Ask HN: Why are there so few law startups? - <AUTHOR> One could probably find a bunch through a Google search but I couldn't name a startup in the law space off the top of my head. I also don't remember ever seeing one making headlines on HN.<p>With all the enormous fees and the insane amount of paperwork I'd think it's a space that's screaming for new ideas but from an outside perspective it doesn't seem like there has been much innovation since MS Word... Has anyone got some insight? <comment><USER2> I'm the lead developer at Contractually (a Vancouver-based startup): [http://www.contractual.ly](http://www.contractual.ly). We take contracts out of Microsoft Word and email and put them in an online format that understands the business data and process that is involved. We're solving problems form the low level (version tracking, redlining, commenting) to the high level (renewal reminders, workflows, tagging, reporting). We're currently focussed on large businesses and enterprise.

To answer your question, there's not many startups in the legal space because people and businesses are really worried about their contracts. The conservative nature is one that needs to slowly be eroded, and that's where we're at now. E-signature providers have taken away a lot of concerns and we're starting to see opportunities in areas outside of just signing.

At Contractually, we're seeing more competition (a good thing, of course) targeting small businesses right up to enterprise. Typically, they solve some small part of the contracts problem: Assembling documents, or e-signatures, or workflows, etc. The competition isn't just coming from startups (e.g. glider.com, acquired last year), it's also coming from large incumbents (e.g. Merrill DataSite for contract management, launched last month).

It's an exciting time and I think we'll start to see big chunks of the problem solved over the next few years.

<comment><USER3> This is off on a tangent, but...

I just took a look at a demo video on your site - I'm just guessing based on appearances, but are you using CKEditor for your base editor, and then popping up a new window using the lite plugin to show tracked changes?

If so, we're using the same toolkit... but if not, I'd love to know if you found a better track changes project via open source, or if you rolled your own. The lite plugin works OK, but not well enough for some of our more legal- focused clientele, so I'm scoping out other options.

<comment><USER2> We are using CKEditor, but are not currently using lite. Our version compare is done separately using an HTML diff engine. We have a number of requests for redlining-as-you-type, which we don't currently do, and will probably implement that with lite when we get to that.

I have implemented it as a proof of concept twice now, but keep finding bugs and issues that block us from releasing it as a feature. Seems like you might be hitting some of those as well?

My recommendation would really come down to what issues your legal-focused clientele have with the current solution. If it's accuracy, storing each version in its entirety and comparing those versions is basically what lawyers do today with Word.

<comment><USER3> Yes, we likely have some common ground on the problems we are hitting. We are doing OK on accuracy - we do keep all approved versions in an archive.

The problems relate more to the plethora of ways lite can fail - I don't have my full list in front of me, but as a minor example, deleting an entire bulleted item from a list leaves the bullet in place within the editor as normal text. It sounds nitpicky, but it really makes the documents look funky, and the formatting is very important to our people, so the content editors spend extra time reformatting documents, which is not ideal.

Nevertheless, I haven't found a solution that does any better, and we don't have the resources to reinvent that wheel (yet), so we do have lite in production... it just is one of our pain points.

And to be fair, lite is improving - our list of complaints is smaller than it was a year ago, and each new release fixes a few things.

<comment><USER2> For what it's worth, we're hitting many of those same problems even without lite. People are finnicky about how their contracts look, and they tend to spend a lot of time getting them to look just right. It's especially difficult with the jump from Word to HTML, even when it's abstracted via e.g. CKEditor.

May I ask where you work?

<comment><USER3> I want to respect the privacy of my employer, and not connect my public discussions to them, but I'd be happy to move over to a non-public discussion if you want to talk more about where I am working and what we are up to... let me know a good way to reach out to you if you would like to head that direction.

<comment><USER2> I have added my email to my profile

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Startups practicing law (rather than providing law-related services other than legal practice) are difficult given restrictions on the practice of law, including legal ethics rules (e.g., things like ABA Model Rule 5.4(d) [0].)

Also, while in other industries if you break the rules of the industry the corporation pays a fine (which is part of the risk of a startup) and the principals all move on with their lives and livelihoods.

Lawyers who break the rules of their industry can be disbarred. While this doesn't completely stop all move-fast-and-break-things in the field, it does limit the willingness of people in the field to engage in it.

Another factor may be that purchasers of legal services tend to be looking to mitigate risk by purchasing those services, which may make them reluctant to consider novel and unproven models.

[0] [http://www.americanbar.org/groups/professional_responsibilit...](http://www.americanbar.org/groups/professional_responsibility/publications/model_rules_of_professional_conduct/rule_5_4_professional_independence_of_a_lawyer.html)

</comment><comment><USER5> Well, it depends on what you mean by "law startup."

There are plenty of document-processing startups that help with what lawyers call e-discovery. There are also some startups that will help you do some standard legal tasks, like incorporate in Delaware and issue stock. I think one of those is Clerky, a YC-funded company. Avvo is a matchmaking/profile aggregation startup that comes to mind.

I worked with Fenwick and West to incorporate [https://recent.io/](https://recent.io/), in part because I've had a relationship with them for a few years. But I see why people today use Clerky and pay ~15% as much.

A few other thoughts:

* Lawyers are some of the most conservative and risk-averse professionals you'll find. So it will take a while for any newfangled innovations to become adopted.

* Those "enormous fees" are already being whittled down as part of a multi-decade shift away from Big Law in its traditional form, including fixed fees rather than hourly rates.

* Bar associations act as a cartel and try to restrict competition. Nolo, which publishes self-help software and books, was actually sued for daring to compete with lawyers ("Unauthorized Practice of Law"): [http://blog.nolo.com/blog/2011/04/11/the-brief-story-of-texa...](http://blog.nolo.com/blog/2011/04/11/the-brief-story-of-texas-vs-nolo/)

* When you want tailored advice, a website with a bunch of forms (even forms created by smart lawyers) is likely insufficient. I know one trust attorney in the SF bay area who told me she had to figure out how to handle cryopreservation after some Silicon Valley execs wanted it; that required original research. When you're in a situation where mistakes can cost you millions, hiring an attorney for tailored advice is cheap insurance.

<comment><USER6> We're a legal startup! ([https://www.justiserv.com](https://www.justiserv.com))

It's hard to innovate in the legal space because of how fluid and complicated the law tends to be, and how arbitrary lawyer's pricing schemes can be.

In response to thoughts:

* Lawyers are definitely risk-averse, but they're feeling the shift towards online services as much as any other industry. Also, young attorneys are willing to adopt technology, and have more trouble finding jobs, especially since large law firms are breaking up.

* True, but the magnitude we're talking about is still thousands of dollars per case.

* Actually, we've found bar associations eager to help connect their lawyers with new opportunities.

* Definitely - there still isn't an adequate alternative to a good, well trained lawyer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> We at Beagle Inc ([http://beagle.ai](http://beagle.ai)) are building a product that uses NLP to make contracts easier to understand, bringing comprehension from 0 to 80% in seconds. There's also a collaborative piece which allows you to make critical changes and see redlines. I'd say our analysis focuses on a relatively different problem than other legal tech startups are addressing. Its been a substantial technical challenge to bring our analysis quality to a good level and its constantly improving. Aside from that, law can be a relatively daunting space, so I believe that having a leader who knows their way around the law (and tech) is critical. I'd suggest that these personalities enjoy well-paying jobs at law firms and a special few would consider the startup route.

</comment><comment><USER8> Angellist ranks close to 900 legal startups ([https://angel.co/companies?markets[]=Legal](https://angel.co/companies?markets\[\]=Legal))

but most of them are in fact only partially legal or "meta legal" in the sense that they do not offer legal advice. There has been going on a lot of discussion why legal discruption or innovation do have such a hard time. One of the most important reasons is linked to the matter as such: math, logic and algorithms are apt to create complex logical structures but remain semantically simple. legal rules are simple in terms of logic but semantically complex.

The very few startups actuelly working the automation field (neota logic, lexalgo) have a hard time finding sufficient real live cases to get their hands on.

</comment><comment><USER9> Lawyers are typically hired to apply their expertise to a particular problem and to tailor there advice based on a particular set of facts and circumstances. One of those circumstances is the desired outcome of the client. People don't hire a lawyer to go before the jury and say "My client is probably guilty."

Day in and out, much lawyering is piece work of a custom or semi-custom nature...even with standard contracts getting the execution date and names of the parties correct and double and triple checking matters: GIGO doesn't make the grade.

Years ago I worked on a team that designed renovations for a courthouse parking structure. Documents were done, competitive biding had been announced, closed and fixed price bids received, a contract awarded, notice to proceed given, and selective demolition began at 7am or so Monday morning. 10am the phone call comes in. The job is shut down. The bailiff told the superintendent that the Judge said he would throw his ass in jail for contempt of court because the construction activity was disruptive to proceedings in his courtroom [jackhammers can do that]. Twelve months of daylight construction became thirteen months of night time construction. I'm not sure if the contractor started preparing the change order price or started shopping for a new boat first.

Anyway, moving fast and breaking things in law runs the risk of winding up in jail. If the judge doesn't like it, the bailiff comes just got a change order to move toand hauls you away with "Tell it to the judge" the only response to your protestations of good intent while knowing full well its irony.

</comment><comment><USER10> Startups generally solve pains that the founders have experienced. To experience the pains of the legal profession you need to have worked in it for a while, but if you've done that then you're probably already quite well paid and maybe see the paperwork as a necessity. Or at least see it as something that you can charge a lot for. In short, there aren't many law startups because the people who suffer what we regard as a pain don't see it as a pain.

</comment><comment><USER11> There are some startups that make tools for lawyers. Non-lawyers probably aren't aware of them. FastCase seems like a fairly new company to me. Others mentioned Clio.

If the question meant, why aren't there startups replacing lawyers, possible answers include: 1) In the U.S., non-lawyers can't be owners or investors in law firms; 2) There isn't a lot of overlap between the tech industry and the legal industry; 3) Much substantive legal work is custom knowledge work that would require a human level AI to replace. An approximation won't work.

There is still plenty of money to be made with something that helps lawyers do their jobs. Suggest document assembly as ripe for disruption. Existing tools are too costly.

</comment><comment><USER12> I built and run DocketDaily ([http://www.docketdaily.com](http://www.docketdaily.com)). We mine and process litigation data which is used for a number of law-related purposes. As others have mentioned, Thomson and LexisNexis have the law firm market nearly locked down (for the time being, at least, as even this is changing), so we decided to target a slightly different space. We focus on legal vendors -- those selling into law firms and in-house counsel -- and provide them with very useful data and information for their sales/marketing efforts.

This strategy -- not targeting the law market head on -- has proved beneficial, and has allowed us to establish a base from which to expand to adjacent verticals (law firms, in-house counsel, legal recruiters, etc.)

We have a few competitors (Lex Machina, DocketNavigator, LawProspector, others) but they each tend to carve out a niche. In the case of Lex Machina and DocketNavigator, both are entirely focused on 1) law firms, and 2) patent litigation. It's a big world out there, and data in law is relatively young and nascent.

In any case, if anyone wants to discuss further, I'd be very happy to share learnings. I'm gene@ the website I mentioned earlier. If anyone is Cambridge/Boston based and interested in the law sector, I'd love to get together!

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm an ex-lawyer and co-founder of Dragon Law (www.dragonlaw.com.hk). We're based in Hong Kong, the legal hub of Asia. We'll be launching in Singapore in a month or two's time.

Our online contract automation tool allows business owners to create their own legal documents, have them reviewed by a lawyer, and signed electronically.

Check us out! Happy to hear feedback from you all!

</comment><comment><USER14> Here are some law startups:

www.hireanesquire.com www.plainlegal.com www.InCloudCounsel.com www.casetext.com

There are quite a few law startups with legal practice SASS offerings, b2c marketplaces, document management. You likely haven't heard of these unless you're a lawyer, and even then it's not likely. How many dental startups are you following? None, I'm guessing.

</comment><comment><USER15> I've talked with more than one set of specialized lawyers who had the domain knowledge necessary to identify a lucrative problem and imagine a productized solution. They all considered creating a start-up, to the point of talking to me about it, but in the end they just kicked the tires for a while and never seemed to do anything.

My theory: if you've got the specialized domain knowledge to do something in the legal space that isn't already being done to death, you're likely very well paid already, and quitting to focus on a startup would involve a huge opportunity cost. That dramatically cuts down on the number of startups that actually get created - it's just too much security to give up.

That said, there's still a good number of legal startups out there.

</comment><comment><USER16> Another interesting one: [https://www.judicata.com](https://www.judicata.com)

I think this is by the guy that posted those great class notes originally for Peter Thiel's Startup Class (which then became a book I believe).

<comment><USER17> this looks to be dead (?)

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

"May 2012 – April 2014 (2 years)San Francisco Bay Area"

<comment><USER18> Nope, alive and doing well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I was employee #1 of a law startup that was acquired in 2014 (I'll leave it up to you to guess if it was LexisNexis or Westlaw that bought us). We did indeed find that there was a lot of opportunity in the space, but also a great deal of inertia preventing adoption of new technology.

We also occasionally encountered strong opposition, including having more than one law school prohibit the use of our software by students.

I'd say that there are a lot of law-oriented startups that you never hear about, especially if you're not part of a school or firm that's directly targeted by them.

</comment><comment><USER20> I suspect that it is because law service advocates (and most professional groups) fiercely protect themselves through licensing and watch-groups (normally "boards").

If you would like to prove this to yourself pull up your state (not CA, CA is weird) statutes concerning attorney licensure and read the entry and maintenance requirements to "join the club". You will find them draconian and easily withdrawn for minor offenses.

You will see this in all groups that have advocates from lawyers to hairdressers. It is self-preservation.

</comment><comment><USER21> Hello HN! I'm the CEO of CaseRails ( [https://caserails.com](https://caserails.com) ), a legal-tech startup based in New York. We just launched an online document automation platform for lawyers that makes it really quick-and-easy for a lawyer to take a generic document (like an NDA) and personalize it for the client. Though, we do have non-lawyer customers too.

I see that my colleague from Contractually (bmulholland) gave a good answer and I agree with his sentiments.

I would add that, in a broad sense, there are probably three hypothetical markets for a law startup (defined as, something to do with legal services):

1 - you could provide legal services to consumers of legal services,

2 - you could displace legal services with something else, or

3 - you could sell something, or provide another service to, the people providing legal services.

CaseRails is an example of #3, our product is intended for lawyers themselves to use.

There aren't any examples of #1 (that I know of) because, at least in the USA, ethical regulations prohibit fee splitting with non lawyers. This means you can't have non-lawyer shareholders / investors; which means you can't raise capital in the traditional markets.

LegalZoom and RocketLawyer are good examples of #2, they try to displace your need to call a lawyer with an online service where you can get document templates. (I don't want to speak for Contractually but they might also be in this category)

</comment><comment><USER22> Part of it is the inherently risk averse/conservative orientation of the legal field (much of it arguably justified in the sense that in a field where extreme precision of language is a minimum, and strict auditing common, the "fast and loose" approach of agile-centric startup culture runs contra to a lot of legal instincts. Another commenter laid it out well: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9528423](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9528423) "Startups practicing law (rather than providing law-related services other than legal practice) are difficult given restrictions on the practice of law, including legal ethics rules (e.g., things like ABA Model Rule 5.4(d) [0].)

Also, while in other industries if you break the rules of the industry the corporation pays a fine (which is part of the risk of a startup) and the principals all move on with their lives and livelihoods.

Lawyers who break the rules of their industry can be disbarred. While this doesn't completely stop all move-fast-and-break-things in the field, it does limit the willingness of people in the field to engage in it."

That said, I think there are areas where some innovation could occur, particularly around e-discovery and in lexical search/dbs.

</comment><comment><USER23> You're certainly right in saying that the law and law firms have been slow to adapt. There are many areas that are ripe for innovation; document management systems, e-signing documents etc.

And as you say, it's hard to know where to look for startups in the legal sphere. I've found a really good site called [http://www.lawhackers.co](http://www.lawhackers.co) which lists all the legal-tech startups and what they do. Also, their newsletter is great for keeping up to date with the field.

I myself work for a legal-tech startup called [https://www.lexoo.co.uk/](https://www.lexoo.co.uk/) We focus on solving three problems that businesses face when trying to hire a lawyer:

1) there is no price transparency 2) it's hard to judge the quality of lawyers 3) It's time consuming to get multiple quotes

We help businesses find great lawyers by getting them multiple quotes for their legal matter from specialist lawyers, so they can compare them side by side.

I hope that's helpful!

</comment><comment><USER24> I am the tech lead at UniCourt [https://unicourt.com](https://unicourt.com) and we are a legal tech startup.

UniCourt solves a few of the problems below

1\. Track hundreds/thousands of on-going cases in Federal (PACER) and State Courts and only get notified on relevant updates

2\. Download documents for Federal cases from within UniCourt and save money from repeatedly getting charged from PACER.

3\. Upload documents to UniCourt and attach to cases.

4\. Free access to documents already downloaded in UniCourt archive

5\. Access to the entire RECAP documents archive, so avoid incurring PACER fees

6\. Manage cases and collaborate on case research by inviting users of your organization to UniCourt

7\. Get notified on all activities happening to a case of interest - a user commenting on a case, a document being downloaded, a case being updated

Take a look at [http://www.lawhackers.co/](http://www.lawhackers.co/) you will find most of the legal technology startups here.

</comment><comment><USER25> there are many excellent points made on this question but the standout one explaining the problem is >>When you're in a situation where mistakes can cost you millions, hiring an attorney for tailored advice is cheap insurance.

when you hire a corporate law firm you're paying for their liability insurance. Only products and services that can remove the fear if something goes wrong (i.e insurance) or what is the outcome does not stand up in law will really disrupt things. For the latter the government needs to be involved and this proposal in the UK will really shake things up for access to justice, costs etc if it goes ahead [http://www.theguardian.com/law/2015/feb/16/online- court-prop...](http://www.theguardian.com/law/2015/feb/16/online-court- proposed-to-resolve-claims-of-up-to-25000)

</comment><comment><USER17> lexisnexis and westlaw got this space locked down.

some interesting attempts:

[https://www.ravellaw.com/](https://www.ravellaw.com/) (active) [https://www.judicata.com/](https://www.judicata.com/) (stillborn/dead) www.tabulaw.com (dead)

<comment><USER18> Judicata is very much alive. We're tackling a hard problem, with little margin for error, and focused on doing it right. It's a very different model than most startups, but then again, law is a very different beast.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> The "law startup" space is pretty active, but I think it helps to break things down a bit. Most probably would fit into one of these categories:

(1) Startups that aim for the consumer market by replacing lawyers in some way (e.g., LegalZoom, Shake, or other document automation software companies) (2) Startups that aim for the consumer market by connecting people with lawyers (e.g., Priori Legal) (3) Startups that aim for the legal support/services market by offering cheaper/better alternatives to existing software offerings (e.g., Ravel Law for legal research or Clio for practice management) (4) Startups that aim for the legal support/services market by innovating in areas that traditionally have been inefficient and/or paper-intensive (e.g., Lex Machina for IP analytics or eDepoze for depositions)

</comment><comment><USER27> I think law startups is a vague term that can account for many points of view. Startups for people 'using' the law or startups for those 'practicing' the law.

For the past few years I've been making apps such as iJuror ([http://www.ijurorapp.com](http://www.ijurorapp.com)) specifically for attorneys and law firms. Adoption has been pretty significant but the industry is a bit more conservative when it comes to technology. Other apps such as TrialPad and TranscriptPad have been successful as well.

ClearView Social ([http://clearviewsocial.com](http://clearviewsocial.com)) is another startup in the legal space that helps attorneys and law firms grow their presence on social media.

I think we'll see more startups in the space in the coming years too.

</comment><comment><USER28> [https://tkbt.com/](https://tkbt.com/), based out of Canberra, Australia, is developing the "Intelligent Composition Environment" for legal document drafting.

</comment><comment><USER29> I'm a bit late to the game, but I'm the CEO of Casetext (YC S13), [https://casetext.com](https://casetext.com), which is a startup taking on the legal research space.

I wrote a post on Medium that addresses why you don't see many lawyer-founders that you might find interesting or relevant: [https://medium.com/@jacob_heller/from-think-like-a-lawyer- to...](https://medium.com/@jacob_heller/from-think-like-a-lawyer-to-think- different-dc3e570b4a5e)

</comment><comment><USER30> Several legal startups exist but maybe they are not sexy enough to be profiled. Much of the law is local, down to the municipal level. What works in Amsterdam won't in NYC. What works in LA won't in San Francisco. Tough to scale. I think because so much of the legal profession is based on relationships and creative arguments we'd see much of the legal landscape off limits to what HN would call a startup. Would Watson come up with, "if the glove don't fit you must aquit?"

</comment><comment><USER21> Erik from [https://caserails.com](https://caserails.com) here . . .

Ars Technica has a story now about a trademark attorney claiming he owns "case formative" marks ( including CaseRails )

[http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/05/trademark- lawyer-...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/05/trademark-lawyer- to-3-man-startup-hand-over-your-domain-or-else/)

</comment><comment><USER31> There are companies that provide legals docs to startups as a service. These are generally a bad idea to use. For example, I used a popular one a few years ago and got a general, 2-page document. I went to a real lawyer and got a 50-page document that served me well later, when my company needed to liquidate.

One of the problems is that the cost of having a bad legal team (or no legal team) is astronomical. It's far higher than just paying the "high fees".

What kinds of areas would you want to innovate specifically?

</comment><comment><USER32> [http://www.rossintelligence.com](http://www.rossintelligence.com)

I can put anyone in touch with the founders, if you'd like.

</comment><comment><USER33> Hi, I am a lawyer and founder of FeedLEX (feedlex.com ). The idea behind it is to provide curated legal news at one place for Indian citizen. We are trying to build certain tools apart from FeedLEX but Lack of funding and being technologically naive, I am facing lots of problem in developing a proper web portal to shape my true idea. We are looking for funding and people from technology background to join us.

</comment><comment><USER34> valcu.co (I'm the founder) is automating corporate transactions, with startups currently using the Delaware incorporation and setup tools. We are working on some heavier stuff (e.g., equity financing transactions integrated with a cap table). It's not surprising to me how difficult it is to innovate here as there are so many moving pieces. Scripting up the NVCA forms runs about 250 variables per document and requires conditionals and loops, which most merge tools can't handle. Control provisions, amendment provisions, board rights, protective provisions and many other provisions have to be modeled separately. Share numbers and capitalization reps have to either be entered individually (meaning you have to build a separate model), or the tools have to build in a cap table. It's been build, build, build-we're over 100k lines of code.

</comment><comment><USER35> I've worked with the founder of caserails.com. Great guy. If you're a lawyer, check them out.

</comment><comment><USER36> Swiftcourt ([http://www.swiftcourt.se/](http://www.swiftcourt.se/)) is doing really cool work and just got a big round of funding to expand to the US. They offer a quicker and cheaper way to solve small disputes.

</comment><comment><USER37> One that I remember coming across is [https://www.shakelaw.com/](https://www.shakelaw.com/)

Cant give insight as to why that industry seems particularly more quiet than others in terms of disruptive business models however

<comment><USER38> Shake was recently (April 2015) purchased by LegalShield. [http://www.shakelaw.com/blog/shake-joins-forces- legalshield/](http://www.shakelaw.com/blog/shake-joins-forces-legalshield/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Perhaps pay and lifestyle are already very good, why bother risking that for a startup that might fail or will, at the very least, cost a lot of time.

That and the probably rather conservative nature of people in this profession are probably some of the reasons.

</comment><comment><USER40> Do any law firms have a client site like for software project management?

I want something like redmine, where I can log in, and get a complete timeline and list of documents for a particular case. I should be able to upload anything the lawyers want.

</comment><comment><USER41> I'm jurist cum developer in Belgium, I spent a decade in this niche:

* Jurists are used to face extraordinary difficulties when researching things. Throw them a monstrous contractor-built Adobe Flex application as a search engine, and they'll be all the happier: still better than hundreds of paper volumes. The erudite knowledge of where and how to search is part of their expertise.

* In their mind, it's the content that matters. The form may be prettier and easier to use, they will hardly notice. As a law student, we had to read and print things presented like this (and this is a extremely gentle example): [http://goo.gl/6Uz48Q](http://goo.gl/6Uz48Q) Years later, I built my own app, where the same content is presented like this (see print preview to see what a little interest in the subject can produce) : [http://www.etaamb.be/fr/2015201838.html](http://www.etaamb.be/fr/2015201838.html) It doesn't get noticed a lot, although it attracts a lot of visits.

* The sector is cornered with not too innovative academics and conservative publisher companies with vested interests, even more conservative public institutions and associations (lawyers, notaries,... ) and extremely conservative laws. Kickstarting something like an internet app for last wills and testaments without the support of most of them is impossible (been there, done that): there is no place for disruption without institutional support.

* Speaking of institutional support: I only managed to implement an electronic proceedings platform in Belgium (still the only one) because I happen to work at a federal institution. It's been instituted by way of Royal Decree: not really the same as the apple store. It was a fortuitous meeting of ambition and competence: in other settings contractors have to be engaged, of which only the cheapest get selected, resulting in utter crap and millions of wasted taxpayer's money.

* It's very country-specific. Laws and customs stop at national borders, not even speaking of fragmented federal states and small legal districts. You could write a successful app in your country, but other countries have their own hurdles, not event speaking of the not-invented-here bias (As far as I know, technological exchanges are virtually non-existent, even between countries who share a common judicial structure).

Plenty of other stuff in my mind, but still, the sector is ripe for improvement; the internet revolution has just started reaching the outskirts of the legal world. The ways laws are voted, how proceedings and courts work, how doctrinal knowledge is made available and legal professionals joinable, there's plenty of low-hanging fruit. Fruit regulated by state law and pretty tenacious customs ;)

<comment><USER42> I think, that last sentence hit it pretty home. Who regulates the regulators? Noone.

You dont get to disrupt law, cause its against the law ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I'm the founder of Priori Legal -- we're a b2b marketplace connecting businesses and entrepreneurs with a network of vetted lawyers at their most competitive rates. Check us out! BFR

</comment><comment><USER14> Here are some law startups:

www.hireanesquire.com www.plainlegal.com www.InCloudCounsel.com www.casetext.com

There are quite a few law startups with legal practice SASS offerings, b2c marketplaces, document management.

</comment><comment><USER44> I know of one in Australia [https://lawpath.com.au/](https://lawpath.com.au/)

The other area to disrupt IMO is accounting services.

</comment><comment><USER45> Clio is the only one I know of off the top of my head. [https://www.goclio.com/](https://www.goclio.com/)

</comment><comment><USER46> Another one that was posted on HN recently was [https://www.lawgeex.com/](https://www.lawgeex.com/)

</comment><comment><USER47> I thought [https://www.docracy.com](https://www.docracy.com) was disrupting that space. Isn't it?

</comment><comment><USER48> People are not too keen on betting the future of their company on a startup that may or may not be still around in 3 months to save a few bucks.

</comment><comment><USER49> Here is a law startup: [https://lexmachina.com/](https://lexmachina.com/)

</comment><comment><USER50> [https://juristat.com/](https://juristat.com/)

</comment><comment><USER51> Why a "startup" is only related to a technology? Why can't I make a kebab startup?

<comment><USER52> A startup is a company designed to grow quickly in this context, not simply a new company. No matter how awesome your kebabs, it's unlikely the company could grow at the rate of Airbnb or Uber.

[http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html)

<comment><USER53> Although it's not tech in the traditional sense of a start up you all are discussing here, legal process outsourcing was a CRAZY idea back in 2004, when my company (Pangea3) was founded. Law + process + India = startup just the same. It's just now a $1 billion industry.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Market saturation, with lawyers saddled in unbelievable debt.

</comment><comment><USER55> What about something like LegalZoom?

</comment><comment><USER56> regulations</comment>


Python Testing Tools Taxonomy - <AUTHOR> http://pycheesecake.org/wiki/PythonTestingToolsTaxonomy

<comment><USER2> I had no idea there was so many. There are almost as many as there are web frameworks. ;-)

unittest is standard but it always feels klunky to me (perhaps that's the lingering stench of Java ... I kid). nose is my favorite at the moment. It is more complicated that I would prefer but writing tests is very easy and the reporting of failures is good.</comment>


Show HN: Webpgr, build HTML5 websites super fast Zoom, rotate, swipe. Edit now - <AUTHOR> http://webpgr.com/test9/livedemo

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm Thomas from the Webpgr team. I'm happy for any comments!

</comment><comment><USER2> Is it free to use the beta? for how long?

<comment><AUTHOR> We are in private beta. We let people in step by step, but on the linked page you can try it out without an account. You can sign up if you want a free beta account.</comment></comment>


Holloway launches in-depth startup guides, aims to rewrite publishing with $4.6M - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2019/08/01/holloway-launches-in-depth-startup-guides-aims-to-rewrite-publishing-with-4-6m-from-nyt-top-tech-investors/ <comment><USER2> Are we witnessing the end of static published guidebooks?

Why spend $25 on a book that is outdated by the time it hits store shelves?

I'm dubious about the idea of this sort of format replacing books that don't benefit from continual updates. I'm also curious if the one-off payment is what is best-aligned with what the market wants. Not a direct analog but Masterclass switched from one-off purchases to subscriptions. No inside knowledge to know what prompted it but I'm curious how that has changed their business.

</comment><comment><USER3> This team has consistently put out the highest quality content I've ever seen across the web. And they've already put out so much free content that it's awesome to see them finally launch with this first paid guide. Excited to see what guides they'll continue releasing.

</comment><comment><USER4> Should we even be encouraging founders outside of the Bay Area and NYC from taking on large amounts of VC funding?

I'm hesitant to push middle America founders in this direction... their ecosystems don't have the infrastructure to truly support the companies. Taking on too much VC money is dangerous for them!

<comment><USER5> firms are evolving, though, with changing demographics and locations--as they should. many firms settling in new startuplands are from those places, trying to help those communities and local industries. their models are changing too, dif fund sizes, financial models. taking on too much VC is dangerous for ANY founder! i've checked out the holloway guide and it seems to be really careful about protecting founders.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've been a fan of Holloway's work for quite a while, congrats on launching!</comment>


Ask HN: Is it ok to sign sales cold emails as CEO ? what should I sign ? - <AUTHOR> Any one willing to share personal experience ? I dont have a VP Sales is it ok to sign sales pitch as CEO ? or Do I have to sign my sales emails with title ? <comment><USER2> People who buy want to talk to a person in power. CEO may be perfect, but you may want to also be the Senior VP of Sales when sending out cold emails.</comment>


Show HN: Visual search app powered by Tagbox - <AUTHOR> https://apps.machinebox.io/visualsearch <comment><USER2> Kind of neat. What isn't quite clear from the docs to me, to what extend does Tagbox comes pretrained vs relying on the user feeding it images and tags? Seems like one would need the expensive subscription pretty quickly, which for private use just doesn't make any sense at all.</comment>


Polish Entrepreneur Robbed Nigerian Investors, Ended Up with Interpol Red Notice - <AUTHOR> https://www.iafrikan.com/2019/02/22/marek-zmyslowski-the-publicity-seeker/ <comment><USER2> The medium post with alleged proof is much more interesting than this post though: [https://medium.com/@Edmund_Olotu/how-marek-zymslowski- lied-a...](https://medium.com/@Edmund_Olotu/how-marek-zymslowski-lied-about- building-the-amazon-of-africa-935df072ceb9)

My main question from all of this is that if all of this is true, then how come the investors and Nigerian police weren't able to show this to the court in Poland that set Marek free? If they have this much documentation, then it should've been fairly easy to present this to the court in Poland and he wouldn't have been released.

<comment><USER3> Polish courts are terribly slow and ineffective. And the police has some better parts but in general is underpaid and overloaded, especially the sections that deal with business related crime.

So I can imagine how such 'exotic' case could have been easily dismissed.</comment></comment>


How to Retire at 40 - T-A https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-early-retirement/ <comment><AUTHOR> <He and his wife, who quit her back-office job at Credit Suisse in February, spend about 3 percent of their $1.5 million portfolio a year.>

Yeah, the tricky part is accumulating the first $1.5 million in the first place. After that, it's a bit easier.

<comment><USER2> 3% of $1.5m is only $45k. If you and your spouse can live off of $45k while you're still earning, you can save ~$100k per year and accumulate $1.5m by the time you're 40, easily. See Mr. Money Moustache for details on how this isn't as unreasonable to do as you would think: [http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/](http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/)

<comment><USER3> _If you and your spouse can live off of $45k while you 're still earning, you can save ~$100k per year and accumulate $1.5m by the time you're 40, easily._

To spend and save $145k net income per year, you need a gross comp of $240k per year where I live. To save $1.5M at a rate of $100k per year would take 15 years. To do so by age 40 would mean that you need to be at a $240k/year salary by the tender of age of 25, and also have the restraint to live off of a mere $45k per year (presumably in a city with a high cost of living, since you are earning $240k at 25). And after you retire at age 40, you get to spend 2% of your $1.5M per year ($30K) which is below the poverty line where I live (at least as a household income).

<comment><USER4> You are not factoring in the tax savings of a 401k or other retirement account. For instance a married couple that earns up to $183k a year can save $36k a year in the 401k, plus the employer match, and another $11k in IRA's that reduces your does not count as income. Your contributions grow tax free with compound interest. If you contributed $3916 a month from when you were 18 until 40 with 5% annual interest you would have a nest egg of 1.8Mil. If you each had a salary of 75k a year you would only be paying taxes on 100k of income, about 71k take home.

<comment><USER5> If you tap your 401k before you're 60, you will face major tax penalties. So, that's at least 20 years you have to manage without your 401k funds if you attempt to retire at 40.

<comment><USER6> No - Google for 401k SEPPs.

The earlier comment also omitted the backdoor Roth, which can get a married couple another 11k post-tax into a Roth, which can then grow and be used tax free.

<comment><USER5> An interesting exemption (basically, you set up a structured, regular payout of your 401k over the remaining life expectancy and don't touch it). I still don't see this being realistic in almost any case, but it's a good option to keep in mind.

That said, "$3916 a month from when you were 18 until 40" is simply not realistic for most people. How about college? You're not going to get a $100k+ a year job without either college or years of experience. Where do you find that perfect mate capable of immediately working their own $100k salary and contributing almost $2k a month to retirement at 18?

Personally, I make a really good salary (it's worth noting that it took until I was nearly 40 to even get to this point), have a working spouse, live in a relatively inexpensive part of the country, and I still could not put $4k into an 401k or roth IRA every month. Owning a house and reliable cars, having dependents... it's not realistic; it leaves nothing for wiggle room.

I'm also going to come out and say it: working yourself to the bone, skimping and saving is no way to live some of the most active years of your life.

That's my 2¢.

<comment><USER7> "I'm also going to come out and say it: working yourself to the bone, skimping and saving is no way to live some of the most active years of your life."

Exactly the response to all of these "retire young" articles. They neglect to say that you are doing it at the expense of not taking advantage of a healthy young body to adventure and enjoy life while you can...you may get hit by a bus tomorrow and then what a freaking waste of time all the penny pinching was!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> _> We asked three people who retired in their 30s and 40s to explain how they've made it pay off._

Alright. Let's see how they do it...

1\. "a blog where he chronicles his retirement experience"

2\. "writing a book about retirement"

3\. "blogging about financial independence"

The trick to early retirement is blogging about early retirement.

<comment><USER9> Quickest path to get rich is to write a book "How to get rich"

<comment><USER10> On the Warrior Forum they do deeper depths of recursion on that.

I.e. guys making money selling products about how to make money by selling products on how to make money. Seriously.

<comment><USER11> There's a guy who wrote a "How to Write a How to Write Book" book:

[http://www.brianpiddock.co.uk/home.htm](http://www.brianpiddock.co.uk/home.htm)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Or alternatively have 500k in the bank and move to a cheap European city where you can live off 14k per year.

I'm actually more of a fan of Stefan Sagmeister's method of retirement, where he split up his retirement years and moved it to in between his productive years.

[https://www.ted.com/talks/stefan_sagmeister_the_power_of_tim...](https://www.ted.com/talks/stefan_sagmeister_the_power_of_time_off)

I could earn in a year enough cash to take the next year off, do fun things, learn new things and then spend the next few on what I figured out in that one "retired" year.

<comment><USER13> I'm sure there are cheap places in the US too. I live in a cheap place in Australia, which has the advantage of a government-provided health system and qualification for an age pension at 67. So only household expenses between age ~40 and 67 need to be budgeted for, and with a frugal lifestyle without kids that's not much.

<comment> ux-app > qualification for an age pension at 67

>only household expenses between age ~40 and 67 need to be budgeted for

Pension is $20k/year. You're an Aussie, so you know how incredibly high our cost of living is. 35cents/kWh for electricity (!!) 3x what some places in the US pay + the insane prices we pay for groceries, gas, entertainment, vice taxes etc.

Unless you have supplemental income from investments you will be straddling the poverty line on the Australian pension. I've seen pensioners mend shoes with gaffer tape.

This all assumes that the pension system stays solvent which is not guaranteed. Already there is talk of lifting retirement age to 70+

> I live in a cheap place in Australia

You're probably comparing to other places in Australia (east coast?). Relative to other countries, unfortunately, there is no cheap place in Australia.

<comment><USER13> I could live in Europe, but I'm not convinced it would be cheaper. Australia may be more expensive for some things, but there are also savings. Health insurance would be desirable or compulsory in some countries. Not every country has a decent tax-free income allowance like Australia (19k or so), and some even charge a wealth tax. My housing costs are actually reasonable, renting in a city of ~20k with a high unemployment rate. Since my income is so low, my partner can still qualify for Centrelink benefits. Petrol? Don't own a vehicle. Vice taxes? My only vice is an Internet connection. My entertainment is an Internet connection .. frugal all round. The lifting of the pension age to 70 and beyond is potentially an issue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It's not difficult if you plan for it and make it a goal. Mine is to be financially independent by 40, so I could never work another day.

Realistically I love working, and can't wait to be able to donate more, volunteer more, and help my children with education a starting businesses.

</comment><comment><USER15> "He's "hoarding cash" on the chance he can buy stocks when prices dip, as he expects they will"

That's called market timing, and it does. not. work. It doesn't work for professional traders, it doesn't work for algorithms, and it will not work for you. Don't. Do. It.

<comment><USER16> Strange you got downvoted for this. So I will enforce you stance.

Suppose you have $50.000 to invest, what is the best strategy to invest it? If you run over the history of stocks, the best strategy is to invest it all at once, now. Not wait until you THINK the market is low, not splitting it up and buying in smaller chunks to spread your risk.

<comment><USER17> well.. it depends. You didn't really specify goals, which is the most important thing.

In many cases you are correct. Somewhat related see Vanguard's research "Dollar-cost averaging just means taking risk later" [1] which finds lump sum investing is better in ~2/3 of the cases they considered. They had a specific time horizon.

Individual's have unique situations and goals and should consider those instead of just dumping everything into an s&p index fund asap. Maybe an individual is more sensitive to sequence risk at different points in his life? There is an entire profession (financial planners) which allows you to outsource these decisions to if you want. Same for the spending part of retirement (hint: most common advice (bond/stock mix) is exactly the opposite of what it should be e.g. "Rising Equity Glidepath" [2])

[1] [https://pressroom.vanguard.com/nonindexed/7.23.2012_Dollar-c...](https://pressroom.vanguard.com/nonindexed/7.23.2012_Dollar- cost_Averaging.pdf) [2] [https://www.kitces.com/blog/should-equity-exposure- decrease-...](https://www.kitces.com/blog/should-equity-exposure-decrease-in- retirement-or-is-a-rising-equity-glidepath-actually-better/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Just skimmed the article for lack of time, I will give it a proper reading in a bit...

I may have missed it, but I was fully expecting to see something about the Military here. At least for USA based persons. I have several friends that are beginning to retire or thinking about retirement in their mid to late 30's.

Full health insurance, and a pension for the rest of their lives. It may not be a ton in all cases, but most of my friends are young enough to pursue whatever they want with a ton of financial security if they so desire. Or go chill in a van down by the river.... either way it's a decent option.

<comment><USER19> Military pensions aren't super high, unless you're very high up. I picked 03 on the calculator (Army Captain, mid-level officer) and got < 40k before taxes. High enlisted ranks are looking at < 30k. The benefits are good though.

[http://militarypay.defense.gov/Calculators/Active-Duty- Retir...](http://militarypay.defense.gov/Calculators/Active-Duty- Retirement/High-36-Calculator/)

An extra 25k/year after taxes does give you a bunch of flexibility, but it's not really 'do nothing' retirement unless you live somewhere cheap, especially if there's a family to support.

<comment><USER20> You can't 'retire' in the sense that you receive a pension with less than 20 years. Which means you were at least an E5 (you had to mess up a lot to retire as an E5). You are certainly higher than an O3 if you were an officer.

Presumably after 20 years you've also got other savings such as the TSP retirement account which the military matches 50% on (up to a certain amount only I believe). Your retirement payout can be based on your highest 3 years of service (you get to choose now), which are typically going to be the last few, which if much of that is spent overseas will significantly increase your retirement package.

You still won't be living in SF but you should be able to live pretty comfortably in a normally priced city as long as the retirement package isn't your only form of savings. Bonus points if you'er now 20 years into paying off your house as well.

<comment> nommm-nommm >Which means you were at least an E5 (you had to mess up a lot to retire as an E5)

Looks like the high year tenure for an E5 is 14 years so you'd have to retire at least an E6.

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Late 20s here, in a more advantageous financial situation than the folks in the article. I honestly don't know what I'd do with myself.

I'd be lying if I said early retirement hadn't crossed my mind, but just from the experience of taking a month or two off work between jobs, I'm 100% certain I'd be bored out of my mind. If one were to retire at 40, then what? Even spending a full 5 years traveling the world and screwing around, that leaves you another 40 or 45 years of idleness.

Maybe I'm just not the type for this, but I'd have to do _something_ productive.

<comment><USER22> I never really got the "wouldn't know what to do with myself" argument. Especially with people who work in IT.

First, I would occupy my time with hobbies. With all that time I could try anything I wanted that looks interesting. And if I really had to do something, as a programmer, I could contribute to open source projects. Being retired would give me enough time to help out in these projects or simply further educate myself in new technologies that I find interesting. There is no much to do. But I can't get myself to do most of these things because after a full work day I am exhausted and don't have the drive to do much besides surfing the net while the TV is on in the background.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Dammit, I just turned 46.

<comment><USER24> Isn't it more fun reading these articles from the other side? I find reading such fun and interesting, and you always gain something from them, like the 4% rule in this one, which was new to me. Of course you can intuitively plan something which is similar.

Retirement is not for me. Freedom to work on projects of choice is. Some financial independence or close to it, is needed for both, so this article and especially the story/plans of others were very illuminating. Although, my geography is different. So numbers change and I don't think its a linear on the cost of living scale, due to cultural reasons. In India for example, parents sometimes pay up to not just college, but also the marriage expense of their children. :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Dupe: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12605680](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12605680)

</comment><comment><USER25> This pretty easy if you start off with a public sector job right after school.

Go work a government job for 20 years and rock that sweet pension.

<comment><USER26> This works in the military and some public safety positions, but most civilian public pensions, while they might (e.g.) vest retiree health benefits after 20 years regardless of age, have a minimum age to start drawing benefits, and an even later age to draw maximum benefits. For example, one common California state (and local) arrangement, the CalPERS "2% at 55" formula, gives 1.1% × (highest annual salary) × (years of service) at 50, 2% at 55 (hence the name) and 2.5% at 63, but below 50 you aren't eligible to retire.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Probably isn't difficult once you get started and have goals set in place to do so. I'm only in my early 20's I haven't even thought about retirement. However, I am saving all my money at the moment. Hopefully that helps me out later when I really need it.

<comment><USER28> In addition to what you are doing in your 20s, One favor you can do to your future yourself is to learn about investing and finance. Recipe is simple.

* Maximize your income

* Minimize your expenses

* Save the difference

* Grow your savings.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> How not to retire at 40, if you're an American - go back to school after 30 and try to turn your hobby interest in programming into a second career.

</comment><comment><USER30> Having money, makes money. What a revelation.

</comment><comment><USER31> Medical care, children, and less fortunate family members would likely make this impractical for many--if not most.

</comment><comment><USER32> How to retire at 40...if you're a financial blogger.

</comment><comment><USER9> TL;DR Have 1-2-N million US on you investment portfolio and live on %.

<comment><USER33> Haha, pretty much. Beat me to the point.

1) Have millions in the bank already. 2) ??? 3) Profit!

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> On a related topic: This couple on a dentist's salary and after escaping Nazis and the holocaust saved with Warren Buffet and $400 million -- the largest single donation in Israel's history -- to the water research for Ben Gurion University.

[http://www.wsj.com/articles/after-fleeing-the-nazis-a- legacy...](http://www.wsj.com/articles/after-fleeing-the-nazis-a-legacy-that- wont-run-dry-1466722996)

</comment><comment><USER35> Knew they wouldn't let me down: "rental income,". So can everyone live off a big chunk of another families labour?

"The equity in their home—worth about 21 times their annual expenses". And what about now where the average first time buyer age is near 40!

Last one is a banker. Just need to work in an industry secretly building massive debt and take your bonus each year and you are golden.

Money moustache man all over again.

<comment><USER36> Having a place to live is one of the primary needs people have. Why shouldn't you be able to make an income off of that? Everyone lives off of other people's labor...unless you're subsistence farming or something.

I'll give you the banker one though.

<comment><USER35> Housing is a basic need and western finance and govt structures work to skim off labour through land. If you are borrowing to rent out you are simply a debt collector for the banks.

We used to have decent manufacturing jobs where the other half didn't have to work who could run a car, had good hours and enough money.

Now land is the primary cost for every family. The same pile of bricks for more of your labour. You happy with that? It's the system not the cost of building or materials. Think of the advances since the 1960s in materials and construction.

<comment><USER37> Yes, but they are not making more land

<comment><USER35> That is the exact reason why these vultures should be curtailed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> lets-tryagain It would be interesting to hear what these people are doing for health insurance.</comment>


Show HN: I made an app to immortalize inside jokes - Quoth - <AUTHOR> https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/quoth-your-friends/id796842385?mt=8

<comment><USER2> Really simple user experience. Love it.

I had a similar add-friend-then-add-thing UX idea for a personal project with a different goal.</comment>


Ask HN: What app do you use to live monitor data being sent from your computer - <AUTHOR> As well as requests made from the internet to your computer, if possible <comment><USER2> Wireshark. [https://www.wireshark.org/](https://www.wireshark.org/)</comment>


The Concurrency Myth - <AUTHOR> http://fupeg.blogspot.com/2011/06/concurrency-myth.html

<comment><USER2> I'm currently looking for an article from a professor or a haskell developer (can't remember which) discussing the difference between parallelism and concurrency. Can't find it, but I'll post these for now:

[http://www.danielmoth.com/Blog/threadingconcurrency-vs- paral...](http://www.danielmoth.com/Blog/threadingconcurrency-vs- parallelism.aspx)

Its a worthy read and may change your mind at least a bit. Though overall, I agree that not all developers benefit from learning functional programming languages as the ones specified, I truly believe that most developers would benefit greatly. Anyway, if I find the article I'm telling you about i'll post it as well.

EDIT: I believe this was it: [http://ghcmutterings.wordpress.com/2009/10/06/parallelism- co...](http://ghcmutterings.wordpress.com/2009/10/06/parallelism-concurrency/)

EDIT 2: I also believe that most of these languages actually promise more. For example, one of the biggest promises Haskell gives is no side effects. Though this does have a mayor implications for concurrency/parallelism it also (in my opinion) provides safer, cleaner and easier to maintain code. (It does take a memory hit, I'll admit to that, but I personally prefer that safety). Erlang's biggest promise I believe is its fault tolerance. And over all, I honestly believe that functional programming puts you in a different mindset and once you get used to it (I'm still learning, but even then I find it mind opening) you see things clearer. But when it comes down to it, its impossible to be objective about this. However, I will objectively say, everyone should try at least one functional language, just to give you a different view of things :D .

<comment><USER3> I thought you were referring to this one: [http://existentialtype.wordpress.com/2011/03/17/parallelism-...](http://existentialtype.wordpress.com/2011/03/17/parallelism- is-not-concurrency/)

<comment><USER2> ...though I wasn't....I will read...tomorrow.....Jejejej, thanks though :D

<comment><USER4> [http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2009/10/07/C-dot- next...](http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2009/10/07/C-dot-next- concurrency-vs-parallelism)

 _(thread on ghcmutterings post)_ <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2457307>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This really hit the nail on the head for me. I'd switch to Scala/Haskell/Clojure if it could give me a multithreaded GUI toolkit, where I'd never have to worry about whether I was on the event thread or not.

Is it impossible? A "Failed Dream"? [http://weblogs.java.net/blog/kgh/archive/2004/10/multithread...](http://weblogs.java.net/blog/kgh/archive/2004/10/multithreaded_t.html)

<comment><USER5> A nice overview, unfortunately he stopped before the real insight.

'there is a fundamental conflict here between a thread wanting to go "up" and other threads wanting to go "down"'

Can anybody explain that fundamental conflict?

<comment><USER6> Each level has its own (set of) locks. When a thread goes up/down, it needs to grab a lock from the higher/lower level before it can proceed. When one thread goes up at the same time as another thread goes down and they need the same locks, you get deadlock.

Is that what you were asking about, or is there something subtler I'm missing?

<comment><USER5> That is more of a fundamental problem of synchronization than about GUIs. Locks are anti-modular. So one solution could be to abandon locks, which is hardly a fresh insight.

An event queue just makes the queue the one and only synchronization point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > It's hard to imagine a web application where one HTTP request comes in and a > dozen threads (or processes, whatever) are spawned.

Really? I think that's a failure of the author's imagination. Nearly every web application that I've worked on since 2003 has had a significant amount of concurrency involved in handling each request.

<comment><USER8> The project I'm working on right now (Rails) could certainly use the hell out of it. Hell, people were thrilled by how much faster things were after I pushed everything that didn't need to happen at request-time into the background queue.

Just having futures to keep database access would help, although I'm not sure how that would be possible with Rails' lazy querying.

All that said, the core Ruby guys are probably better off spending their time on performance enhancements than removing enough of the GIL to allow that kind of multithreaded shenanigans.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The kind of app that needs to scale up to 4-8 processors but never higher is pretty rare. For anything bigger than that you need a full-blown distributed architecture. Unless you're sure you can scale forever in one box relying on language-level parallelism is asking for trouble.

<comment><USER10> This is a false dichotomy; taking advantage of language-level parallelism doesn't prevent you from supporting a full-blown distributed architecture.

In fact, if so inclined, you can model your distributed architecture on top of language-level (or OS-level) parallelism; message passing can be considerably cheaper when you can rely on simple shared memory mechanisms.

Parallelism in the language environment allows you to make better use of the hardware you have. In a server environment, there's a fixed power utilization cost for each machine, and a per-CPU core power cost. It's cheaper and more efficient to scale up cores than it is to scale horizontally across machines. In fact, the more efficient you are, the longer you can put off the complexity of large-scale horizontal scaling.

In a mobile environment, the equation is different -- you can't just add more mobile devices to scale horizontally. The device has X amount of cores, period. If you don't use them, your application's performance will not be up to par with other applications.

<comment><USER9> But all the assumptions you make about reliability in a single box go right out the window when you start building a distributed app. The point is that you _can't_ rely on simple shared memory mechanisms anymore. All those pretty parallel algorithms go straight in the bin. This is why Erlang looks nothing like Haskell.

And if you have to endure the pain of writing a distributed app, why would you layer another level of concurrent complexity underneath it?

<comment><USER10> Local concurrency and shared memory can be used to improve performance of operations that _may_ be distributed; assuming proper implementations, a shared memory mailbox will always be cheaper than forcing multiple data copies of network/pipe based messaging, _even if the API for both transports is identical._

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think the problem is getting terms mixed up. A client-server arrangement on multiple machines can run in single threads and not share memory and is still concurrent. And concurrent code can still be run on a single processor.

The ability to stretch an application across more than one machine is obviously essential to the modern world. The internet is by definition a kind of distributed computing system.

Some languages have features that promote a particular kind of parallel programming. But they are not suited to every task and thats ok!

</comment><comment><USER12> I think the point is you don't have to switch, even if you're doing some kind of realtime webapp you can still piece it together using php and redis (though I'm not sure whether there's a good comet/websocket framework for php). But it's sure going to be a hack. Also, using Akka or OTP you get a lot of stuff for free: supervisor hierarchies, lightweight processes (not everyone must be an OS thread), pattern matching. So I would agree that pitching these technologies to garden variety web and mobile apps on the value proposition that it's better at dealing with multi-cores is disingenuous. As you said, it has its benefits there. But maybe some of the proponents are just using multi- cores to illustrate a general trend, and maybe less of a singular value proposition.

</comment><comment><USER13> I am not sure this article gets it quite right. Yes, there are a lot frameworks that help shield the developer from having to deal multi-threading concerns. However, so long as you have shared state, you still need to worry about the problem.

Let's take the example of a web application, be it in PHP, Java, etc.: What happens if your user has multiple browser tabs open to your application and submits concurrent requests that modify the user's session? With multiple cores, it is much more likely that the concurrency bugs in your application will be exposed. Languages like Clojure help you explicitly reason about shared mutable state.

</comment><comment><USER14> A lot of the seriously parallel stuff is going GPU because 4 CPU cores is so much less than what you get on a GPU. And a lot of big data problems are IO bound not CPU bound. And a lot of multicore servers are being partitioned into virtual ones with fewer cores. So we have avoided a lot of parallel coding for a bit. Both AMD and Nvidia are going for a mix of CPU and GPU and maybe the split of a smallish number of CPU cores and then a wide parallel GPU for parallel code will be a success, with an option of lots of CPU cores available for threaded server workloads.

</comment><comment><USER15> _Distributed computing does not involve the kind of shared mutable state that functional programming can protect you from. Distributed map/reduce systems like Hadoop manage shared state complexity despite being written in Java._

Isn't map/reduce kind of drawn from the functional paradigm?

<comment><USER16> hadoop is about concurrent disk IO, not concurrent use of multiple cores.

<comment><USER17> Same difference. In a map-reduce framework, you don't need the workers to have multicores; they could all be single core machines. So in retrospect, it is addressing the same issue.

<comment><USER16> It's not the same thing. CPUs are only getting faster in that they are getting more cores. How is a programmer to take advantage of that? That is the question. Hadoop is not about this problem, it's goal is to overcome the bottleneck of disk IO for large data sets.

<comment><USER17> Map/Reduce is about taking an operation that would be otherwise sequential and breaking it up into smaller, parallelized tasks. Then worker machines can concurrently process the operation. It's not about disk IO. I recommend you read the original paper: <http://web.mit.edu/6.033/www/papers/mapreduce- osdi04.pdf>

<comment><USER16> we were talking about hadoop specifically. This is from Hadoop The Definitive Guide

"The problem is simple: while the storage capacities of hard drives have increased massively over the years, access speeds—the rate at which data can be read from drives— have not kept up. One typical drive from 1990 could store 1370 MB of data and had a transfer speed of 4.4 MB/s,§ so you could read all the data from a full drive in around five minutes. Almost 20 years later one terabyte drives are the norm, but the transfer speed is around 100 MB/s, so it takes more than two and a half hours to read all the data off the disk.

This is a long time to read all data on a single drive—and writing is even slower. The obvious way to reduce the time is to read from multiple disks at once. Imagine if we had 100 drives, each holding one hundredth of the data. Working in parallel, we could read the data in under two minutes. Only using one hundredth of a disk may seem wasteful. But we can store one hundred datasets, each of which is one terabyte, and provide shared access to them. We can imagine that the users of such a system would be happy to share access in return for shorter analysis times, and, statistically, that their analysis jobs would be likely to be spread over time, so they wouldn't interfere with each other too much."</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How I reliably enter the Zone: TDD - <AUTHOR> http://en.heavyelectrons.com/posts/hackers-how-to-enter-the-zone-at-will/ <comment><USER2> There is another way better way. Program to interfaces. Or write out all the methods you need, have empty bodies, and implement them one by one. From the lower level/helpers, to the higher level ones. If any method becomes too large, or if there is a lot of redundancy, break it in smaller units.

I think TDD hampers design, as it places a penalty on every time you want to reactor code while you are still implementing it and it keeps you vested on current code, which is against the "keep it simple, and easy to change" principle. In languages like java, it may force you to break encapsulation and good design, just to have your code tested. (how many times have you see this comment: "don't use this, just for testing purposes") in side of methods.

If you must do testing, a functional level testing is much better. Where you test only the higher level methods that have are acting on the functionality, but don't care about the lower level/helper methods.

Take the holistic approach, and don't sweat the details. If you do a good job on breaking the implementation in small/reasonable sized methods, then it is easy to spot errors when you are developing. Try the best to avoid methods with side effects (modifying shared resources), and keep the methods dumb: input in, input out, no side effects.. Just test the one method that is being called for that particular functionality, and if everything is working well, your overall test should come out as positive.

What I really hate is mandatory: "you must cover 90% of your code with unit tests" type of orders by CTO/VP engineering types.

<comment><USER3> > "you must cover 90% of your code with unit tests"

No, TDD doesn't mean that. TDD is where you write the tests _first_. This bestows numerous advantages that post-facto tests don't:

1) You think about the API as required by the person using the interface that you are coding up.

2) - and this is the killer - you are forced to create repeatable test data and fixtures (e.g. in memory sql databases a la sqlite). As the functionality and number of services builds up, you create, whether you like it or not, a large suite of easily instantiated, complex mock services that allow you to build truly automated and repeatable high level tests.

3) And you can then safely refactor much more reliably and confidently when features and ideas have changed.

I agree that writing tests after the fact is a waste of time. TDD saves time (and hair!).

<comment><USER4> TDD is a brute-force method for evading the need to understand side-effects. I consider situations in which TDD applies to be warning signs, not opportunities.

<comment><USER5> Side-effects are evil [1] and it's good that TDD encourages you to minimize side-effects.

[1] That's one reason why functional programming raises productivity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> FWIW a book recommendation from articles comments:

[http://www.amazon.com/Test-Driven-Development-Addison- Wesley...](http://www.amazon.com/Test-Driven-Development-Addison-Wesley- Signature/dp/0321146530)

</comment><comment><USER7> tdd = test driven design

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm an agile coach, so I'm supposed to support TDD.

But I just don't get it. I think you should unit test as you code, sure (for big things), but testing as a design strategy? As a way of "getting into the zone"?

I'm glad this guy seems excited about it. I'm trying to collect examples of people who actually use it out of their own choice. I think this is number 4 from the last six months.

Nobody wants to be behind the curve -- maybe TDD is the next evolution in programming styles. Or maybe it's just a reaction against heavy-handed, overdone design by architects. Or maybe a little of each.

The jury is still out with me.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not sure how well TDD works in the large, but for one man on small projects it's great. It's not substituting for design or anything. It's keeping me from getting stuck in a rut. But it's possible it's not so much TDD as just the process of managing stories. If that helps understand where I'm coming from.

<comment><USER8> From what I can see (and I've read up a bit and worked with some of the big guys in the field) TDD is a "small shop" kind of philosophy. I would think it would work best in teams of 1-4 developers. 4 or over, however, and it seems like it would fall apart. People factor out code in different ways -- for instance, some naturally lean towards functional code while others lean toward imperative code. In modern languages, you can use both. Some folks love interfaces while others won't stand for a public variable. How code "smells" (and I hate that term) looks to me like it can vary a whole lot depending on the programmer. So in larger teams, you can't have 10 different versions of code re-factoring. You have to expect some consistency. There is a place for group decisions. Some team-level thinking ahead makes sense.

But on a 1 or 2 person team? That looks like a completely different animal.

What we're finding, however (as consultants), is that companies are getting sold on lightweight technologies that work great at the small team level and then don't work so hot with fifty thousand developers. It's complex.

Thanks for the feedback. HappyTDDCoderCount++

<comment><AUTHOR> Are these fifty thousand developers on a new codebase? Bolting TDD onto legacy software (<http://akkartik.name/blog/4664263>) is hard, but that's perhaps different from saying TDD doesn't 'scale'.

<comment><USER8> I must be misunderstanding something. I was expressing concern that it can scale _due to the size of the development team_. New or old codebases have little to do with. I'm fully aware that TDD works with legacy code.

I'm in a learning mode, however. I'm trying to gather all of the data possible. And by data, I mean real, live, large teams who not only use TDD but do so gladly and would never go back to the old ways. Not consultants, authors, teachers, methodologists, coaches, or anybody else who isn't developing code. We've got enough of that already in the biz.

In my small world I haven't come across those teams yet. I think several examples along those lines would do the most to show me that TDD was worth picking up both as a personal and as a coaching practice.

Having said that, in some ways we may be parsing words. I design in a lightweight fashion top-down and then code and refactor bottom-up, unit testing as I go. In some ways, this IS TDD, except that I'm not using the test-first mantra as a design crutch. I already know how to design.

<comment><AUTHOR> I didn't mean to sound critical. I don't really have any experience with large teams. Let me try to rephrase.

A large team would probably imply a large codebase, so are you aware of attempts to separate those two variables? For example it's interesting to me that attempts to do TDD on large codebases have met with success.

Your response also raised another interesting question. TDD could be hard to scale with team size because of intrinsic issues or just the difficulty in 'infecting' a large group with it. I wonder which is larger part of the reason.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Shrdlu resurrection – A 1970 artificial intelligence system - <AUTHOR> http://www.semaphorecorp.com/misc/shrdlu.html

<comment><USER2> Is there a consensus on its significance?

<comment><USER3> Well, you can see TW himself answered that question (down on the page) by saying what SHRDLU does is so far removed from what our brain does that it's kinda pointless. On the other hand, at the beginning of the heyday of strong AI it was super exciting and in that sense inspirational and important. It was still iconic when I first set foot in the AI lab in late '79.

Plus look at the list of people discussed on that page, Henry Baker, Dave McDonald Vaughn Pratt, Tom Moran, Stu Card and many more...not bad for what turned out to be a false step.

I think it's still important to know about the Michelson-Morley experiment even though nobody believes in luminiferous aether any more. OK, SHRDLU isn't as earthshaking (so to speak) as the M-M experiment, but then again, AI was (is) still in the alchemy phase in the late 60s.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: A Django BDD book - <AUTHOR>

I'm thinking about summing up my experience as I go along the way when applying BDD on Django projects. Like what tool to use, how to translate requirements/user stories to BDD tests, etc. This is one field that I think is a bit overlooked/undervalued in Django. I'm thinking about summing it up in a short e-book rather than blogposts - as I always find books more enjoyable and feasible for learning than blog posts. What do you think? I put together a Mailchimp form  where you can opt-in if interested, it's also a feedback for me if there's a need: http://eepurl.com/6-D7n <comment><USER2> Personally I prefer video as the ideal format for learning.

Although a book might be the best finished product for you, you might be able to test demand easier just by writing the first chapter and seeing what kind of response you get.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good idea! Thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Yes, BDD is def. undervalued. I wrote a nice Flask+Behave BDD tutorial in [http://realpython.com](http://realpython.com)

Contact me - michael at realpython dot com</comment>


Twist on the Rats vs. Poisoned Wine Question - <AUTHOR> You have a 4 different vials of weak poisons. You get to decide how much of each vial to feed each rat. Each poison is a different strength and some poisons interact with each other to be more deadly than they wouldve been independently. You don't know the strength/interaction ahead of time.
You can't just choose to not drink any poison at all because you get paid $$ the more poison that your able to drink without dying, some poisons are worth more $$ to drink than others.
How do approach using rats to figure out the ratio of poisons that maximizes the total amount of poison that you'll be paid to drink but without going too far and dying? <comment><USER2> Is this a classic problem? Or is this a strange circumstance you've found yourself in.

I guess this isn't in the spirit of it, but I wouldn't trust that the effects of poison on rats is the same it is on me. No amount of money would make me play this game, it doesn't matter how much you make if you are dead.</comment>


Platoon of Driverless Trucks Test Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control - <AUTHOR> http://monetarywatch.com/2017/03/platoon-driverless-trucks-test-cooperative-adaptive-cruise-control-cacc/ <comment><AUTHOR> video

[http://www.sgvtribune.com/business/20170308/video-were- those...](http://www.sgvtribune.com/business/20170308/video-were-those- driverless-trucks-on-the-110-freeway)</comment>