WBM worked, I was pulling my hair out.

<comment><USER37> This is probably due to XHR's. The IA loads all JS, so if a website hard-codes the URL or does other complicated XHR stuff the IA might not be equipped to save the response for those, if they do at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Perhaps we are getting a sugared pill? Perhaps CF are genuinely being useful here, but in order to gain trust to act nefariously in future?

I don't feel comfortable with their ability to switch off parts of the internet, nor in this case, that they have their hands near what is preserved for posterity.

As they say: "Cloudflare has become core infrastructure for the Web, and we are glad we can be helpful in making a more reliable web for everyone." They are indeed powerful.

I'm concerned that they are becoming gatekeepers to information, under the guise of providing a better internet service. They are able to operate at a level deeper than the odious restrictions youtube, facebook et al enforce on free speech.

<comment><USER34> I'm being downvoted - but we have seen major 'book burnings' on youtube, etc where billions of comments and videos have been purged. These are private platforms and can do what they like, so in a way that's acceptable as it is within their terms of service.

CF is a level deeper than that. This is a company that can effectively shut down the internet for companies and individuals. And now they are involved with archive.org? Should we be concerned about online historical revisionism as that relationship matures?

I feel uncomfortable that CF seems to be positioning itself as a guardian to all information - not at an application level, but at an architectural level.

Cloudflare is shaping up to be a key tool that an authoritarian government requires. And I'm concerned about it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Could someone please automatically activate this for all content linked from HN? It happens all the time that many of the first page links are down due to traffic spike.

<comment><USER39> From what I can tell, all links submitted are automatically archived.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Encouraging to see this kind of partnership this day in age. May it never forget why it started and only improve on it.

</comment><comment><USER41> Great, until your admin panel is archived...

<comment><USER42> Cloudflare just gives more discovery, it doesn't give IA access to anything that was previously more secure...

"COVID tests: great, until you find a positive result"

<comment><USER41> | As new URLs are added to sites that use that service they are submitted for archiving to the Wayback Machine.

Yes, this would prevent most order-confirmation pages or otherwise private must-be-logged-in pages from being archived, but it will expose presumed- private URLs that are thought to be unique (tracking numbers, files uploaded with unique names, unique/private image urls that are otherwise publicly accessible)

If you've made efforts to your systems to prevent enumeration-attacks, this could partly bypass them.

<comment><USER43> What I'm hearing is "don't rely on security by obscurity", which I wholeheartedly agree with.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Perhaps they can start archiving YouTube.

</comment><comment><USER45> My heart shuddered when I read the headline. I can't be alone in the fear.

</comment><comment><USER46> If only we could get the NSA to publish their archive of public data.

<comment><USER47> There is hope. With the help of then-senator Al Gore, the CIA made photographs available to researchers it had made of the polar regions to search for soviet nuclear installations. They became valuable for climate research later on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Strange that the blog doesn't have https redirection.

</comment><comment><USER49> Who owns Cloudflare? And what are they valued at?

I mean, these deals make them look cool and altruistic, but what happens when BigCompany offers them enough money to sell?

</comment><comment><USER50> Is this basically Archive.org becoming a customer of Cloudflare CDN to reduce load off their servers?

<comment><USER51> It's Archive.org being provided URL telemetry for archiving public sites they have not yet found through traditional means (crawling or users submitting requests through the Wayback Save page) by a Cloudflare product.

The next step would be for Cloudflare to point to Archive.org Wayback links when an origin isn't available (similar to browser extensions that point to Archive.org when sites 404 or are down, but in Cloudflare's core).

Cool stuff. Thanks Cloudflare folks.

<comment><USER52> I really doubt their customers would want that. Usually when a page is 404 it's because the company in question wants to forget about it :)

<comment><USER53> You would return the archived page for a 5xx error, not a 4xx error.

<comment><USER52> Ah I see. But this is precisely a usecase for cloudflare's own caching service.

It wouldn't be fair to use archive.org's community-sponsored resources for propping up businesses which are too cheap to pay for proper IT :)

<comment><USER54> While it's not explicitly mentioned, I think Cloudflare is providing financial support to the Internet Archive.

<comment><USER55> One would hope so. Considering the timing relative to the IA's potentially very expensive legal battle, I full expect this to be the case. Still, considering CF's anti-privacy/anti-TOR stance this is a deal with the devil. Guess I should give money directly to the IA. Considering how much value they provide, I'll do this immediately after updating this post.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>