Ask HN: any of the HNers have kids & work from home? - <AUTHOR> This is probably irrelevant to 98% of HN so apologies in advance. I'm looking to speak with any female hackers/programmers etc who have kids and work from home. (I figure HNers are more likely to beat there own path, so might find what I'm looking for here...)
I am currently working 9-5, 4 days a week. My 18 month old is in nursery (daycare). I am increasingly feeling that I am doing the wrong thing. Little tales of things going on at nursery, little snippets of an 'upbringing' I don't want her to have.
I am considering ditching the job, but cannot afford to NOT work because my partner doesn't earn a fat lot, thus need to work from home/freelance. I am a competent PHP developer with 10 years experience (5 hobby plus 5 professional). Can I make this work for me?
Any guidance or advice most welcome....
ETA: just to add - what complicates matters slightly is that we're in the process of buying our own house. Everything should be in place by the end of May. This will reduce our monthly outgoings though (currently paying much more for an old rental cottage, v. expensive to heat). I have about £7k in savings.
ETA2: removed 'female' from the title - thinking about it, I'm sure anyone working from home with kids will have useful input! <comment><USER2> As a non-female parent who works from home. If your intention is to take care of your 18 month old AND work at the same time, I'll say it's not going to happen.

In my experience, you really can't watch an 18 month old and work from home at the same time. It's the worst of both worlds. So, you'll still need some form of child care while you are working.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks (all input welcome really, not restricted to mums)

I was kinda thinking my mum could take her for a couple of mornings a week, and I know my partner's mum is eager to look after her on Wednesdays. I was hoping that + evenings would be enough.

Maybe I'm being totally unrealistic.

<comment><USER3> Are your parents and/or in-laws retired? Maybe you can get them to take more time if you explained the situation. If they're not already committed to something else, they'd hopefully be glad to help out in your situation.

My wife and I are pretty much on our own in a different country than our parents, and on retrospection it would have been easier on us if we were able to get our parents to babysit every now-and-then. We're fortunate that I make enough that my wife is able to stay at home and watch our kids, but she misses her career and we also miss having one-on-one time together. Things are going well for us right now but we lack flexibility in our schedules.

<comment><AUTHOR> My mum looked after my daughter for a couple of months when I first went back to work. Unfortunately she's disabled so it's not a solution long term.

My partner's mum works full time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I was a stay at home dad (I prefer 'trophy husband', btw) with an infant son while I built my first product. I got by on too little sleep for too long, taking care my son during the day and working during naps and evenings, often late into the night. It wasn't easy, but we had a great time.

Now for the bad news. While this was all possible working on my own product, on my own schedule, there is just no way that I could have kept any external commitments. Some weeks I got a lot done, and some weeks I didn't get anything done. If you're going to try this, I would suggest scaling daycare back to half days, or maybe just a few days a week at first to see how well you can make it work out.

</comment><comment><USER5> I did for awhile, first for my local employer where my team was in the office and I worked from home, and then from a distributed company. These were both full time, and then I did part time for a different local company.

I had a nanny there watching my kid the entire time I was working. I did get to take little breaks to see what he was up to (and when he was younger, nurse him) and that's what was great about it. However, I really could NOT have watched him and worked AT ALL.

Taking care of a kid really is a full time job and you won't be able to get any work done if you don't have childcare there as well. Even the 1-2 hours you might get in a nap are easily taken up by cleaning up your messes, collapsing in exhaustion and, if you're lucky, checking your email.

If you CAN afford a nanny so that you're at home with your kid, then that is an awesome setup. It's the closest the thing to having your cake and eat it too, in my opinion.

And if you're feeling uneasy about your daycare, get your kid out ASAP! These little gut feelings are all you have, since you aren't there yourself. If you can't watch him yourself or get nanny, then at least find a new daycare. I used to work at a highly praised/awarded day care and based on that experience alone, I will never put my kid in daycare. Like I said, we were one of the better ones, because I've heard horror stories way worse than what happened where I worked. So... that sounds scary and I'm sorry but you have to trust your gut.

<comment><AUTHOR> I probably couldn't afford a nanny, but my sister is currently jobless and might be open to 'working' for me a couple of days a week.

Thank you. I appreciate your honesty.

<comment><USER6> A fulltime nanny (aka, daytime, approx 9-10 hours, not live in) is only going to run you about 25-35k in many areas of the country. (I'm speaking of a legal resident with a green card or US citizen).

I think you'll find buying a smaller home or going on fewer vacations or eating out much less and getting some domestic help will drastically improve the quality of your life.

<comment><AUTHOR> We're buying the smallest home in our area, don't vacation and don't eat out...

<comment><USER6> Sounds like you're not making enough to make living/working there worthwhile. Try a cheaper city. I'm not talking Topeka, but do look at cheaper cities with a tech scene. (I'm a big advocate of Atlanta, and live here, but Austin also works nicely).

Or just get a new job in the same city with better pay.

Edit: Oh, I see you're in the UK. That is quite different. Try pointing that out. The UK has several high cost areas and lower cost areas as well, but I know little about the tech scene.

The solution may be "Dude get's higher paying job"

<comment><AUTHOR> Apologies for not clarifying my location.

I earn the going rate for a PHP developer in my area, in a job that I love that's close to where I live. Unfortunately it's a fairly low-paying area, so although I could probably squeeze another couple of grand out of a different employer, that would be eaten up by travelling costs/etc.

If money were the issue here, I'd just go up to 5 days a week.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, honestly, increasing income, or your hubby stopping some work is probably the better directions. In the states python/ruby web dev pays a bit better than php, so perhaps you could try moving towards that.

My gut says 'Don't buy this house, it's the wrong size for your income/family situation and in a place that doesn't pay well enough for the life you want.'

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm a Dad with 6 children. My wife is a more-than-full-time Mom and homemaker. I've been primarily working from home for the past 10 years (and 3 children).

It sounds like your plans (part-time, primary caregiver for the child) isn't completely like my experience, but there are similarities.

Critical success factors for me:

* Have a separate workspace. I have to have a place that is for work, and away from wife & kids.

* Training - the kids have to learn (& be reminded!) that when I'm working, I'm not available to play games/read stories/play outside. This applies to my wife as well...

* Time for life, too. Sometimes the balance shifts the other way, and it's too easy to slip back into work because it's always right there...

But it has been wonderful - I've been able to be much more involved in the lives of my children. We have lunch together. I was there when they learned to walk. They can come for a hug or to snuggle on my lap for a minute. I make it to school programs. I'm here when they come home from school.

If you're comparing having 100% of the income (and spending 1/2 of it for taxes and daycare) vs. half the income and you get to "be there" every day as your child is growing, there's no comparison. Be there and enjoy your child.

Though there will be days you'll say, "Why am I doing this, again?" there will be plenty of memories you'll treasure.

</comment><comment><USER8> I used to think that a parent's care was unequivocally the best childcare, but I no longer believe that to be true. As the mother of a four month old who has had 95% of her care provided by either me or my husband working from home, and 5% by a grandmother coming to stay and watch her, I have learned that having a dedicated child care person is not only vastly superior for the working parents' productivity/quality of life, it is also superior for the child. My daughter made so many developmental strides while under the full attention of an adult, versus the divided, frazzled attention she received from a working parent. Having come to the realization that my bright and inquisitive daughter needs more than the partial attention of an adult, we have changed our minds about our ability to care for her while performing our jobs (work in my case, professional school in my husband's).

You might therefore consider what we are currently considering in our single- income household, which is to get an au pair. I am in the US, so program details/costs will differ, but here is my assessment based on the U.S. program. Since they are live-in, the cash outlay can be considerably less than getting a nanny. While there are substantial program fees, their salary is paid at minimum wage, which is generally half to a third (even a quarter) of a nanny's wage. If you live in an expensive area, the cost of an au pair can even be competitive with in-home daycares (which are typically the least expensive type of daycare). Other benefits include their childcare training from the program, the light housework they may perform, and the "cultural exchange" aspect of hosting a young adult from another country.

(If an au pair doesn't work out for us, our second choice would be to do a nanny share.)

<comment><USER9> I've definitely seen and believe in the benefits of an extended family raising a child. I think you're on to something here.

<comment><USER8> Since we have no family living in the area, I'm hoping that some responsible, hired help can fill that void.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I have several female friends who work from home and watch their children.

I'm not sure any of them would _recommend_ their lifestyle, but they make it work. The key seems to be _about 3-4 hours of at-home childcare assistance per day_.

As any parent knows, there are long stretches during a day when kids are easy, punctuated by little 20-minute intervals of pure agony. Having someone on hand to help with those little moments seems to be the key.

This can a grandparent, neighbor, or nanny. Like I said, we have a few close friends who are currently making this work (out of necessity, not choice).

</comment><comment><USER11> I'm not female so presumably my opinion doesn't count, but I'll give it anyway 'cause that's what I'm like.

I do some web design/dev work alongside my other occupation and my wife and I alternate childcare/household duties and work (and have for both our kids except for the -2 to 6 months age range). Our youngest just turned 2.

Basically I came to the point, about 6 months ago, where I can no longer do any useful work (before bedtime c.8pm) and look after the little one. He does have a nap for up to an hour a day and that's the most time I can hope to gain. But then he's also up at 6am and I'm a night owl so I often need a little nap myself. He can of course play independently in the house or mess around in the garden but I find context switching to be extremely hard. Whenever I try to use the phone he's there or he's calling me or fallen over or something.

After our first child when I first started professional web design work I'd simply work in to the night. It's possible to do the actual work but what I couldn't do was go out and find new work easily.

We started our own business(es) and took a huge cut in our income, then had kids ... I wanted kids. I want to raise them and spend time with them, as much as possible really.

In short raising my own kids is mostly joyful and rewarding; I don't really understand having children and then getting someone else to raise them for you. If you have a ready source of [PHP] work then I think it's eminently doable, if you have to seek for work, win clients, etc., then I think it's going to get very much harder.

/rambling

</comment><comment><USER12> Your milage may vary, but I can tell you how we are doing it. My wife and I both work from home. I sold my half of my company in 2008 and have since been a freelance designer and developer. My wife is a freelance editor. We have a baby-sitter / nanny who comes 4 days a week to help with my 2-year-old girl. Wednesdays are still "family" days and it's nice to go to the museums, the zoo, even just the grocery store during a weekday when they are not super- crowded.

Of course my wife and I are interrupted throughout the day to help with lunch, naptime, diapers, story and play time, etc. The interruptions can be a bit frustrating when working against a deadline and I've occasionally rented a part-time desk in a shared office space to be a bit more focused. But we see a huge payoff in my daughter. We think as a result of being so responsive and close to her, she seems confident and emotionally secure, and very verbal for her age. And of course, _being there_ has been an amazing experience for me, too.

One downside is that she's not getting the same socialization she would in day care. But we do take her to various group activities and classes, and she starts a pre-school two mornings a week in the fall. She will get a good dose of it then.

We're also not saving much money for retirement and occasionally dip into our savings, but we are otherwise making ends meet, paying off the mortgage and health insurance and still manage to take a few weeks vacation each year. Once my daughter is in school, we expect to ramp up the billable hours. In the evenings, I've even managed to put together a modest web app, which I hope to launch this summer.

</comment><comment><USER13> I would like to know how you handle this, because I am expecting my first child in July (firstname.lastname@example.com). I am fortunate that my husband can support our family and if I wanted to, I would never have to work outside the home again. But I don't want to completely give up the personal satisfaction of building interesting software that is used by lots of people. I live in a low- tech area, and there is no such thing as a part-time software engineering position. My current plan is to use a half-day Montessori preschool starting at age 2 and use that time to work on an android application (I'm a jack-of- all-trades, but I started my career in Java). Is a half-day preschool an option for you?

</comment><comment><USER14> I'm not a female, but I feel that asking only females is making this question only artificially "irrelevant to 98% of HN." Me not being from the UK is probably a bigger barrier.

Still, I don't understand. Instead of your child being in a place where they can socialize with other kids and be watched by adults, you want to let them spend all day playing quietly by themselves or being babysat by the TV while you are working on your computer all day with your back turned? And this is your unrealistic, ideal best-case?!

If you don't mean full time, that may work (you can probably squeeze in a couple of hours a day, at the expense of the house growing messier and messier). This is much more reasonable when you aren't paying for daycare.

I'd also like to ask if you really think you could handle being alone all day, constantly juggling 2 stressful jobs at once, every day. A full time mom can leave the house with the kid(s) and socialize, but if you are working that would just be something else to stress over while you try to "squeeze it in".

If you can afford full-time daycare, are you SURE you can't afford to just stay home? (At least you OR your partner)

P.S. I actually am not a big fan of daycare, and my wife is likely going to go back to being a full-time mom after half a year of working part time specifically to let both mommy and baby socialize outside of the house (separately, in this case). Gas prices, tuition hikes, and the loss of alternative care have made it too costly (she was working 3 days just to pay for 2 days of daycare. Seriously).

(Edited to add a couple of sentences, didn't notice Jem's reply until afterwards)

<comment><AUTHOR> My little girl is not big on socialising with other kids she doesn't know - and even after nearly 6 months at nursery she's still struggling to fit in. I would prefer to have her in an environment where I can focus on her current emotional needs and worry about socialising with people we know before forcing her into the big wide world. (We don't watch TV.)

I definitely would be aiming to do it part time. Earning enough to keep things ticking over, not to have some sort of luxury lifestyle.

Childcare currently costs over half my monthly income so I hear you there.

<comment><USER15> _My little girl is not big on socialising with other kids she doesn't know - and even after nearly 6 months at nursery she's still struggling to fit in._

If she's having difficulty developing those social skills surely this makes it _more_ important to throw her into social situations rather than protecting her from them?

<comment><AUTHOR> I disagree, but I didn't write this to debate parenting methods so will leave it there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> 1\. You have to do what makes you happy and comfortable 2\. Do not I repeat DO NOT let yourself be bullied by anyone who makes snide comments about what works for you

The feelings you have are natural for a parent. Even if you don't work - you'll feel guilt over many other things.

So here are some tips from a female who works from home.

Try for a job that allows flexibility. Some of my best hours of work are from 8pm-12am.

Instead of a 'day care' perhaps someone in your neighborhood babysits children. My next door neighbor has a little play group that all the mothers are super happy with and my son literally bursts through the play group door. He is ready to leave the second he wakes up.

If your job pays well perhaps a babysitter who comes to your house while you work can be a possibility. They can also do light cleaning and perhaps help peel vegetables for supper etc.

Your 18 month old will not stay 18 months old forever. So perhaps now you might feel a bit of natural guilt but children are resilient and your baby will be fine. My mom worked all through our childhood and we had no resentment issues ever. Just make sure to give your baby lots of love and as much attention as you can.

Again - do not allow others to dictate how you feel. Do what works for you.

</comment><comment><USER17> My wife and I have a 3 month old and are both trying to work from home part- time and take care of him (I also go to school part-time so that get's me out of the house a bit).

Obviously a 3 month old is much different than an 18 month old, but our experience so far is telling us that we cannot take care of the baby and get work done without finding some extra help for at least a few hours a week.

Currently I try to work from 8-10 a.m. while my wife and the baby are asleep. Then I watch the baby for about four hours and my wife tries to get work done. The problem is that there are so many small interruptions everyday (diapers, crying, feeding, happy alert time, etc.) that we both struggle to find time when we can really concentrate and get things done.

A friend of ours is a nursing student and is going on summer break this week. She's planning on trying to babysit for 3-4hrs a day 2-3 days a week. Maybe you could find a similar solution.

Good luck! I really hope you figure out something that works.

</comment><comment><USER18> I've been a stay-at-home dad for about 5 years now and can relate. My oldest son (14 months at the time) was always getting sick at his daycare and he twice got so sick he ended up in the ER. After that we decided one of us was staying home. Best decision we ever made. I know later in life I will look back at these years as the "glory years" because of all the memories and time spent together.

When I'm not on daddy duty I develop and support two web apps on the side. The only real work I've been able to consistently get in is during nap time (usually 2 hours per day after lunch), a 6-hour chunk on an odd Saturday or Sunday, and at night when they are sleeping. I can also fire off an email here and there throughout the day, but for the most part the "business" comes second to family responsiblities. When I'm with the kids I try not to let the business take up too many brain cycles so I can be fully "present".

</comment><comment><USER19> I am not female but have been through this.

Keep the kids at home. The only time to work is at night after everyone is asleep and it is quiet. Time trying to work during the day will be wasted due to constant interruptions and thinking about other things, and you'll be frustrated as well.

This means during the 16 day hours you need to take them 8 hrs and your partner needs to take them the other 8 hours. That means you aren't spending much time together. That's right, that's how this will work.

In the old days professionals made enough cash to hire a professional staff to raise the kids at home, and later off to boarding school. This is not possible now since most IT jobs that pay well are in areas that have such a high cost of living there is no money to hire a staff. Staff is for executive level folks that make $3 million +.

<comment><USER6> Second tier cities (Atlanta, Austin) do pay less, but cost of living is much much less, and you can hire staff here.

Even if you end up paying them 1/2 your takehome: You triple your free time, the most valuable resource you have.

<comment><USER8> On the other hand, if you live in a first-tier city, this makes the au pair program that much of a better deal (see my other comment on au pairs), as you get a first-tier salary, and their pay is federal minimum wage. It's too bad for the au pairs, but that is how the program works, and they _are_ getting free room and board, plus some cash, in a first-tier city.

<comment><USER20> If you live in a first-tier city (like New York City) and can afford an extra room for an au pair, then you probably don't need to worry about the cost of childcare.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Yet another non-female here, but I did stay at home one summer and watched our 18 mo and 4 yo while trying to do some consulting work. It was a nightmare. If you can get in home care, that might, might help. But you would still be better off in a separate building. If you have a cottage, unattached garage, barn, etc, that might help. For me, I had to wait until my wife got home and go to a coffee shop. Then it took 45 minutes for my brain to spin down from its hypervigilant state. I developed tinnitus during those months, and still have it five years later.

The central problem is that you can't load big problems into your head. Something will _always_ bring them crashing down. You won't spend half your time watching the kiddo and get half as much done. You'll get 1% as much done.

</comment><comment><USER22> I've been a "work from home parent" off and on over the last ten years. My observation - when a child is young GOOD daycare is probably going to be better than anything you can provide.

Because the day at daycare is structured around your child and the people who are interacting with your child do not have something that they would rather be doing or feel that they need to be doing, good daycare workers are more consistently present in the moment for the children in their care - they are not feeling like they should be checking their email or writing code or attending a meeting.

Finally, without a signed contract the economics don't work and even with one, getting new clients and new projects is going to put pressure on you to be elsewhere while your child is in your care.

Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER23> I'm a male with an 18 month old. I've found it next to impossible to work from home with child around. I felt guilty not giving my daughter the attention she wanted but also felt guilty not being able to focus on work. A good compromise (IMHO) would be to adjust your working time to perhaps 4-5 hours during the day (around nap time) then another 4-5 hours after baby goes to bed.

I would highly recommend checking out a co-working space if available. They give you a separate place to work free of distractions and are much cheaper than renting an office. Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER24> In my experience, kids that age can sense when you're working on the computer. They'll happily play by themselves when you're doing things like cleaning, cooking etc., but the moment you turn on the computer they'll be on you and won't let you "dissappear" into the machine. At least, that's my experience.

<comment><USER10> 100% concur.

My kids seem to have developed a sixth sense for when I'm deep in thought on a particularly hard problem, and will usually pick THAT EXACT MOMENT to gang up on my wife. In unison, all 3 will have temper tantrums, causing my wife to call down to me (I work in the basement) for backup.

I suspect this is related to the ability for an infant to know the difference between your REAL cellphone and your old cellphone with the SIM removed. Seriously. I've never met a baby who was happy playing with an old cellphone, but give them a working cellphone and they're totally happy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I have triplets and I'm a dad. The only possible way I can get any work done is by doing it after they go to bed, but then I must balance any work with truly quality time with the wife.

You've got to make serious sacrifices and rethink things, but your kid is worth it.

PS: I didn't have a problem with female in your title. I'm a pretty participatory parent, but it's definitely a different situation between mom and dad roles.

</comment><comment><USER26> I have not worked full-time from home, but have worked from home on occasion, with a home-schooled boy. He was between 8 - 10 years old. Sometimes his mother was present, occasionally I was teaching him school and working.

I can't imagine working full time with a young child. Well, I can, but it's not pretty: power naps and no real sleep.

What you could is hire a child-care provider. She comes to your house, so you can oversee what is going on, peek in on the kid and so forth.

I am not real hip on child-care centers: you get other people raising your children, these people are not always ideal, or even nice, and so forth.

The ideal is having a parent at home doing the child-rearing. Perhaps your partner can be the stay-at-home until the child is school age.

This might be inconvenient, for the guy. But consider that your child is the single most important thing you will ever do.

</comment><comment><USER27> I usually get the financial argument when I ask people with kids why the mother doesn't work: "We wanted one of us to be a full-time parent. <Dad> made/makes more money than <mum>, so it made sense she quit her job."

It seems the situation is reversed for you, but does the argument not still apply?

<comment><USER28> This, also other possible arrangements:

* two part times

* actually use the daycare, and consider the stories as the usual legends, of the "we're pissing into your food" variety

* any combination of the above

<comment><AUTHOR> We are using the daycare. The "little tales" I refer to are things they're doing/saying that I don't like, rather than people telling me their bad experiences.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I'm a father (still pretty new) working from home with an office in an outbuilding. My wife stays home with our crawling 10-month-old. She has asked me to watch the kid while I work from the couch so she can be free to make dinner. It doesn't work. It didn't work before the kid learned to crawl. It won't work until the kid can be unsupervised. You can't supervise a kid and work at the same time.

So what? You can still find a way to be home with your child more of the week and get by. We sacrificed a decent second income (my wife's) and money is tighter but it's worth it.

Maybe you'll work fewer hours and hire a nanny for your working hours. Best case scenario: one of you finds a better income so the other can stop working.

</comment><comment><USER30> I have a female friend whom is a developer, mom and work from home freelancer - let me see if I can get her on here to give some information :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks (if it's easier, she could email firstname.lastname@example.com)

<comment><USER11> OT:

"Parenting is not black and white, you don't NEED the material shit or thousands of pounds to make it work. Save your money for when your sproglet reaches 17 months old and discovers how to throw a tantrum, you can invest in an alcohol habit to get you through it. Ahem."

Amen.

I think we're birds of a feather, apart from the pets (I'm not in to caging animals, zoos make me so sad).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> You are right at that corner where this will become possible. Before 18 months, there is no way. But at 18 months, they usually can play independently for longer periods, and you should be able to put some time into work. The older they get, the easier it gets.

But I have two recommendations:

1) Find activities they can get caught up in for long periods of time - drawing, crafts, or something like that. You need them to be nearby, but independently occupied.

2) Find work that doesn't require being "in the zone". You won't get a solid 2 hour block of time. You will get interrupted often. If you choose work that will suffer from frequent interruptions, you will struggle to succeed.

</comment><comment><USER32> A small plug for the hn-parents google group!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you, I wasn't aware of this!

(link: <http://groups.google.com/group/hn-parents> )

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I did. And the way I played it was to work through the night so my wife could have a full night's sleep every night (in preparation for a full day!) That way I could work all night in peace (mostly) and deal with the baby when necessary.

Now that my daughter's solidly into toddler territory, though, my wife was keen for me to be awake at "more normal" hours so I've rented an office ;-) There's just no way I could be in the same house with a demanding wife and child.. not necessarily because of their active demands, but because I kept getting lured into playing or doing stuff with them.

</comment><comment><USER34> My sister-in-law has two kids (2.75 years and 1.5 years) and works from home. She has two or three girls set up on a rotation that come over and watch the kids for a number of hours most days of the week so she can get some work done. It would be impossible to do anything otherwise, especially as the kids don't often nap at the same time.

They live fairly close to a local college, so it's worked out well for them to find people for the position. One even stays in a secondary building they have on property with a portion of the rent traded for the babysitting.

<comment><USER11> Being rich always helps.

What does your sister-in-law do?

<comment><USER34> She manages insurance of some sort -- I don't know the specific details. She does have a completely separate, dedicated working space for it. It's as far away from the kids and the noise as possible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> My wife and I have a four month old daughter, and we both run successful businesses from home.

I take care of the baby in the morning while my wife works, and we switch in the afternoon. This schedule ensures we each get 4-6 hours of focused time to work each day without taking Lela to daycare.

It's not always easy, but we're very productive, and still feel like good parents.

I recently wrote a post with the details here: [http://personalmba.com/building-a-business-that-supports- you...](http://personalmba.com/building-a-business-that-supports-your-life/)

</comment><comment><USER36> It sounds like you want to be at home so that your little girl gets more of your time. Working effectively from home requires getting as much time to yourself as possible. It's going to be a tough conflict.

I'm a dad with a 20 month old son. I've tried working at home and even with Mum looking after him I found it next to impossible. There is nothing quite as distracting as hearing a crash followed by your child screaming. Little boys do this A LOT.

I understand your thoughts on day care though. I hope you find an arrangement that works for you.

</comment><comment><USER37> I'm a dad with two kids, one went to nursery 3 days a week from the age of one while mum worked, one didn't (the income/childcare cost maths on 2 kids didn't work out) and I doubt you'd see any difference in their demeanour. Nursery is not some kind of punishment for your kids, in fact it's probably the opposite, especially if the alternative is being looked after by a stressed mum who's trying to do two incredibly taxing jobs at the same time!

From your post it sounds like the issue is your nursery, if you're not happy with it try looking around for a different one didn't. Speak to friends & acquaintances, do the legwork and visit some in the day and find one your comfortable with. I've seen quite a few people give up on nursery because the first one they tried didn't fit, don't let an implementation put you off the whole concept.

Working from home is hard with kids, I do it 2 days a week and I find it challenging to concentrate even though I'm not looking after them (headphones are your friend!) May be worth talking to your present employer and seeing if you can reduce your hours or become more flexible, say go down to 3 days a week with 1 work from home. In that situation your probably not going to make that day up while your kid is awake, but spreading a couple of hours a day in the evening or while your partner plays mom across the remaining days is doable.

Your kids most pressing need is some happy supportive parents (or parent) so don't beat yourself up about your decisions if your kids are smiling and happy. Parenting is a minefield these days, mostly because the natural parent emotions (panic, worry, paranoia) have been turned into multi-billion dollar industries. Trust your judgement and remember, it gets easier(ish) when they're a bit older ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> We did the legwork before we chose the nursery - dismissed several other options (including childminders) picking the one we liked the most.

The problem is, my judgement is telling me to get her out. Hence the post!

<comment><USER38> IMHO if you have even the smallest doubt I would remove the child from the daycare and either move them to another, or bring them home.

With my first son we ignored some of the doubt, thinking we were being overprotective first-time parents. Once we made the decision to move him to a new daycare, the changes in my son were immediate. He was socializing with kids, and learning much more rapidly than before, and in general much of the behavioural problems we were having disappeared.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> My wife and I highly recommend a nanny, even a part-time one. You can find them cheaper than you would expect. We were in a similar position as you, only we both ran businesses out of the home. Our solution, we hired a nanny who lived with us except on weekends. With a nanny your children are cared for in your own home, a safe place. You can also insure that they are cared for by your standards, and you can take a break to play with them whenever you want. You don't have to get a full time live in nanny, plenty of them will work 8-5.

Your best luck will be with high school graduates who are not immediately headed to college, and are the type that look forward to settling down to have a family of their own. Our nanny was a very sweet girl who had no means to attend college and I would guess wasn't a strong learner but she was clean cut, quiet, had a heart of gold and loved our daughters and cared for them so well. It worked out perfectly.

</comment><comment><USER9> work at home dad here. I get most of my work done at home when kid is at school, I'm pretty laid back and don't even need an office, just sprawl out on a couch with laptop & I'm good. I mix it up and go to a coffee shop if wife is home, or send the kid outside to play if I need to focus.

its a really great situation for me. I love picking up my son from school, helping him with homework as I wrap up.

you'll need some kind of child care for an 18mo though. at least something part-time like 'mother's day out' programs. on those days when school is out and my wife has to work, it can be a strain on both of us.

I love it, and don't miss the stressful commute or the office at all. its amazing how relaxed i am, and mentally 'here' for my family now. being able to work from home is probably the biggest reason I'm sticking with my bigco employer until they get tired of me :) if/when they do, I'll move if I can't get another remote gig.

</comment><comment><USER40> I'm a dad with a 5yr and 10mo old. There is no way you can care for a child and get more than 1-2 hours work done at a time. Tough to get in the zone/flow for sure.

We do a nanny-share. Another family brings their daughter over, and we have a nanny come from 8-5. Sometimes we switch and use the other family's house, but not often. It's about the same cost as day care for this arrangement, maybe a little more. My wife works full-time out of the home.

I like that I can see the kids during the day sometimes and generally keep an ear on things. Also nice that I'm here in case nanny is sick and has to go home for the day. My house has a separate room for a home office, which helps a lot.

EDIT: to clarify, I work full-time from a home office.

</comment><comment><USER41> Although I agree largely what is being said here, I must add something in that is unrelated to work and looking after children at the same time. My little boy excelled when he was in the company of other children, socially. I found that when he was on 1 to 1 with my parents, he didn't know how to play with other children. I also find this true of people who stop at home and look after their children.

I also find they become quite needy as you are the only one they have interaction with. Sorry if this is off-topic from your true question.

We've never had a problem with child care, mainly because we send them to people we trust.

<comment><AUTHOR> We seem to be having the opposite problem at the minute. The longer my daughter spends with other children / not having 1 on 1 time, the more withdrawn she gets.

We went away for a long weekend recently and the change was amazing. I'd not seen her that happy in a long time.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts.

<comment><USER41> Children are a mystery, wouldn't suit them to be all the same though I guess.

Good luck in whichever path you choose to take, I don't think people who don't have children understand how difficult it really is juggling work and children

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> A woman on my team works at home with her 2 very young kids. She has a sitter come in every morning and stay most of the day. I think this is the only way to make it work if you have a job that requires any sort of time commitments.

The upsides end up being the same as most work at home jobs. You save time not commuting and you can see your kids at lunch. She's also there if an emergency arises.

Another friend of mine works at home and she does something similar. It's funny to hear hear 5 year olds say that they can't bother mommy when she's in her office because that means she's working.

</comment><comment><USER43> I have 2.5 year old and work from home part of the time. My girlfriend is home with her in the morning. I go to the office in the morning then come home at lunch for the handoff and then my girlfriend goes to work. We play for a bit then she goes down for a three hour nap and I do more work. On the rare occasion she doesn't sleep then I just hang with her and do the work at night. If I have a hard deadline then I resort to DVDs (they are a lifesaver) but try to avoid it.

</comment><comment><USER44> I work at home. We have 4 kids from 4 to 13. My office is the dining room, so it is central. To add extra excitement we also home educate.

Our kids have never been in a daycare or a school. I'm not a fan of either. That equated to many years of financial "hardship" and being down one income even when the other income was relatively small. We've since been able to "bootstrap" our ability to work and earn and having both of us at home is really a great experience overall.

I wouldn't trade it.

</comment><comment><USER45> I work from home and have a 6 month old daughter. My wife looks after her full time though. I had to convert our garage so that I could lock myself away and actually do some work.

If you're planning on working and looking after your child it won't happen. The only way it works for me is that my wife is there to support the family.

However, if you can move back home then it's amazing to get 20 minute breaks and pop in to see your child. Breaks up the day nicely :)

</comment><comment><USER46> Indeed, as others have posted, I don't see this as realistic. I'm a non- female, but I work from home. My wife doesn't work (at a paying job, at last) and stays home to take care of our 8 month old. Even now, her free time is best measured in minutes, rather than hours. I can't imagine that she's going to have more free time for a long while, which she says is certainly the case (my first, her 3rd).

</comment><comment><USER47> This is exactly my situation. I work remotely as an Engineering Manager. I have a 19 month old daughter. I have a nanny that comes in from 9-530. If I need to work longer than that, I typically do so after our daughter is asleep. I've been doing this since I went back to work when she was 12 weeks old: at that time I also took breaks through the day to breastfeed.

Good luck. It's the best arrangement ever.

</comment><comment><USER48> VERY interested in this as something I would like to do in some form or other. I don't have kids yet and am working on disconnecting my income from the hours I work with passive income (the dream right?). At the very least I would like to work from home so I can be there for my child and partner immediately if required.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Just wanted to thank everyone who took the time to respond - the response has been amazing, way beyond what I expected. I love the different perspectives.

It's given me a lot to think about, perhaps confused me a little more.. but at least opened my eyes too. So again, thank you.

</comment><comment><USER49> Yes, and yelling "I'M WORKING!" once an hour sounds about right.

</comment><comment><USER50> Hey.. You can make at least $1000 to $1500 per month from working online.. Go there: <http://www.freelancer.com/affiliates/ahmed613/> sign up for an account for free.. and start finding jobs in the facebook and php categories..

In a single month, I made around $3000 from projects there..

If it works for you, you can then subscribe for a $25 monthly fee, which will reduce the fees they charge you from 10% to 3% only!

Start bidding with low prices at first.. just look at other bids, and see what is the average, and bid lower than the average with 5% to 10%.

This will help you in getting reviews and reputation quickly... and then you can start increasing your bids accordingly!

When you bid on a project, YOU MUST send a private message to the employer, explaining how you can do the job, and take a little bit about your great experience... and ask the employer to contact you, and ask you any questions needed.

Without sending a private message to the employer, your chances to get the job will be very low indeed!

Good luck for you, and if you need any help, don't hesitate to ask. Ahmed.</comment>


Twisted 9.0.0 released - <AUTHOR> http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python.announce/browse_thread/thread/279966f9928e04ab/93339872f9d8577d?show_docid=93339872f9d8577d&pli=1

<comment><USER2> The WSGI support, and twisted.web in general have been seeing some great improvements. Coupled with this _amazing_ running series on twisted.web: <http://jcalderone.livejournal.com/tag/sixty+seconds>, I'd say things are looking very positive for Twisted in the web world.

I think the release of Tornado has got people thinking about "Comet frameworks" (for lack of a better term), and I have the personal opinion that Django+Orbited+Twisted could make a better "Comet framework" than Tornado.

Here's a project that is exploring combining Django+Orbited+Twisted: <http://github.com/clemesha/hotdot> \- it contains a full working example, and I believe taken further, it could really turn into (at least) a great starting point for making "real world" Comet apps with Python.

</comment><comment><USER3> > Twisted: the framework of the future!

It's funny they call it the framework of the future when it doesn't support (as of now) its host language of the future (Python 3) :D

<comment><USER4> You completely missed the tone of voice implied by the context. Being "funny" is the point.

> _This release [...] is the last one that will support Python 2.3. The next > release will support only Python 2.4 and above. Twisted: the framework of > the future!_</comment></comment>


Tom's Hardware Italy editor killed in Barcelona islamic terror - <AUTHOR> http://www.tomshardware.com/news/toms-hardware-editor-barcelona-attack,35260.html <comment><USER2> [http://www.eldiario.es/catalunya/barcelona/comunidad- musulma...](http://www.eldiario.es/catalunya/barcelona/comunidad-musulmana- manifiesta-Barcelona-atentado_0_677532399.html)

<comment><USER2> [https://twitter.com/Juanmi_News/status/898599542001733633](https://twitter.com/Juanmi_News/status/898599542001733633)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Titel: s/islamic terror/ISIS attack/

Blaming Islam doesn't seem right...

<comment><USER4> Terror in the name of any religion should be called out by name. Christianity has the Spanish Inquisition, and that was terror by the state. Religious zealotry with violence is just that, and should be called out as such.

NOTE: This presumes that it's being called out regardless of the religion. In other words, you can't play favorites.

<comment><USER5> ISIS isn't "in the name of" Islam, any more than American Nazis are "in the name of" Christianity.

<comment><USER4> It is if they claim it. And it is the responsibility of other Muslims to condemn it.

Likewise, if an American commits a similar atrocity in the name of America, it is upon other Americans to condemn it.

It is this act of allowing the condemnation of people with the same attribute that lets us see the terroists as what they are (as you pointed out in your post). When that _doesn't_ happen, then they are not extremists any more, but representative of said population.

And it is for that reason that I think it is important to call them out. To ignore just builds up frustration on all parties, and then worse things start to happen.

Ignoring them is not an option.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> Alternate title if we're going to point fingers:

"Tom's Hardware Italy editor killed in terrorist act claimed by organization created, funded and armed by the US and some of its puppet states."

I think it's more accurate too.</comment>


Key Legal Documents for Rebuilding After Unrest - <AUTHOR> https://www.rocketlawyer.com/blog/key-legal-documents-for-rebuilding-after-unrest-927116 <comment><AUTHOR> Yeah it's just a rocket lawyer blog post, trying to sell their services, but I actually found it it very informative. The list of documents whose demand has gone up during the pandemic is interesting to browse. It's not an area I tend to think about.

Also, clicking around the list lead me to a lot of good FAQs. I've never looked at it before, but their website actually looks pretty nice.</comment>


An Operations Mindset is at Odds with Innovation - <AUTHOR> http://spin.atomicobject.com/2012/10/16/an-operations-mindset-is-at-odds-with-innovation/

<comment><USER2> The arguments advanced against an "Operations mindset" are mostly strawmen. Operations is primarily about efficiently operating an organization towards a goal. The type of thinking advanced in the article however is more likely to be pushed by someone with no operations management training.

For instance, putting people on multiple projects versus single projects. Multi-tasking and context switching cause known losses in efficiency even under the perfect scenario with no startup time. So if you want to emphasize getting projects completed, multi-tasking must go. This is an operations management mindset, though it runs against much current practice.

The points about efficiency are similarly misguided. You don't focus on worker efficiency, operations points you at throughput and global optimization rather than local optimization.

Those however are about focusing on improvements and operations of the current systems. It is true that innovation is different than operations. In the same way that learning to program efficiently in a language is different than inventing a programming language. They are different kinds of things. Many operations principles however can be successfully applied to innovation. For an excellent read on the topic, read "The Principles of Product Development Flow" by Reinertsen.

To get a better understanding of operations in general, and not the hyperbole advanced in the article a good starting place is "The Goal" by Goldratt.

One big revelation I learned while studying operations is that the things that largely drive developers crazy aren't good management practices. They aren't advanced by operations researchers. They are in fact what I always thought they were, bad management practices.

<comment><USER3> You might think it fair to call them "strawmen" but don't assume that all operationally-minded organizations are run my management with operational training. Some of us live these "strawmen" everyday.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Yes, and this is why a company really needs two technical teams (at a minimum): developers and sysadmins.

My goal is stability. The dev group's goal is growth. In a very small startup, it's hard to hold both these ideas in your head at the same time. If you don't grow enough, you will never need stability. If you grow enough, you will eventually need stability so that your customers do not desert you. Thesis, antithesis, synthesis: supportable growth.

My ops group meets with devs for discussions of supportability and performance well before the actual handoff. We make sure that monitoring is allowed for from the beginning, that there are processes and documentation that let us fix problems at 3AM or diagnose it well enough to call the right person to fix it. Performance is checked regularly. Is it time for new hardware? Is it time for a rethink of the architecture to support faster performance or higher scale?

The two forces will be vector-summed. It's important to get it all pointed in a direction and magnitude that leads to success.

<comment><USER5> As a sysadmin, I used to think in the two goal paradigm. I actually don't any more; if your company has two groups with different goals, particularly in the early days, you'll waste time with friction.

My goal as a sysadmin is to help the company succeed. I try (and sometimes fail) to assume the same positive intent of my peers in engineering. If we seem to be working in different directions, it's often because there's something one or the other of us doesn't understand.

Concrete example: I have often found that my tolerance for midnight crashes is lower than that of the engineer who wrote the code. There appears to be a misalignment. But on further examination, the problem is that the engineer doesn't have the same information I do: she doesn't realize on a gut level the cost of being woken up at 2 AM.

Solution: add engineers to the first level on-call rotation. Information is added; goals become more in alignment.

<comment><USER6> As an engineer, this made me chuckle.

<comment><USER5> Mission accomplished. It's kind of a trick -- I am way in favor of letting developers look at running production servers, because how better to understand a production environment? But a lot of sysadmins are wary of that, so you have to frame it in a way that benefits tech ops as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The article makes an interesting testable prediction: in an innovative company, an employee is likely to work on a single project but use many different skills, while in a stagnant company an employee will use few skills but work on multiple projects. Does that sound true?

<comment><USER8> Working for BigCo here in Brazil, and the latter holds true for me and lots of other people in our company. Seems like a great way to put it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The whole "Slack" book by Tom DeMarco is more or less about this. If you optimize the steady state, you cut the slack that is needed for the organization to adapt. Also, the throughput-latency tradeoff might bite you.

</comment><comment><USER10> i only wish i had learned to spot the difference earlier in my career.</comment>


Logarithms. How to think about them, especially in programming interviews - <AUTHOR> https://www.interviewcake.com/article/python/logarithms <comment><USER2> That is a very clear and concise description, with obvious applications to algorithms. It might also be worth adding logarithmic plots, for example plotting data on an equally spaced scale of 1, 10, 100, 1000 etc. Also some units are logarithmic, for example bels (more familiar in their tenths as decibels) and the Richter scale used for earthquakes.</comment>


Borderlands' sponsorships came about as an alternative to closing the store - <AUTHOR> http://borderlands-sponsors.blogspot.com/p/why-sponsorships.html <comment><AUTHOR> This was a way to save a much-loved bookstore. It's interesting that it's still holding up after 2 years.

<comment><USER2> Not just hanging on, it appears to be stabilizing. At the end of March, they had actually sold a handful of more sponsorships in year 3 than they had by the same time in year 2. The goal now is to use the additional funds to purchase a building in SF to be a permanent home for the store once the current lease runs out.

<comment><USER3> I love this. It's both the epitome of anti capitalism, while being so completely fundamental free trade, that it almost makes my head explode (as a university trained economist). I especially love that many who espouse capitalistic ideals will have a hard time wrapping their minds around this too. It's so easy to forget that any time money changes hands without extortion involved that's capitalism at it's finest. And the fact that the store is looking to the future, and using the patronage (in it's most classical sense) to increase it's capital to help stabilize itself in the long term just really makes me smile from all the dichotomous ideas at play.

<comment><USER4> It's an interesting example of the value of customer goodwill.

In addition to being a bookshop, Borderlands is a cultural hub for SF/F readers in the Bay Area. As such, it's not simply selling SKUs at the cheapest viable price, it's providing an intangible curatorial service. Amazon may crowdsource reader reviews but they're unlikely to be as insightful as suggestions by enthusiastic staff who know what they're selling, and the usual recommendations engines are less effective than one of those staff engaging in Q&A with a customer to find something new that they might like.

(And this is before we get into things like the cafe side of the business, or the author readings/signings. Disclaimer: I am an author and I occasionally do events there.)

<comment><USER5> This is why I signed up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A beloved cafe closed in Seattle recently for the same reason (no crowdfunding campaign was forthcoming).

I still support raising the minimum wage, but we shouldn't expect to have our cake and eat it too. Making labor more expensive will make goods and services more expensive, and it will make some businesses non-viable.

Now that I'm thinking about it, is the minimum wage a regressive tax in disguise? In low margin businesses, one would expect the additional labor costs to be passed along to the consumer in the form of higher prices.

Therefore, the extent to which a minimum wage raises your "tax" burden is proportional to the % of your income spent on low-margin consumer goods and services.

<comment><USER7> One of the issues Borderlands talked about when they first started the sponsorship program was that each book they sold had the price printed on the book cover (printed by the publisher), so they were unable to raise prices when wages increased. I suppose you could just put a new pricetag over the old one but it's so easy for someone to open up amazon's app and check prices online that it wouldn't make much difference.

<comment><USER8> Amazon already sells books for below the cover price (often, at least) so it's already the case that people buy from brick and mortar because of something other than price.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This bookstore is now basically selling an new additional "premium service" (Private Wi-Fi, preferred seatings etc) for a yearly fee. It's really cool that they found a new way to make money, and that it works. But lots of businesses offer premium membership services. My local club has been doing this for year with some success. What's so new about this besides changing the name from "Premium Membership" to "Sponsorship" ?

<comment><USER10> I'd definitely pay for a place to go and sit with a laptop or book for awhile...you know, I wonder if something like olde London's "social clubs" could work today, but cheaper.

They were basically buildings or floors rented out to simply be a place to relax, kick back, do some quiet work, play pool, drink/smoke in what I can only imagine were velour jackets, etc. In practice though, they were very expensive and mostly an upper-class affair.

I feel like we could do better these days with say, 4000 sqft. of mixed-use space on the border between an industrial and residential neighborhood where rent is reasonable.

<comment><USER11> What you're describing sounds a lot like some kind of coworking space. Maybe something like betahaus in Berlin [1]. When you enter, it looks like a big cafe with lots of tables and many people with open laptops, but that place has _layers_ : separate meeting rooms, a big events space (several floors up), "office hours" (one-on-one, free 30-minute consultancy sessions with experts from their community), group runs through the city, ... There's a monthly membership fee, but anyone can get stuff at the cafe or attend the public events.

[1] [https://www.betahaus.com/berlin/](https://www.betahaus.com/berlin/)

<comment><USER12> > _What you 're describing sounds a lot like some kind of coworking space._

In my city a hotdesk at a co-working space starts at $250/month for just 2 days a week. So I go to cafes, partly because of cost, but mostly I prefer the ambience and staff there (much friendlier, better music, coffee on demand). If my local cafe chain had a $300/yr gold membership/sponsorship, I'd buy that in a heartbeat.

On the other hand my cafe doesn't sell Club Mate or Mate Mate, so betahaus definitely/easily beats Perth there! :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I know a lot of small business owners in SF, and Borderlands' story is one that I've heard before. The minimum wage hike is killing a lot of coffee shops who had previously been able to offer quality coffee at not much more cost that what you'd find at Starbucks. With the wage hike, Starbucks takes the hit, keeps prices the same, and the smaller shops are forced to hike prices and turn away customers.

I'm guessing I'll see a lot of commentary about paying a living wage and how these businesses must be mismanaged and that this is just the way the market "works." I won't necessarily disagree, but what is happening in practice still feels wrong.

<comment><USER14> The flipside is of course that they were doing so by paying their employees a terrible salary.

<comment><USER15> When you can explain to me why you SHOULD be able to make a full living wage putting books on a shelf, or pouring coffee, or putting hamburgers in a bag, you can claim it as a terrible salary.

<comment><USER16> I don't think anyone needs to defend the idea that working 2,000 hours per year "should" earn someone a living wage.

How about this: If your business can't afford to pay a "full living wage" for a full time job you "shouldn't" be in business.

<comment><USER17> Sounds good. Then eliminate welfare of any kind for anyone who's working a full-time job, because, by definition, they're making a "full living wage", and don't need additional assistance. I'm legitimately curious what things would look like when a new equilibrium is established. Which industries were destroyed, which arose, and which pivoted? What happened to the people who worked for the unsustainable businesses?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Borderlands has always been a great place to go and discover new sci-fi authors and books, their staff is great and it sucks that the books business is so tough these days.

I joined their sponsorship program as soon as they started it, it feels great to walk in and see your name printed on the printout on the wall by the coffeeshop door.

</comment><comment><USER18> Do they really sell through all their stock? One of the prime arguments in support of a livable minimum wage, is that is also increases purchasing power of people, increasing the revenue. More people could have bought books and made up for the difference in wages they had to pay.

They obviously wouldn't have ever seen that happen, had they shut down immediately before giving it a chance. And I have to assume that higher purchasing power in the book budget of people has been used up by the 300+ 100$ sponsorships a year.

</comment><comment><USER19> Glad to see they came up a creative solution to stay open and it's working.

If my local bookstore needed sponsorship to stay open I would be first in line to donate. With that said, something feels off-putting when I read these stories of requests for sponsors and donors to failing businesses. Seems increasingly common story too. I understand there's multiple sides to this debate, and what the trend may or may not lead to. I have no idea. Maybe it is market efficiency or maybe it's serious market failure. I see comments on both those sides. Either way I don't think relying on sponsors and donors for failing businesses is a good or long term way for an economic system and market to function. Two more examples of this trend toward needing donations to band-aid the bullshit we created:

Noah Smith's recent tweet: "I swear to God, the sight of people with deadly diseases crowdfunding their health care is the most dystopian thing about America right now" [1]

Walmart asking for donations of food for its own employees who do not earn enough in wages to support themselves: [http://www.cleveland.com/business/index.ssf/2013/11/is_walma...](http://www.cleveland.com/business/index.ssf/2013/11/is_walmarts_request_of_associa.html)

Speaking of, an increase in the minimum wage was blamed by Borderlands and others for having to close down and/or ask for donations. (Side note, I was surprised to read of these book store employees they have who "cheerfully" worked for minimum wage. in San Francisco. for a ten-plus years! Amazing! but whatever). Wages are not the full story here...The cost of rent for good retail locations in these cities (SF, LA, NYC, etc.) is a major _major_ issue. Nuts. I'm not suggesting we federalize major cities' downtown storefront real estate spaces. I think if someone bought or inherited real estate in a great city location and makes a fortune then congrats to them, smart move, happy for them.

 _But fundamentally it is economics 202 that a local B &M business model and employee wages will never keep up with the monopoly that is big city real estate and their pricing power to rent seek._ The numbers don't work long term. Period. A regular business can't beat a monopoly like real estate but it's especially difficult when there are flocks of new, overconfident fools for tenants waiting in the wings with a shark-tank-quality-biz idea and fresh capital they got from who knows and they are ready to sign a lease they can't afford. Look at NYC restaurant spaces, why do they cycle so often and so quickly? Or come visit Los Angeles (I'll buy you a beer) and then go to Rodeo drive in Beverly Hills. Rent is so expensive on Rodeo now (+$1000 psf I think these days) that landlords know their tenants are running at a loss and they still raise rents on them every year (or sooner)...Half the shops on Rodeo Dr. are major luxury brands renting at loss but there for marketing purposes, the other half of shops belong to these weird little overconfident new luxury brands no one has ever heard of but think they will hyper grow and cover Rodeo rent. They never do. These little American dream, Italian leather type stores last maybe 6 months before closing and the next overconfident fool with a pink faux emu skin handbag is ready to roll the dice and pay an even higher rent

P.S. If your city or town still has a real bookstore, when was the last time you went in there and asked the staff for a book recommendation and then gave a new paper book chance? Good date idea too. Just good all around. Roll dice.

[1] [https://twitter.com/noahpinion/status/844393961678655488?lan...](https://twitter.com/noahpinion/status/844393961678655488?lang=en)

</comment><comment><USER20> I never bought this "minimum wage increase destroyed us" story when it came out. The minimum wage increased from $11.05/hr to $12.25/hr. That's an increase of $1.20/hr.

They claim this will cost them an additional $30,000/year. Let's consider that. Assume that their employees are all current minimum wage employees (otherwise they would not be affected). Given that they're open for 8 hours/day (which works out to 56 hours/week), it would mean that their additional cost would be an additional $3500/employee; so an additional cost of $30000 means they have 9 employees working all the time. Anyone who has been to Borderlands (and I have been a few times) can see that they do not have 9 employees all the time. Max I've seen are about 4. It's a bookstore, not an oil change place!

In any case: whatever floats their boat. If sponsorships help them stay afloat, so be it. But they shouldn't blame the minuscule wage increase for their woes.

<comment><USER21> Or they could just impose a 10% price hike on all of their products and services to cover the cost. The thing that becomes clear is that greatly raising the minimum wage mostly affects poor people and the lower middle class. It reduces their buying power. It also greatly devalues the $15/hr woman who went to trade school to be an EMT for several years.

EITC is a much better way to redistribute this wealth and it puts money in the people's pockets who need it most.

<comment><USER22> > Books have the prices printed on them, and we can't raise those prices, and > we couldn't lower our expenses, so . . . math.

From the post.

<comment><USER23> I always have to raise a questioning eyebrow when "we couldn't lower our expenses" comes about.

And they couldn't sell anything in addition to books? Or change their selection to reduce their overhead? Or buy/sell used books?

I don't know, I'm not them. But "we can't raise those prices, and we couldn't lower our expenses" always sounds like a bit of a copout.

<comment><USER2> > And they couldn't sell anything in addition to books?

They do that. In the bookselling business, these are called "sidelines". Borderlands has several, including postcards, greeting cards, small gifts, journals, local art, etc. They've tried many others as well that haven't been profitable for whatever reason (which they then have to eat the cost of.) New sidelines are a gamble for that reason.

> Or change their selection to reduce their overhead?

This is an oversimplification, but selection doesn't involve overhead in the usual sense because unsold books can be returned to the publisher. Anyway, their focus on sci-fi/fantasy and mystery books is a large part of what makes them special and beloved, rather than just another generalist bookstore.

> Or buy/sell used books?

They do that.

> I don't know, I'm not them. But "we can't raise those prices, and we > couldn't lower our expenses" always sounds like a bit of a copout.

I've been to several of their sponsor meetings and spoken with the owner on a few occasions. Alan is very open and transparent about the bookstore's finances. If I recall correctly, because of the way publishers eat of the cost of unsold books, the store's expenses are dominated by labor and rent in that order (with utilities and credit card processing fees a distant 3rd and 4th). Everything else is basically rounding errors in the store budget. It's like trying to cut the Federal Budget without touching healthcare entitlements or defense - there's no way to make a meaningful dent. See also: Amdahl's Law.

When labor makes up about half of your costs, changes to the minimum wage affect you disproportionately compared to many other kinds of business.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Everyone is going on about a "living wage", but what about the illegal aliens who live in America who make substantially less than that, and come here illegally with great effort to get it? Why would they do that unless it was profitable? They seem to have no problem living on what most people would not consider a "living wage". It seems obvious then that the goal in mind with raising the minimum wage is to make it even more difficult to employ Americans, leaving those jobs to illegal aliens and punishing businesses who try to follow the law and only hire citizens. This gives those who hire illegal aliens more leverage by the fact that doing away with illegals would mean a substantially higher price hike for their products given that they would have to pay their employees that much more.

<comment><USER25> > It seems obvious then that the goal in mind with raising the minimum wage is > to make it even more difficult to employ Americans

Do you realistically think that this is the goal? Do you think that someone thought, Let's look for ways that Americans can't get a job?

> leaving those jobs to illegal aliens and punishing businesses who try to > follow the law and only hire citizens

If a business doesn't care about the law, why are they paying the minimum wage in the first place? Isn't hiring illegals, illegal?

I see why you are worried. As the article says "We said that we thought the dramatic wage increase might likely be very good for San Francisco, but it wasn't sustainable for us.". So what is good for the majority is not always good for all individuals. But that doesn't mean that it is a bad idea.

<comment><USER17> > If a business doesn't care about the law, why are they paying the minimum > wage in the first place? Isn't hiring illegals, illegal?

I suppose if it's easier to hide illegal employment altogether, rather than cook the books to hide underpaid employees, that would be a reason.</comment></comment></comment>


3G and 4G LTE Cell Coverage Map - <AUTHOR> http://opensignal.com/ <comment><USER2> A great initative and a very useful site too. I'd love to see more services built on the api's [http://developer.opensignal.com](http://developer.opensignal.com) like better cell phone service buyers guides.

<comment><AUTHOR> Very good idea. Because that environment is not exploited properly. And to generate healthy competition between vendors to provide the best service.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Using Google AMP to build a Medium-style Jekyll site that loads in 65ms - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/ageitgey/amplify <comment><USER2> A few points -

1\. A direct comparison to Facebook's react Github page may not be fair. Their page is 10 times heavier than the blog page - of course its going to be faster.

2\. Actually the Facebook's React page is not that well designed when it comes to performance. I see a lot of scripts included in the FB react page blocking rendering (codemirror.js, etc) even in pages where they are not used. If those are removed, the time to first render should drop down by a lot.

3\. I feel a more apt comparison would have be comparing to a purely static page like a blog hosted on Github. Not a page which actually includes a live code editor!

4\. No one says the page _loads_ in the DOMContentLoaded time. It is mostly a useless metric when it comes to performance measurement.

<comment><USER3> For reference, we haven't spent any time trying to optimize the react website for perf. Also that front page really needs to be rethought, we haven't updated it since launch...

<comment><USER4> I'll add: the React site uses the (larger and slower) development build of React because it can be useful to people visiting the site. Ordinarily you would use the prod build. Not to mention the lack of script bundling and inefficient (blocking) loading. Just hasn't been a priority for us.

<comment><USER2> Oh thats why the dev build of React was there in the page. Makes sense!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is a great example of a modern looking website, that actually performs in a way one would expect from today's computers and browser optimizations. Instead it seems to be more important for developers to use the coolest new technology, even though it actually hurts the end-users.

React is all the hype right now. And it is a nice system for creating dynamic single page apps. But there is little reason to use it for static websites, which could be cached easily, instead of rerendering the website on the client with Javascript. And instead of having automatically cached static website, we use local storage and such to get something resembling a cache.

I would love to see some mechanical sympathy in modern web development, instead of cargo culting all the new tech.

<comment><USER3> You can use React to render static websites. You get the nice component model and the speed of static content. You can take a look at the react native[1][2] website for an example.

[1] [http://facebook.github.io/react-native/](http://facebook.github.io/react- native/)

[2] [https://github.com/facebook/react- native/blob/master/website...](https://github.com/facebook/react- native/blob/master/website/core/Site.js)

<comment><USER6> We've got our entire marketing site statically rendered. Looking forward to react 15, should get rid of lots of "data-reactid"s which should shave a bit off of the size of the rendered html.

<comment><USER7> You can actually do that at the moment with ReactDOMServer.renderToStaticMarkup(), which doesn't create any react-ids (but can't be used later by React on the client)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Is there a reason you can't just build the site properly in the first place to load fast? AMP is an unnecessary step in doing so. It's nothing special. All AMP is, is a decided-upon set of restrictions for what you can do on a page. If you follow those same restrictions with normal HTML/CSS you can achieve the same results.

I've never understood the use of AMP, just build your normal site properly in the first place and then you won't need it. It's almost like training-wheels for learning efficiency/optimization.

<comment><USER9> Good developers can make fast sites (though that's not a given!!), but product managers will absolutely bloat your site.

"Add this third tracking/analytics tool"; "Add this custom ad format here"; "Oh this partner will give us tons of money if we put this widget on the page"; "Oh let's use Brightcove video player"; "Oh let's auto-play videos"; "drive-by A/B testing"; "We don't control this third-party 2MB image", "The widget streams a 23MB .WAV file for background music that only auto-plays in mobile"; "Why build this in-house when we can just use this good third-party library?"; "Good third-party library costs too much, let's use this horrible but much cheaper one instead"; etc.

AMP allows you to tell your product manager: "Sorry! Not supported." Of course, with enough responses like this, a decision eventually comes down to not use AMP.

<comment><USER10> OMG, what kind of product managers do you know. A good one would never ask for such things...

<comment><USER9> The problem is that I don't work for a tech company, and the product managers have their own silly non-product managers. :) X(

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Wow, that actually does feel fast. Loads quickly and scrolls with no frame lag on my low end laptop. [https://cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/ageitgey.github.io/amplify/20...](https://cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/ageitgey.github.io/amplify/2016/03/08/example- post.html)

Of course this is in comparison with Medium blog posts which take 10's of seconds and scroll at 5 fps. Plain HTML with no CSS works for me, which is super fast if you get used to the plain style.

<comment><USER12> > Medium blog posts which take 10's of seconds

Are you connecting to the internet using a potato?

<comment><USER13> This is why web performance needs to be something you actively and seriously measure: if you have a solid low-latency connection, you may have a completely different experience from someone with a high latency or packet loss connection which really amplifies the delay for each resource. This is compounded by developers almost always having the sites they work on cached and upgrading their hardware much faster than average, so it's easy to forget how painful all of that code is for e.g. an Android user on an average network when you mostly use an iPhone 6S over LTE / fiber.

Here's Medium with a 10s load-time over a simulated cellular connection:

[http://www.webpagetest.org/result/160315_FY_c1dc544bfe0add32...](http://www.webpagetest.org/result/160315_FY_c1dc544bfe0add3272ad40596f5ef695/)

5s over a simulated mediocre (i.e. Comcast median) cable connection:

[http://www.webpagetest.org/result/160315_HH_a6ed41e9bd201183...](http://www.webpagetest.org/result/160315_HH_a6ed41e9bd2011835cc6828907d97cf2/)

<comment><USER12> Thanks for the test data

<comment><USER13> Yeah, I try to believe anything about web performance until I measure it, not because I think people are trying to be deceptive but just because it's so easy to waste time in the wrong place if you don't have solid data.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> So what's the best practice when it comes to valid html? This seems like a cool technology but trying to validate the [https://www.ampproject.org/](https://www.ampproject.org/) site, the w3c validator fails so bad it's not even able to list all errors. The example post does a bit better but is still pretty far from valid html5.

Is there a way to do it in a standardised way or should that even be desired? All browsers I've tried seem to render it fine and quickly (assuming js and the normal bells and whistles).

<comment><USER15> That site isn't amp, ironically. I think they outsourced the project's marketing site.

<comment><USER16> > _That site isn 't amp, ironically_

[https://ageitgey.github.io/amplify/2016/03/08/example- post.h...](https://ageitgey.github.io/amplify/2016/03/08/example- post.html#development=1)

> _AMP validation successful._

not sure what you mean

<comment><USER17> ec109685 was referring to [https://www.ampproject.org/](https://www.ampproject.org/)

<comment><USER16> [https://www.ampproject.org/#development=1](https://www.ampproject.org/#development=1)

> _AMP validation successful._

Maybe I'm missing something? I literally learned how to validate AMP pages from[1] 59 minutes ago :)

[1] [https://www.ampproject.org/docs/guides/validate.html](https://www.ampproject.org/docs/guides/validate.html)

<comment><USER17> To be honest, that was my bad--I didn't bother checking it because I know it used to fail validation a month or so ago.

Looking at it now though

        [console.warn]

        https://www.ampproject.org/:22:42 The tag 'noscript > style : boilerplate - old variant' is deprecated - use 'noscript > style : boilerplate' instead. (see https://www.ampproject.org/docs/reference/spec.html#required-markup)

That 'warning' comes up as a whopping great big red error for _my_ AMP pages that still have the old boilerplate. It seems AMP make an exception for their project site.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The article's discussion of AMP's limitations regarding images is somewhat inaccurate.

Firstly, the claim that images must be supplied with a known height and width is wrong. All you need to provide to AMP is the aspect ratio of the image.

You can give the width as "16" and the height as "9" and AMP will calculate exactly what size to display the image. It would use any exact measurements provided only to determine the aspect ratio. That's why this layout can be called 'responsive' at all.

Example:

        <amp-img width="4"
                 height="3"
                 layout="responsive"
                 src="/assets/images/your_picture.jpg">
        </amp-img>

will validate and the image will be rendered at the largest size possible in 4:3 aspect ratio, relative to its flow context/container.

In action:

[https://wnda.github.io/amphtml- examples/layout/#development=...](https://wnda.github.io/amphtml- examples/layout/#development=1)

[https://wnda.github.io/amphtml-examples/basic- page/#developm...](https://wnda.github.io/amphtml-examples/basic- page/#development=1)

\</comment><comment></comment><comment>---

Secondly, if you won't even know the aspect ratio of your images with any certainty, AMP doesn't give a damn about exact dimensions for background- images.

Proof:

[http://wnda.github.io/amphtml- examples/experiments/backgroun...](http://wnda.github.io/amphtml- examples/experiments/background-image/#development=1)

With background-size: cover, background-images are actually extremely effective for responsive web design as long as you're not supplying massive images.

You might think it's a problem because the background-images will not be lazyloaded , but technically they sort of will be, because AMP intercepts _everything_ in your page and serves it via HTTP/2 from its CDN. You just can't link the lazyload up with JavaScript callback.

What you can do is estimate the time it will take to download the image and configure a CSS animation to fire after a certain amount of time using the animation-delay CSS property.

Just an idea.

<comment><USER18> How does `amp-img` work when viewing the page in a regular, non Google web browser?

<comment><USER19> The custom elements are handled by the AMP runtime: [https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml/blob/master/spec/amp-h...](https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml/blob/master/spec/amp- html-components.md)

<comment><USER18> Answering own question: AMP runtime is a JS library.

<comment><USER20> Therefore and AMP page is a mess with NoScript.

<comment><USER21> haha :) I didn't even realize :) I've been running NoScript (in addition to my usual bloat-blockers uBlock and Ghostery) the past two weeks, to determine the trade-off between convenience and CPU/responsiveness on my low-end laptop (so far: so good!).

The crazy thing is that the demo-page actually loads quicker with NoScript on. Okay, so I didn't see the images (and because the text was _Lorem Ipsum_ , I didn't realize they were missing), I'm on a high-bandwidth connection so unless the images are secretly huge, the images on their own shouldn't be too much of a factor to account for the difference.

So in other words, while AMP may be a useful line in the sand for responsive guidelines versus corporate politics / environment / product managers / etc, it's no replacement for just writing lean and efficient code in the first place (if at all possible).

 _edit:_ turns out the comparison wasn't entirely fair because obviously I didn't have Google's JS code cached. On the second load there's less of a difference.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> strange, my site

      * non AMP
      * standard HTML5
      * with pretty pic above fold
      * not hosted on a Google CDN or any other CDN

is still faster than the AMP, Google CDN, no lovely pic above fold page.

amp example page by the OP

      https://cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/ageitgey.github.io/amplify/2016/03/08/example-post.html
      https://www.webpagetest.org/result/160315_NN_CPY/
      first byte 0.267s start render 0.916s speed index 928

a page of my small website

      http://www.veganblatt.com/veganer-ei-aufstrich
      https://www.webpagetest.org/result/160315_NN_CPY/
      first byte 0.176s start render 0.305s speed index 910

<comment> tech-no-logical for me, your site loads in 350ms, vs. 65ms for OP's (base html response only)

<comment><USER20> That +300ms looks like a roundtrip time for geographical difference.

<comment> tech-no-logical his site : 8 hops, 30ms. OP's site : 10 hops, 16ms.

only a slight difference. OP's site is just, well, very fast :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Serving static, stripped down HTML under 65ms is not that hard.

You really don't need any AMP for this.

<comment><USER23> This is not about serving time but about browser loading time: getting the DOM ready (DOMContentReady) in 65ms.

<comment><USER20> Right.

I guess it's a good thing that with a static HTML it's basically the same thing but without the fancyness and the Google cache in the background.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I still don't get what the difference is between this and being self- controlled with the amount of js you add to your html

<comment><USER25> Slow sites are more than just HTML overload. Slow sites typically have additional HTTP requests (loading external CSS/JS files, AMP doesn't allow JS or external CSS files). They also load all images at once (AMP does lazy content loading). They don't cache as well as AMP does.

For companies, it's a framework that restricts the "bad" requirements that conflict with page loading performance.

<comment><USER26> So, what's the difference between this and being self-controlled AND loading images, CSS and JS asynchronously?

<comment><USER25> Async just tries to load everything at once. If you're on mobile, you could have a slow connection. Trying to load an image at the bottom of the page at the same time as an image at the top of the page would compete for bandwidth. The idea behind lazy loading is that you give top priority to what needs to be downloaded _right now_.

You also don't bother loading what will never be seen, assuming the customer doesn't scroll down to the bottom of the site. This improves the customer's battery life because an HTTP request uses the radio which taxes the battery.

Further, by abiding by a set of standards, Google and others can trust the content will load quickly. That trust allows them to feature the content higher up in search results.

<comment><USER26> > Further, by abiding by a set of standards, Google and others can trust the > content will load quickly. That trust allows them to feature the content > higher up in search results.

So it is a Google closed club? "you use our library, your site ranks up"? I doubt this is true. If it is, I doubt it will endure. If it endures, I doubt I wish to live in this world.

<comment><AUTHOR> > So it is a Google closed club? "you use our library, your site ranks up"?

Yes, unfortunately that is exactly the case.

Try a Google search for any news-related topic on a mobile device (at least in the US) and you'll see that only Google AMP pages are featured in the top scrollable news widget:

[http://imgur.com/TuFhnZM](http://imgur.com/TuFhnZM)

That's why most of the major publishers are providing AMP versions of their content. You can find the linked AMP version of any news article by checking the HTML source and looking for the "amp" link tag in the header.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Very cool. Might be nice for the example page to include real content--even a copy of the readme would suffice. But being able to click through various posts would give a better idea.

</comment><comment><USER28> I am not able to reproduce the load times reported as benchmarks. My test runs on WebPageTest put start render and document complete at around the 700ms mark (Chrome 49 / no throttling):

[http://www.webpagetest.org/result/160315_60_9XT/](http://www.webpagetest.org/result/160315_60_9XT/)

<comment><USER2> The DOM Content loaded in this test is 157 ms. WPT uses a confusing terminology when it comes to this (Document complete time != Dom content loaded time)

True it is not the same as the 65ms claimed in the article but its not that far off too.

The location of the test matters too. The time to first byte in your test is 82 ms - so there is no way DOM complete can happen in 65 ms in your case :) Probably try different locations for your test..

<comment><USER28> Is DOMContentLoaded the right mark to be benchmarking, given that first paint doesn't happen for another several hundred milliseconds?

<comment><USER2> Definitely not. Page load (thats the time the browser spinner stops spinning), first render, etc. are slightly better metrics.

But even page load time and first render times aren't without their own problems. Resources loaded asynchronously also count towards the page load time - however, they are not necessarily detrimental to the user experience. Similarly, some pages flash a white screen before contents actually starts to appear. In these cases, the first render also becomes meaningless since the user doesn't care about the "paint" of a white screen.

Recently, other metrics such as the speed index and [RAIL]([https://developers.google.com/web/tools/chrome- devtools/prof...](https://developers.google.com/web/tools/chrome- devtools/profile/evaluate-performance/rail?hl=en)) have come about. (Just the initial page load time does not matter for a good UX)

Mostly there is no one universal metric for all websites. Think about what your user wants to do on your site and optimise for that metric. For example, Twitter optimises for the time for the first tweet to appear on the timeline :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Neat. Get rid of the two external fonts and the blank author image and it will load in half that time.

</comment><comment><USER30> Nice project. I wonder how much work it would take to extend Lektor to build AMP pages.

</comment><comment><USER31> Really nice idea and good boilerplate to start with. It would be perfect as a starting point for a customer that want an AMP blog and probably in the near future it will be required.

Check also this amp hello world I did, if you want a bare AMP example [https://github.com/fibo/hello-AMP](https://github.com/fibo/hello-AMP)

<comment><USER17>
        {% include analytics.html %}

            https://github.com/fibo/hello-AMP/blob/master/gh-pages/_includes/analytics.html

                <script type="text/javascript">...</script>

You're kidding, right? You need to implement analytics using the AMP Analytics Custom Element or it'll just fail validation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Let me know if you have ideas to make the react website faster :)

<comment><USER4> I don't think we need ideas, just someone to put in the hour or two to optimize the React site. I'm confident we could cut down the load time immensely without much work. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Maybe support for Webmention[1] would be a nice addition? Medium is sort of a community after all and I think an alternative should have technology for talking to other sites. There's [https://webmention.io/](https://webmention.io/) and [https://indiewebcamp.com/Jekmentions](https://indiewebcamp.com/Jekmentions)

[1] [https://indiewebcamp.com/Webmention](https://indiewebcamp.com/Webmention)

</comment><comment><USER33> A fairer comparison would be to a minimal, similarly styled Jekyll page also on GitHub pages. If it is faster than that it gets interesting.

</comment><comment><USER34> I think this is pretty cool.

Funny how much trash people are talking.

Keep the internet fast.

</comment><comment><USER35> Does it support code syntax highlighting? (I'm not already familiar w/Jekyll).

</comment><comment><USER36> This is really cool, can't wait for somebody to also do a similar thing for Pelican!

</comment><comment><USER37> I also created a Medium inspired theme but for Grav CMS: [https://github.com/mblode/grav-theme-medium](https://github.com/mblode/grav- theme-medium)

Grav CMS is an open-source CMS. Therefore, it is a better option than Jekyll when you need to create a client website.

It is also used as an alternative to Medium.com for creating a personal blog.

I hope you guys enjoy it :)

<comment><USER38> [http://medium.matthewblode.com.au/](http://medium.matthewblode.com.au/) is a deadlink, may want to fix.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Anyone used XtraDB from Percona (instead of InnoDB)? - <AUTHOR>

Has any one tried out XtraDB?
It is supposed to be better than InnoDB and has binary compatibility with InnoDB database files.
Here are a couple of articles on it for those interested:
http://www.mysqlperformanceblog.com/2009/08/13/xtradb-the-top-10-enhancements/
http://www.linux-mag.com/cache/7356/1.html <comment><USER2> I recently deployed XtraDB 1.0.4-8 with MySQL 5.1.39 -- I've seen speedups of upto 50% on some queries -- especially on 1M+ row updates.

Setup is easy. Here's what I did 1\. download mysql 5.1.39 source tarball 2\. download percona xtradb 1.0.4-8 3\. extract mysql 5.1.39 tarball 4\. delete contents of 'mysql-5.1.39/storage/innobase' 5\. extract contents of xtradb tarball into 'mysql-5.1.39/storage/innobase' 6\. compile mysql source with standard configure options

</comment><comment><USER3> Yeah, we've used it at StyleFeeder for some stuff. Although we leaned pretty hard on it, I really didn't see a big difference either way. I was a little surprised and expected to see some real gains, but they never materialized.

<comment><USER4> That's a shame. Was it easy to set up?

<comment><USER3> Yeah, just an rpm and we were all set.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> We started using XtraDB a few months ago, I wasn't involved in the actual implementation of it so I asked our DBA, here is what he said:

"it is supposed to work better with 8 core boxes like we have - both in terms of IO, and cpu usage.

it also gives us more flexibility on tweaking parameters."

</comment><comment><USER6> To answer your question: Yes - I've used it. I wrote the first article you linked to though, so I guess I had to :p

</comment><comment><USER7> I use it on one of my servers. But unfortunately, I have no data to compare to =(</comment>