Is Apple too powerful? - <AUTHOR> http://mobileopportunity.blogspot.com/2009/09/is-apple-too-powerful.html <comment><USER2> No?

Seriously, they own the music market because they have the best product around and still do after giving the competition years to catch up.

Apple does not currently own the video market, and I honestly don't expect them to any time soon.

I think that, if anything, it'll encourage innovation because suddenly there's a clear target: "It has to be better than iPod. And not just a little better, way better." Apple's not unbeatable.

<comment><USER3> Apple going after the flip makes perfect sense; there's not a lot of difference between them hardware-wise except for the camera. It might just take another generation before the nano is superior to the flip (factoring in it's size) -- It's already a pretty good value.

<comment><USER4> The Flip is already in HD. They're much more flexible than Apple because they have only the one product focus. So far Apple doesn't have a camera good enough to detract from the Flip, and the people who get nanos for the camera won't be in the Flip's market.

<comment><USER5> What Apple can pull on though is the ability to edit. That'd be their strength. They are good at that kind of thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "The new iPod nano is a tour de force, the Swiss Army Knife of mobile entertainment. I'm sure there's some obscure gadget from Japan that packs more features per cubic millimeter, and chances are neither have you. This one's a major consumer product, just in time for stimulating the economy this holiday season."

I stopped there. Features per millimeter is not why the Nano is a threat. Hardware and software integration and UX are what made Apple so powerful.

<comment><USER3> The "nano" is all about size -- it's right there in the name!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> > Think about that for a minute. "There's a big new market, and we want in." > Not, "we're creating something new" or "we can vastly improve this > category." Just, "we want a cut."

You know, there were MP3 players before the iPod. Apple improved on the design and usability and coupled their MP3 player with an online store that had buy- in from the music industry, but they were still essentially angling for a cut on an existing market.

<comment><USER8> It's funny. I've heard the whole "iPod made MP3 players usable" argument a few times and I don't buy it. iRiver made a batch of very nice MP3 players, which sold very well in Asia, and had more features and were just as user-friendly as the iPod, if not more so.

So what's the difference? You nailed it by mentioning the online store. iTunes was a unified interface backed by a large company with the ability to purchase new music. The iPods themselves, at first, weren't that special. I'm actually quite amazed with how nice the iPods have continued to get over the years, and with the new Nano they provide a compelling reason to continue buying a standalone music player.

<comment><USER9> The original iPod predated even the flash-memory iRiver products by at least a year.

When the iPod was released its sole competitors were the Nomad Jukebox and the Compaq PJB-100 -- both of which were _HUEG_ (2.5" hard drives), had shit for battery life, were made of the creakiest plastic, and took several minutes to boot up and index your files (due to not having an index (drag-and-drop has consequences!)).

<comment><USER10> I agree with Blasdel. Think about MP3 players back then and how awful the song management software was. They were afterthoughts and it showed.

The bad experience dealing with those programs negated any benefit from HAVING an MP3 player. I remember messing with my Nike/PSA's player and trying to load my songs onto it, and I simply gave up.

Apple figured out that iTunes needed to be as easy to use as the iPod. That was their win.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> There's some compelling points raised here. The iTunes connection is a bit on the edge of crossing over to being used inappropriately I think.

</comment><comment><USER12> Apple simply abuses whatever power it has more so than other companies. There's what, 30 million iPhone users out there? 40?

If any of them want to listen to music with legitimate headphones, they have to buy adapters to fit the intentionally-small opening. It's the same for all their proprietary plugs and devices. They exclude other RAM and hardware manufacturers from their desktop, even those that produce better products at a cheaper price.

<comment><USER6> Uh, it seems like you might not know WTF you're talking about... Every headphone adapter I've ever tried to plug into my iPods has worked. What you're talking about was a design flaw on the first-gen iPhone that was corrected in the next model.

The RAM statement is false.

The "even even those that produce better products at a cheaper price" statement is a matter of opinion. As a side note, I'm afraid it's an opinion that few people share. There are a lot of points where you can pick on Apple; industrial design is not a good place to start. (It's kind of like going after Benjamin Franklin for being a crappy politician, instead of say slave ownership or smoking pot. Industrial design may be what Apple is best at.)

They do exclude other computer makers from shipping computers running their OS. A lot of companies do this, though; the only reason it seems weird of Apple is that Microsoft doesn't do this and competitors are so small that it's basically dual market. There are other examples, though: you can't port the software running a Texas Instruments calculator or Mercedes Benz' iDrive control system anywhere else. But I'm not sure it's an abuse of power, it's just proprietary software. Go Linux if you want more freedom.

<comment><USER13> Microsoft does that too, with their Xbox (which, not coincidentally, is far less error and bug prone than their Windows PC offerings).</comment></comment></comment>


Replacing RabbitMQ with Apache Kafka Without Downtime - <AUTHOR> https://doordash.engineering/2020/09/03/eliminating-task-processing-outages-with-kafka/ <comment><USER2> We had a constrained resource, we did not have a way to protect that constrained resource, so we replaced it with a better resource.

Which is fine, and I can't argue it's the wrong call. Except I wish they had talked a bit about how they implemented a back pressure system for Rabbit. They didn't seem to mention anything about other systems _honoring_ the back pressure in any concrete fashion. Which is not so much a criticism as a problem I am trying to answer for myself and I found no comfort here.

Their final architecture bears quite a resemblance to a poorly specified, bug ridden implementation of half of Erlang.</comment>


Apple iMatch - The Royalties Are In - <AUTHOR> http://blog.tunecore.com/2012/02/apple-imatch-the-first-royalties-are-in.html

<comment><USER2> Do I really want to give Apple more information about myself? Can I trust any company with private information? I think it is kind of creepy that they would know about every album I own (and pay $25/yr for the privelege). What am I missing?

<comment><AUTHOR> You are perfect correct that Apple will know what music you possess. If that bothers you than iTunes Match isn't for you. Neither is the Genius Mix feature. And frankly neither is iTunes Store, Amazon shopping or the Internet (when you get right down to it).

For me, I don't see actionable information from this. What is Apple going to do? Turn me over to the RIAA? Obviously not. At the very worst as far as I can guess, they could great a recommendation engine and try to upsell me more music that I might like. Sort of how a radio station works (inefficiently) or how a home town record store owner used to work ("Hey man did you check out Dylan's latest?") If they shove recommendations at me through email, ping or a "suggestions" feature in iTunes, I can ignore it. And it causes me less hassle than junk postal mail.

Seriously, what can they do with it?

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Since that blog is up and down here's a summary/replay [http://www.ipodnn.com/articles/12/02/08/artists.paid.each.ti...](http://www.ipodnn.com/articles/12/02/08/artists.paid.each.time.user.re.downloads.song/)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The iTunes Match business model looks like the best thing to happen to indy musicians since CD Baby.

<comment><AUTHOR> Here's why I mention CD Baby [http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/how- much-do-music...](http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/how-much-do- music-artists-earn-online/)</comment></comment>


Notes on Computational Group Theory (2010) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.math.colostate.edu/~hulpke/CGT/cgtnotes.pdf <comment><USER2> Having just finished a geometric group theory course I was hoping to see something about the word problem for automatic groups, or at least an algorithm to compute Dehn presentations of f.g. hyperbolic groups, but it looks like a cool resource with plenty of interesting topics.

Another book the HN crowd might like is Shoup's "a computational introduction to number theory and algebra"[0], it is much more broad and with litte focus on implementations, but a very interesting book nonetheless

[0][https://shoup.net/ntb/](https://shoup.net/ntb/)

<comment><USER3> Nice! Similar recommendation: William Stein's "Algebraic Number Theory, A Computational Approach" got me excited about studying math again. I would recommend it to anybody reading this thread.

[https://github.com/williamstein/stein- ant](https://github.com/williamstein/stein-ant)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Please go easy on me, but is there a list of applications of CGT somewhere?

<comment><USER2> As far as I know CGT is mostly of interest to mathematicians, because there are some groups whose study require calculations that are absolutely impractical to carry out by hand, such as presentations of the sporadic groups. Or maybe you need to know how many nonabelian groups of order 2652 are there and throwing it to a computer is just the fastest way to find out or you need to compute conjugacy classes or stuff like that.

Computational algebra more broadly however has many applications to cryptography for example</comment></comment>


Derek Sivers on a different way to be an entrepreneur - <AUTHOR> http://blog.businessofsoftware.org/2011/08/derek-sivers-at-business-of-software-2010-video-and-transcript-of-talk.html

<comment><USER2> You should definitely watch the talk if you can, very insightful.

But here are some Highlights in case you don't want to:

\- CDBaby, pre-sale, was throwing off about $200K net profit/month.

\- CDBaby nearly had an employee revolt.

\- One of the things that encouraged Derek to sell was he heard a recorded meeting (that the employees prolly forgot was being recorded) where his main guy in charge was saying "Fuck Derek" and all the employees chanted "Yea!"...among other niceties.

\- Derek moved to LA for four years in 2002 and left CDBaby on Autopilot

\- Derek learned to program so that he could create the storefront himself to sell his CDs.

\- Derek got many offers to sell, but turned them down.

\- The final offers he got were from a distributor he worked with, Amazon and a VC firm (I suspect he meant Private Equity, but I could be wrong).

\- His terms to sell were: "I'm out. I keep my database. I keep helping musicians."

\- Many times during the negotiations, they nearly died but because he kept another party in the loop (Amazon) he had a strong negotiating hand, so he could get all his terms.

\- He sold CDBaby for ~$22M.

\- All the proceeds went to a 'charitable unit trust fund', that pays him 5% per year (approx $1M) and then gives everything to a charity when he dies.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the summary, Marc! All points confirmed accurate.

<comment><USER2> Thanks for the confirmation :)

It's good to see entrepreneurs actually talk about 'the real factors' behind the sale.

I think you are the first person I have ever heard that has publicly said "I began to dislike the place and the employees - not the customers", which is something I have always wondered about.

If starting & building a company is so exhausting, why aren't more entrepreneurs saying they sold because they were tired and wanted to move on?

It's almost as if they are ashamed, or is there 'peer pressure' from the buyer to make sure to keep the transaction acrimonious. Not sure what it is, but it was good to hear a 'real' perspective for a change - not the PR/polite spin.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> That was a good story, but the transcript had many typos and automatic transcription errors that should be corrected.

</comment><comment><USER5> Wow, I had no idea about the near employee revolt at CDBaby. Derek is one of my favorite speakers.

</comment><comment><USER6> Great talk, very down to earth. Great reminder that good business are sometimes very simple ones.

</comment><comment><USER7> Just read the book: quick read, entertaining. One of those books where you probably already know what's in it, but it still helps to read it and see how things played out in someone else's real life.

</comment><comment><USER8> I wish he would have gone through with the Golden Ticket / CD Wonka idea. Would have made for a great story.

</comment><comment><USER9> I look forward to watching, but...

Thumbs down for forcing me to watch this video in my browser. I have other things to do right now and would far prefer to download this to my phone and watch it on the train this evening.

<comment><USER10> check out <http://getspool.com>, you can save a video link to your phone over wifi or 3g.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Sivers and his former company have been spamming me constantly for the last 10 years. Now he's an entreprenurial guru selling self-help advice? If he is, he oughta get a wig and a rent-a-yacht like everyone else on late night television. The dude's done nothing in the last decade other than promote himself. He hasn't written anything I've ever read that didn't reference himself and his awesomeness at least once every two sentences.

<comment><USER12> Well I am a big fan of Sivers, along with guys like PG, and some others. So hate these sort of ... ignorant trashing.

>The dude's done nothing in the last decade other than promote himself

He gave his company to charity in 2008 (<http://sivers.org/trust>) that's well within last 10 years.

>Now he's an entreprenurial guru selling self-help advice?

Yes he is. Just like PG, Dharmesh Shah, Spolsky, he has also chosen to share his Startup experience, which I feel is very beneficial to lots of wannabes. I found this piece of his, one of the most brilliant pieces ever ... by anybody: <http://sivers.org/multiply>

> If he is, he oughta get a wig and a rent-a-yacht like everyone else on late > night television

Looks like you don't know him at all. He instead lives in a minimal style and cycles a lot (<http://sivers.org/biking>)

>Sivers and his former company have been spamming me constantly for the last 10 years...

Can't speak for cdbaby.com . But Derek, surely, doesn't spam. He can't afford to. As he promises to reply to all (<http://sivers.org/contact>). And he does. Very meaningful replies (I have tried).

PS: For the first time (may be second) in my HN stay, do I strongly feel like downvoting some one... unfortunately can't.</comment></comment>


This Is How You Identify A-Players (In About 10 Minutes) During an Interview - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@mitchellharper/this-is-how-you-identify-a-players-in-about-10-minutes-during-an-interview-58cce68667cb <comment><USER2> As an interviewee who strongly suspects that I am a C-player, I'm curious what I I can do to change.</comment>


Ask HN: Fastest/easiest framework to build a web application in 2020? - <AUTHOR> I asked this same question a couple of years ago -> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15715547
Since then a lot has changed. I'm curious what people consider the fastest/easiest way to build a full-stack SaaS app in 2020.
Assume the following:
- Can be picked up by almost anyone (assume basic HTM/CSS/JS understanding), doesn't require any deep CS understanding (think how easy Rails was in 2006)
- Has full-stack capabilities, not just front-end
- Is open source and can be deployed anywhere
- Is complex enough to rule our no code solutions like Bubble or Webflow <comment><USER2> Django. Nothing has ever surpassed Django for me. It is soooo much faster to prototype with than anything I've ever used (especially when you know all the amazing shortcuts, but that's not a requirement as their docs are incredibly good).

It can do anything you could possibly want to do with a standard web app and if you really want to do crazy Javascript things you can always just use it as an extremely powerful backend for whatever the frontend framework of the day is. The admin site alone has saved me weeks of work and I keep finding amazing features in it that often just seem like magic (formsets!!).

<comment><USER3> How is deploying Django? Is it easy to integrate with Nginx or Apache?

I know PHP is super easy but wasn't sure how it was for Python frameworks?

<comment><USER4> You run collectstatic to get all of your static assets in one folder, use gunicorn (python package, there are other options as well such as uwsgi) to serve your wsgi server, and have nginx in front of gunicorn to intercept anything with /static/* to pull from your static assets folder. This is all 3 or 4 lines of config in nginx.

Your first try might take a couple of hours to get right. If you want HTTPS (you should) Caddy might be a better route than nginx. It's certainly easier.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> My personal picks would be:

\- React for the front end ([https://reactjs.org](https://reactjs.org))

\- Node.js for your back end ([https://nodejs.org](https://nodejs.org))

\- Deploy using Adapt, which ties your front and back end together using React-like components. ([https://adaptjs.org](https://adaptjs.org)).

\- (Optional) If this project is larger or commercial, definitely use TypeScript on all 3 of the above ([http://www.typescriptlang.org/](http://www.typescriptlang.org/))

[Disclosure: I'm a maintainer of Adapt, but a strong believer in the React model and ecosystem]

<comment><USER6> > Use React's declarative JSX syntax, JavaScript components, and a rich > component library to build, deploy, and operate your <NodeService>

Im sorry but why would someone want to use a templating language to configure infrastructure? It's like using CSS syntax for defining an HTTP API. Doable, but... why? It's not any easier to pick up or reason about than any existing configuration language.

On React + node, this assumes no rendering on the server, plus you'll need to pick your own state management solution, data layer, http framework, router, and a whole host of secondary tools, which will comprise about 96% of your actual development time.

<comment><USER7> A template language suggests something that uses code points to inject dynamic values. JSX is a bit more than that in that it bundles a template plus the corresponding assigned logic. It is more of a component language than a template language.

At any rate the reason why somebody might want to do this is purely because its declarative. I prefer imperative programming myself, because I want to know exact what the logic is doing from reading the code, but many people don't think that way. Many people want to know what is happening without being overwhelmed by how its happening and they need the code to communicate to them in exactly that way.

<comment><USER5> In my opinion, the power of the React/JSX model is really about allowing you to declaratively specify everything that can/should be specified that way. But then also allowing you to selectively use imperative constructs where they're needed, all while making it fairly seamless to move back and forth between the two at any level of abstraction.

Of course, with great power comes great responsibility...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Still Django. It's in a weird state where it's starting to show its age, but everything else is at least 10 years away from catching up. So still the best bet if you're starting something new today.

<comment><USER9> Can you share a bit more about how it's showing its age?

(I'm not a web dev, but played around with Flask recently and in general find the giant ecosystem of different frameworks fascinating.)

<comment><USER8> > Can you share a bit more about how it's showing its age?

1\. There are some bugs that can't be fixed just because they break backwards compatibility. E.g. usernames are stored to the database incorrectly by default, but the dev team isn't going to change it. So if you don't know that it works the way that it does, it can cause issues.

2\. Most people now use a js frontend and a REST backend. Django can do this well, but because it wasn't originally designed to be used that way there is a ton of random cruft that isn't super useful to most people anymore.

3\. No good async story. They are working on this, but it's going to be kind of bolted on rather than designed for async from the ground up.

4\. Lots of random cruft related to weird design patterns that folks have advocated for over the years. You don't have to use any of it, but the fact that it's there leads a lot of people to believe they _should_ be using it, which leads to bad codebases.

Basically you can do everything you'd want to or need to using Django, but there is just a bunch of random crap in there that you need to prevent people from using. And preventing people from doing stuff that they want to do tends to lead to either conflict or technical debt, so it would be much better if it just weren't there in the first place.

<comment><USER10> Do most people _actually_ use a js front-end and a rest backend?

It's still brittle, it's still user hostile and it's still slow. Seems like a massive waste of time and a vanity project to me.

I'm still mainly doing server-side templates coupled with complicated js widgets when I really need them.

<comment><USER8> A js front end itself (versus templates) is probably a wash for most use cases, but the benefits of having a REST back end that imposes a clear separation between the front end and the back end is enormous. IMHO the benefits are big enough to make it worth re-writing the front end over again every 5 years until the front end folks eventually get their act together. Just try to make sure you're doing as little logic as possible in the front end, because as I said every line of code you write is going to need to be rewritten, whereas with Django any code you write today will still be good 10 years from now with only minor maintenance needed.

<comment><USER10> I've not seen any of those magic benefits, just had massive pains with debugging and maintainability.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Rails is less "easy" than it used to be due to the integration of Webpack (via the Webpacker gem) and thus the entire world of frontend JS development…yet that move in many ways "saved" Rails as a serious tool for modern web professionals.

So while I'm not sure Rails is easiest to pick up for a complete newbie, I _am_ sure that there is still no framework that can touch Rails when it comes to fast/easy to build an entire web application from scratch that is truly broadly deployable and maintainable for years to come and won't cause you to tear your hair out every other day. :)

<comment><USER12> I'm a bit tired of all this react and javascript mubojumbo and keen to learn more about rails. what would be the best tutorial that isn't outdated? so much things are just old...

<comment><USER13> [https://www.railstutorial.org/book](https://www.railstutorial.org/book) I found this really useful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> If you know something now, use it.

If you don't, Rails or Laravel are both good options. I'm partial to Ruby, its syntax, its expressiveness; the ecosystem cannot be beat, and the tooling is stable and mature. There's nothing not to like.

<comment><USER15> Yes the ecosystem can be beat. Have you seen the PHP ecosystem lately? And Laravel's? Especially Laravel actually. The documentation is amazing. There is Laracast. A lot of tools to help. Dedicated CI services (ChipperCI). So many great components.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> 5 answers as of my typing this, all 5 recommending almost entirely different options.

I think you're not going to see much consensus to this question, merely a comment-based list of all possible frameworks that people know.

User joshmn had it right in his reply:

> If you know something now, use it.

Anything your team already knows will be easiest and fastest for you to use. Any new person you hire will have a lot to learn no matter which one you choose, unless you hire people for the framework/stack you chose.

There is no "right" answer to this, and there probably never will be, and that's not a bad thing. Trying to find the "perfect" solution is a futile effort.

<comment><USER17> Exactly this! Current shop has a crufty in-house monstrosity with a weird history. All due to someone deciding that the stack had to be Python/Django + Backbone.js + jQuery.

Not a bad stack, but the development team was a group of PHP developers. Rather than go with something they all knew, the leadership decided that switching stacks and having the entire group learn Python with the CMS/CRM/Fulfillment system being their first professional project was the way to go.

What resulted was a misshapen monstrosity. Plenty of good ideas, ruined by limitations in understanding of the stack they tried to implement, and further hampered by a lack of good direction and herding of the team. The stakeowners of various bits were allowed to snag their pet developer and lean on them until their "feature" was implemented, with little to no cohesive architecture in place.

Perfect is the enemy of good. There are dozens of frameworks because they all have their uses. Stick to what you know, and let that guide you. If you have a desire to learn a new stack, go for it. But don't pick one because someone else says "it's the best".

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Check out Graphile Starter; it is a fullstack starter project for building a SaaS with PostGraphile in TypeScript with React (Next.js) and Apollo Client. It has all of the modern tooling preconfigured including type checking, linting, formatting, unit testing, acceptance testing with Cypress, CI via GitHub actions, code generation to increase development velocity and much more. On top of that, the user account system is pre-built with everything you'd expect: login with username/email and password or social login with OAuth, forgot password flow, change password, multiple email management, email verification, etc. It also has a job queue and migration framework built in and preconfigured, plus instructions on how to deploy... I've put a lot of work into it! [https://github.com/graphile/starter](https://github.com/graphile/starter)

</comment><comment><USER3> VueJs/Reactjs for the front end.

PostgREST or Serverless framework for the backend.

Avoid middle ware all together!

[https://github.com/PostgREST/postgrest](https://github.com/PostgREST/postgrest)

[https://serverless.com/](https://serverless.com/)

<comment><USER19> I've been doing some trialing with hasura and postgraphile lately, any thoughts vs. Postgrest?

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I am the maintainer of Zero[0]. The idea is to abstract all the config that causes the friction in the beginning.

[0][https://zeroserver.io/](https://zeroserver.io/)

<comment><USER21> Been looking for something like this for a long time! Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Ruby on Rails, hosted on Heroku, with the Jumpstart Rails template. [https://jumpstartrails.com/](https://jumpstartrails.com/)

Stimulus Reflex for real-time dynamic updates without the complexities of React components. [https://github.com/hopsoft/stimulus_reflex](https://github.com/hopsoft/stimulus_reflex)

</comment><comment><USER23> Depends on your choice of language:

Python => Django

PHP => Laravel

Ruby => Rails

Node/JS => ExpressJS

Elixir => Phoenix

My personal opinion on building web applications the quickest way. I mostly use Laravel.

<comment><USER24> There's also a good case to be made for using Symfony for PHP and Flask for Python.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I gave a talk a couple of years ago about using WordPress and still highly recommend it. It solves so many problems out of the box - account management, routing, CRUD, etc. Here's a video of the talk:

[https://wordpress.tv/2019/04/23/corey-maass-build-a-web- app-...](https://wordpress.tv/2019/04/23/corey-maass-build-a-web-app-mvp-with- little-or-no-code/)

There are a number of large web apps that use it, so it's not just for MVP's. I also heard the book "Building Web Apps with WordPress: WordPress as an Application Framework" will be getting a second edition this year.

It's not the coolest, shiniest option, but a solid one, I think.

</comment><comment><USER26> A lot of answers suggest a Node.js stack. I'd like to say that the problem with Node is that there isn't really a "batteries included" stack you can choose from, unlike other languages.

You can indeed use Express.js for the HTTP part, but you'll need to pick an ORM, a rest framework, etc and make sure they integrate properly which might include writing "glue" code to bring them together.

Unless you're knowledgeable about Javascript I suggest you avoid this option and instead pick another language you know that happens to have a batteries- included framework like Django, Laravel or Rails just to make development faster as these frameworks include everything you need out of the box and are tested to work well out of the box.

<comment><USER18> Check out Graphile Starter; it's extremely batteries included! [https://github.com/graphile/starter](https://github.com/graphile/starter)

<comment><USER27> It is a great job to create an "starter" project.

However I would expect at this time of the JS to have one single import that does all the work for me hiding all the configuration files. Making good/best decisions for the default configuration. Also deciding how to do things like database connection, transactions, HTTP server, SSL, UI, ...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I'd recommend taking a look at October CMS ([https://octobercms.com/](https://octobercms.com/)). It looks pretty simple from the intro video but if you take a bit of time getting to know it better you'll be blown away at how quickly and easily you can get something up and running that remains flexible & scalable enough to grow pretty big.

Disclaimer, biased as I am the lead maintainer for the project ;)

<comment><USER3> This looks very cool and intriguing. I see it's built on Laravel which I love. I see it adds themes which is dope! How else does it improve on Laravel?

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I know that Meteor has a somehow bad reputation, but I still believe the framework is the best full-stack solution in the Node universe and has a bright future. It has evolved a lot, and currently has a new owner, team and funding.

\- Tight integration with React, Vue, Svelte \- Natively supports Mongo, but there are good GraphQL and SQL integrations these days \- Plug 'n play user accounts (customisable) \- Easy to deploy \- Builds to Android, iOS, even desktop these days. \- Tight integration between back and frontend. Extremely simple to write API's or realtime applications \- It's simply Node on backend, do whatever you're used to \- Still a very active community \- Tons of apps running happily in production (the myth of it not scaling is due to developers not understanding, not the framework itself)

We continue using it, nothing develops as fast and easy - at least in the Node world.

</comment><comment><USER30> I would recommend looking into Node.js for the back-end. You can then combine it with either React/Angular or even just a plain jQuery front-end.

The nice part about Node is that you'll have JS on both the front and back ends.

It really scalable and if you use typescript, you can get type safety as well :)

</comment><comment><USER31> "think how easy Rails was in 2006"

There is your answer!

But for anyone with a decent amount of programming experience in a mainstream high level language like C# / Java / JS / Python / Ruby etc. it's probably best to stick to your own language and pick it's stack, if it is dev speed you are after. Some might be easier to set up than others, but there are plenty of example github repos you can clone to get started anyway.

For (what I'll call.. sue me) "systems" languages C, C++, Haskell, Rust, GO etc, I'd probably move over to one of the mainstream stacks for getting things done fast, as they will have a better ecosystem. Also if you already know one of those languages you can easily work with the mainstream ones!

</comment><comment><USER32> My go-to are Next.js ([https://nextjs.org/](https://nextjs.org/)) and Hasura ([https://hasura.io/](https://hasura.io/)). Graphql has a bit of a learning curve if you haven't worked with it, but those two tools deliver a pretty amazing developer experience.

Next.js is react + ssr + routing and more. Hasura exposes an auto-generated graphql API in front of a postgres instance, with hooks for auth/authz and much more.

</comment><comment><USER33> The setup I'm using right probably can't be picked by "anyone" but I think is the best/future-proof for small apps and it's also very easy to maintain if you are growing.

\- Front-End: Vue.js with Bulma.css - Webpack/Gulp for building JavaScript/SCSS. (I have the blueprint here: [https://github.com/omarabid/front-root](https://github.com/omarabid/front- root) but there is still no docs and rough edges). The website is/will always be static files generated by Gulp. First frontier for scaling is eased.

\- API: I use a GraphQl server. This avoid the mess that is RESTful. It also give me a nice explorer, so I can make my application and be able to roughly work with it before I have an interface ready. This part is also easy to scale.

\- Application: Rust. Technically, you can use anything here. But since I don't have any web components (the site is static and the API is served through GraphQl) then I use Rust which I find very productive. Rust generates a compiled program which run inside a container and makes deployment more enjoyable.

\- Database: Postgres/Redis.

\- Deployment: Everything runs in a container. I use Hashicorp software for deploying and orchestrating the servers. Terraform if I have a simple single server app. Or Consul/Nomad/Vault if I'm running multiple servers.

It might sound complicated but beyond the initial investment to set things up, you have a stable/reliable micro-services app.

</comment><comment><USER34> Laravel feels very similar to what Rails was like in 2006.

It has a great ecosystem and lots of great packages and tools to make it fun and easy to develop web applications.

</comment><comment><USER35> Ruby on Rails - Libraries/Gems it have are quite matured with very good documentation.

Authentication, file upload, admin interface ... are some of those.

</comment><comment><USER36> I'm building a new application this year and I'll be using Go for the backend and Flutter for the frontend (both web and mobile).

<comment><USER37> How's your experience using flutter web? I love flutter and dart used it for a few mobile apps. Tried using Flutter Web and felt like it was missing a lot to make it usable in production.

<comment><USER36> I haven't used it yet, actually. I'm hoping that it's good enough for what I'm doing (which is more or less just a fancy CRUD app), but if it's not, then I can always wait on the web app until it's ready.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Hahah. I just published a blog post on this very topic. I will self-promote and link it here as it is certainly relevant:

[https://www.simplecto.com/django-my-go-to-application- framew...](https://www.simplecto.com/django-my-go-to-application- framework-2020/)

Following on that, enough HNers have laid out the Django story, but I want to give some more depth to it. This is my entire stack:

\- Linux Server/VM Hosted anywhere (I like Azure, Digital Ocean, or Scaleway) \- Docker. Just plain docker \- Postgresql running in docker \- Django in a container \- Intercoolerjs for easy and slick Ajax-like front-end work \- Traefik for reverse proxy and TLS with LetsEncrypt \- Sentry for catching production bugs (easy three-lines added to your config) \- Bitbucket pipelines for CI/CD

For smaller projects I run tests locally in docker containers and then push directly into produciton. I dont bother with full CI/CD because I don't need the complexity of it all.

</comment><comment><USER39> Use what you know.

If you know JS, just stick to Node + Express.

I stick to Go or Node for the backend, and create-react-app for the web client. I prefer Go in most cases because I don't need to rely on many external deps, and I have my own starters for both Go and Node to create services quickly (rest, real time, assets, data/repository)

</comment><comment><USER40> I like gatsby.js hosted on netlify. Netlify provides a limited set of backend and lands support. It is a JAM stack app (JavaScript/APIs/Markup)

It does have graphQL which can get a little tricky, but the constantly rebuilding dev environment and GitHub hook driven deployments make running a site a breeze.

</comment><comment><USER41> For front-end single-page-app I'd choose Vue over React.

For back-end I'm currently favouring F#/Giraffe. I'm new to .NET Core but F# is reason enough to try it out. Previously I've used Go or Kotlin/Java with Javalin/JDBI which I find lighter and simpler than Spring/Boot.

</comment><comment><USER42> If I may, I have a related question I'd like to ask.

I'm a front-end developer looking to get serious about practicing my back-end development skills. Any recommendations for a language/framework with static typing (outside of Node + TS)? Spring Boot and Kotlin? .NET Core? Go?

<comment><USER43> I am in a very similar situation to you, I'm a full stack developer (slightly stronger at frontend) that used to do a lot of Ruby on Rails work, but I've been looking for a statically typed backend framework to specialise in. Hopefully some of my research / bike shedding / procrastination will be helpful to you :) I've been trying different backends to find the 'perfect' stack that's statically typed (spoiler: no stack/language is perfect). I've had a mix of personal and commercial experience with Spring Boot, Go and .NET Core.

Big Disclaimer: My observations are completely subjective and personal so YMMV.

Spring Boot and Kotlin: I REALLY like Kotlin as a language, though Spring Boot felt heavy and sluggish from a developer productivity standpoint. This could be my inexperience with Spring and the JVM ecosystem, though I've also read comments on Hacker News that roughly say the same thing (1). I've also read that the heavy use of annotations in Spring Boot are great initially, but it creates headaches for more complex projects. The Maven/Gradle package management experience wasn't great either when compared to RubyGems/NPM. I also tried Kotlin + Ktor(2) on a personal project. It felt better, but at the time it was hard to find solutions to problems on Stackoverflow or the web.

Go: I briefly worked on a project that used Go + Gin. I loved the simplicity of Go and features like concurrency and the built in code formatter. Though at times code felt a little too low-level when implementing business logic such as model validation etc. I missed language features such as generics, null checks and discriminated unions that other languages have. Handling errors also felt tedious at times. However I completely understand the appeal of keeping the core language simple.

.NET Core: I'm probably the most torn about .NET Core. I've always preferred a *nix/Mac system and borderline hated Microsoft during the Balmer years. However C# is a properly good language (though not quite as nice as Kotlin) and the .NET Core standard library feels well designed. There are new features coming in C# 9 like discriminated unions (sealed classed in Kotlin) and records (data classes in Kotlin) that will make it even better. It's not all great, I found unit testing is much more tedious in C#, especially compared to something like Jest or RSpec. Mocking/stubbing was especially difficult as you can't easily override a method unless it's tagged as 'virtual'. One way around it is to use interfaces for the argument type, however this can cause your project to be scatted with pointless interfaces that are only used to overcome this restriction (3).

ASP.NET Core overall is very nice to work with and it's blazingly fast (4). It does have remnants of some enterprisey cruft, but overall I found it very productive to work with. Using VS Code and Jetbrain's Rider made coding on a Mac a breeze though full Visual Studio for Mac is pretty awful.

But here's biggest issue with .NET Core: while it's truely cross-platform and open source, I found the broader .NET ecosystem and community is yet to embrace this. I'm not sure if it ever will completely. The vast majority of YouTube videos and articles I've read assume you're using Visual Studio on Windows. That makes sense, as a 2019 Jetbrains survey indicated that 90% of C#/.NET developers use Windows (5). But if Windows is your jam, this might not be an issue for you.

I also have the strong feeling that Microsoft's strategy for an open sourced .NET is to push the use of Azure for hosting. While it's definitely possible to deploy a .NET Core application to AWS or GCP I worry that Microsoft will always have a bias (even if it's unintentional) to make .NET Core be better on Azure and have soft lock-in. E.g .NET Core will run on any cloud provider, but you'll get the most of it if you're running on Azure.

All of these frameworks were weak in the REPL department. One of the great things about Ruby/Rails and Python/Django is the interactive console. There have been countless times when I've SSH'd into a production box to manually trigger a password reset for a user, or use the ORM to run a one-off report for a product manager. I couldn't find anything close in statically typed frameworks. Because of that I'm quite liking the combo of Python + typings + FastAPI (6) for personal projects. It's not perfect but it's ticking most of the boxes for what I'm looking for.

Again I can't stress enough that this is all my biased personal opinion influenced by how I like to code and my strengths and weaknesses as a developer. But hopefully it will help you in choosing a language/framework that you'll enjoy. Another thing to keep in mind is the amount jobs available for each stack near where you live.

1) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20602318](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20602318) 2) [https://ktor.io/](https://ktor.io/) 3) [https://stackoverflow.com/questions/20400734/how-do-i- mock-a...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/20400734/how-do-i-mock-a-class- without-an-interface) 4) 'aspcore-mvc-ef-pg' in [https://www.techempower.com/benchmarks/#section=data-r18&hw=...](https://www.techempower.com/benchmarks/#section=data-r18&hw=ph&test=fortune) 5) [https://www.jetbrains.com/lp/devecosystem-2019/csharp/](https://www.jetbrains.com/lp/devecosystem-2019/csharp/) 6) [https://fastapi.tiangolo.com/](https://fastapi.tiangolo.com/)

edit: typos and formatting

<comment><USER42> Hey, thanks for the detailed reply!

Last night, I went through a lot of research and bikeshedding myself, and a lot of my intuitions aligned with your experiences.

I was curious about Go, but it seemed while it was possible to do mostly everything you wanted to do, it wasn't necessarily a smooth experience.

I looked at Kotlin next. I'd used Spring Boot before with Java, and at the time I was fond of the annotations, but, like you said, I've heard that they can become a burden in larger projects. Thankfully, I saw that there were a number of other Kotlin web frameworks that had vocal support.

Finally, I spent the last bit of my time choosing between C# (.NET Core) and Kotlin with Ktor something else. I ended up finding this very helpful site[1] that showed examples from the two languages side by side. That had settled it for me; C# just looked more like what I wanted out of a programming language's syntax. Plus, LINQ looks really cool.

At some point in the future, I'd also like to gain more comfort with Python and Django. I can't stop hearing good things about those two.

[1][https://ttu.github.io/kotlin-is-like- csharp/](https://ttu.github.io/kotlin-is-like-csharp/)

<comment><USER44> You can't go wrong with either one (Kotlin, C#) tbh. The Microsoft Docs and Jetbrains docs are pretty decent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> I really like Flask at the moment. It seems to satisfy all your prerequisites.

<comment><USER3> How easy is it to integrate python frameworks with nginx or apache for deployment?

I love Python but have only deployed PHP apps.

<comment><USER45> Well actually very easy.

Sample for Apache:

[https://www.codementor.io/@abhishake/minimal-apache- configur...](https://www.codementor.io/@abhishake/minimal-apache- configuration-for-deploying-a-flask-app-ubuntu-18-04-phu50a7ft)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> The one with the language you are already most comfortable with. Believe me.

</comment><comment><USER47> Do you want fastest/easiest? I may be opinionated but try JHipster. If you want a Kotlin version try KHipster. Full Stack + Open source + all bells and whistles loded

</comment><comment><USER48> Ruby on Rails

</comment><comment><USER49> The one you know best. If you have 0 programming experience go with php. If you do have programming experience, then framework for the language you know best.

</comment><comment><USER50> If you love Java but hate JavaEE, check out Spark Java: [http://sparkjava.com/](http://sparkjava.com/)

<comment><USER51> Dropwizard is another, more popular and well adapted solution without much JEE clutter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> I still love CodeIgniter for it's good documentation, simple deployment (just use SFTP) and easy to learn curve.

</comment><comment><USER53> Some friends are working on budibase.com. We are part of the same incubator programme.

</comment><comment><USER54> Meteor.js

<comment><USER55> Meteor.js is my favorite too. They seem to have got renewed sponsorship now from Tiny ([Tiny acquires Meteor | TechCrunch]([https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/02/tiny-acquires- meteor/)](https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/02/tiny-acquires-meteor/\)))

The last 2 months have seen more activity after a pretty long silent period.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> For me it is Clojure(script) + libraries, no frameworks.

<comment><USER57> Which libraries do you use? Do you use Ring? We use Luminus with Reagent and re-frame at work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> Front: Quasar/Vue

Back: FastAPI

</comment><comment><USER59> >think how easy Rails was in 2006

So why not use Rails?

<comment><AUTHOR> Idk. I haven't done any web dev in years. So that's kind of what I'm asking here. If Rails is still the answer then I guess that's it. I would have assumed there'd be something new by now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> Ruby on Rails

</comment><comment><USER61> Ruby on Rails

</comment><comment><USER62> LAMP + Vue

</comment><comment><USER63> Check out Vue.JS before React/Angular. I find it much more succinct. Node+Express is a very fast backend.

Plus the advantage is ES6 all around. Node utilizes the host resources much more effectively than PHP. And PHP requires Laravel/Artisan to make up for its shortcomings, IMHO. It feels like those to extensions were built for people with extensive PHP backgrounds, and not newcomers. Whereas Node does a better job onramping IMHO.

I find using JS on both ends is much easier than trying to bring in a bigger system like Rails/Django/Apache+PHP.

Especially if you are starting from Square One.</comment>


Ask HN: RSUs in Employment Offer - <AUTHOR> Ive never gotten RSUs, but im close to getting a new job that will offer them.
What are the important things to ask/know about them?
Thanks <comment><USER2> At the level of getting the job? Basically how many and on what vesting schedule. The most common vesting schedule I have seen is a quarter of the RSU grant vests after one year, and then another sixteenth vests quarterly thereafter out to four years. I believe Facebook has removed that first year cliff and now vests quarterly. Amazon backloads theirs where most of it vests at around five years.

You need to know how they affect your taxes. Go look up the actual regulations (they're not complicated), but it's roughly something like this: when they vest, that counts as income in the year that they vest, and your broker will typically immediately sell and withhold the money for taxes. When you sell them, you then have to pay taxes on the capital gains (the difference in the price you sell them for and the price when they vested). If you hold them for less than a year, you pay short term capital gains (basically the same as income). If you hold them for at least a year, you pay long term capital gains (15% last time I checked). Unless your company's stock price is rising incredibly fast, the vast majority of what is taxable is going to be on the vest, not the capital gains, so it won't make much difference whether you hold for a year or not.

Whether you should hold them or sell them is a topic of much contention and depends on the company and your personal situation.

</comment><comment><USER3> Found this to be quite useful during my recent job hunt. [https://github.com/jlevy/og-equity-compensation](https://github.com/jlevy/og- equity-compensation)</comment>


Rust-Style Futures in C - <AUTHOR> https://axelf4.github.io/2020/08/24/rust-style-futures-in-c.html <comment><USER2> This was well laid-out and accessible (as someone who doesn't program in C often). I also appreciate the concluding link to a paper about _Algebraic Effects_ which I hadn't known about before today.

If you do end up making another post which dives into implementing AE I'd love to read it. Thanks for the read!</comment>


The "GDPR consent" email I'd like to receive - <AUTHOR> https://informationrightsandwrongs.com/2018/04/14/the-gdpr-consent-email-id-like-to-receive/ <comment><AUTHOR> There's a lot of nonsense on HN about GDPR. I thought this, written by someone who knows what they're talking about, might be useful. Particularly the links to the Honda case, and to the ICO website.</comment>


The Next Generation of Web Development - <AUTHOR>

What do you all think of where "Content Management" will be in the future given the "Cloud" and the need for content to be: (a) separate from the back-end and (b) separate from the template <comment><USER2> how do you mean "separate from the template"

the cloud does give scalability.. but the difficulties in "coding" a cms or getting content up still exist.

one thing that you may see is a lot of "builder" tools that essentially sit as an app on the cloud enabling content creators on the cloud. ie a return back to the time of the page-builders in geocities!

obviously different cloud apps could collaborate (like unix tools) ... or to gain a competitive advantage, CMS App developers could consolidate more and more functionality to lower transaction costs between the tools.</comment>


The future of social networks will not include your friends. - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/p/f672bb23c179

<comment><USER2> social networks hv to be integrated into our real lives fr them to be susatainable.......nd ppl who cn do it will rule</comment>


Ask HN: Which IRC Client? - <AUTHOR>

TL;DR summary: What IRC clients do you use and like? Why?
Long story:
Increasingly I'm seeing development communities using IRC as their main backchannel.  I've poked around with IRC clients before, but haven't found anything that stuck.
CLI is fine and preferred in this case.
Is running identd still a requirement/recommendation?
Recommended use pattern?  I'm fine with leaving the client running all the time on a machine, and getting at it remotely with ssh/screen|tmux. <comment><USER2> If you're an Emacs user, or plan to become one, then ERC is the way to go. I would go as far as recommend it even if you're not (yet) using Emacs, but that might be just me.

Otherwise irssi.

Personally, I'm running an IRC proxy (znc), an irssi in screen on my server, connecting to the proxy, and an ERC from home, connecting to the same proxy.

That way I can easily access my IRC sessions even if I don't have emacs with me.

</comment><comment><USER3> If I were to use a time machine to travel back over 10 years ago I'd say IrcII with BitchX.

</comment><comment><USER4> Irssi => <http://irssi.org/>

</comment><comment><USER5> irssi or weechat - both are excellent cli irc clients.

</comment><comment><USER6> irssi + irssiproxy + Colloquy.

</comment><comment><USER7> xchat</comment>


Using Dependency Injection in Your JavaScript Unit Tests with Rewire - <AUTHOR> https://strongloop.com/strongblog/javascript-unit-testing-using-dependency-injection/

<comment><USER2> Seems kind of odd to use core assert and manual stubbing of meethods combined with mocha, but it kind of reminds me of the fun I've had with Ruby meta programming.. with much uglier syntax.

</comment><comment><USER3> Looks pretty straight-forward, but are there other projects that do what Rewire does to do a compare and contrast?</comment>


Ask HN:  Best CMS and host for a nonprofit? - <AUTHOR>

I'm helping a friend's organization get a website up, and they have no tech staff and a low budget.  They need several CMS features:
* private pages and document repository for staff only
* public pages and document repository
* event calendar
* ability to manage it without coding
* low-cost (preferably free) hosting (cloud-based or otherwise)
Site traffic will be relatively low, highest expected load is when they run their yearly conference of several hundred people.
The first thing that comes to my mind is a Django-based CMS on GAE, but anyone have any other/better recommendations for such a stack?  Any technology is fine.  Thanks! <comment><USER2> The 42Homes project provides free hosting to region-specific non-profits - <http://42homes.com/>

Like some others have said, WordPress with some plugins is probably the best bet. You could also look at Joomla, but it's quite a bit more advanced and might require a small amount of real training for them to be able to use effectively.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'd suggest wordpress. I would also suggest paying for hosting. Good shared plans can be had very cheaply.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I was checking out Wordpress yesterday but didn't see any obvious way to secure parts of the site to members-only. Is that an addon, or something that comes with their premium version?

<comment><USER4> Wordpress can be easily extended (for free), see for example this:

[http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/ft-password-protect- chil...](http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/ft-password-protect-children- pages/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think you can use Google Apps for this too.

<comment><USER6> I believe Google Apps offers everything you're looking for, including WYSIWYG editing. Get them a domain e.g. at Namecheap. Do the initial DNS configuration (Google Apps' help will tell you what to change). This will also give them separate, Gmail-backed email accounts. The free version currently offers up to 50 accounts. There is also a non-profit version that adds some Premier level features. I haven't looked into how one qualifies, but it probably involves significant documentation of one's non-profit status.

Note: "Powered by Google" appears at the bottom of the page, in the free version -- removable at the Premier level. Also, site design is limited particularly in overall page layout, but there are good options/settings and if you are interested in function over form, and free but robust, it's worth a look. The one limitation is space; for most small organizations it should be plenty, but if you are going to load up with bulky content and/or video, you may want to look elsewhere or be sure to qualify for the non-profit Premier version.</comment></comment>


Can We Build a Sun Screen to Combat Global Climate Change? - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/05/26/ask-ethan-can-we-build-a-sun-screen-to-combat-global-climate-change/ <comment><USER2> Can we genetically engineer ourselves to combat climate change?

Increase melanin, estrogen and growth hormones (increasing surface area), decrease testosterone, reshape fat and vessels, slow down blood flow and other desirable features.

Maybe we should just focus on stopping climate change by controlling consumer habits and bad actors, reducing population and migrating to colder places than intergalactic space reflectors/blockers/reducers.

And we do need better sunscreens.

</comment><comment><USER3> Let's farm Azolla on a massive scale, trigger another Azolla event.

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

Also make it a law for buildings in urban environments to have white roofs. Heat islanding is a very real problem and just painting stuff white seems to help.</comment>


DNA Referees - <AUTHOR> http://euraeka.com/articles/6068932-DNA-referees

<comment><USER2> Your own personal DNA config file, manipulated through lifestyle choices.</comment>


Republican Study Committee disavows copyright reform memo - <AUTHOR> http://www.theamericanconservative.com/an-anti-ip-turn-for-the-gop/

<comment><USER2> Clearly, Hollywood/RIAA has some of the finest politicians money can buy. They got both parties to agree on something.

You'd think with all the anti-SOPA protests that the party that just lost the election would be pushing the issue. Hollywood and the media -- key copyright industries -- have never been friendly to Republicans. So they wouldn't make many new enemies with an anti-copyright position.

Meanwhile, they might be able to detach younger, technology-savvy, Internet- loving freedom junkies from the Democratic party by taking an aggressive stance on that bloc's core issue.

While many HN'ers seem to be donkeys to the core, I daresay a not- insignificant number would vote Republican if that party managed to get its head out of its elephant (the usual idiom features the wrong party's mascot) and put libertarian principles on the front burner.

Of course, hoping that politicians -- of any party -- will behave in a way that's actually in the public interest is probably a lost cause.

<comment><USER3> Most of my friends, tech-savvy or not, are fiscally conservative but socially liberal. If the republican party and its candidates dropped its stance on some of the social issues, I can definitely see them attracting a lot of voters who traditionally vote democrat.

Not to mention the beneficial effects of having people in office who don't think that rape can be legitimate, etc., etc.

<comment><USER2> > rape can be legitimate

Even if that guy actually believes that, it was a _stupid_ thing for him to say. I'm sure that even he himself would agree after the election results.

> fiscally conservative but socially liberal

Is it possible to be socially conservative privately but socially liberal publicly? I'm thinking it's not an inconsistent worldview to believe that things like abortions and homosexuality are morally wrong, yet it is not the government's job to enforce those rules.

I'd believe that most church-going, God-fearing Americans would say adultery is morally wrong, yet few would support making adultery illegal. In fact, most of the Western world looks down on many Muslim countries for their positions on adultery.

When you come right down to it, the reason many Christians believe an omnipotent, omniscient God tells people that it is His will that "Thou shalt not commit adultery," yet chooses not to enforce that moral compass by (for example) bending the rules of reality in a way that makes it physically impossible for us to do so, or making anybody who thinks about it change their mind before they actually do it...is that it is God's will that morality is something humanity should freely choose, rather than something which should be enforced by the power of the Authority above.

I fail to understand why so many self-described Christians do not agree with an argument endorsed by God Himself. But theology is rather far afield from my areas of expertise; perhaps there's something I'm missing.

<comment><USER3> > Is it possible to be socially conservative privately but socially liberal > publicly? I'm thinking it's not an inconsistent worldview to believe that > things like abortions and homosexuality are morally wrong, yet it is not the > government's job to enforce those rules.

I'm glad you clarified what you meant, I thought your first sentence was just referring to hypocrites.

I think it's possible. Your adultery example is good; I personally think that for 99% of people, polygamy doesn't work at best, and harms at worst, but I have zero interest in the government poking its nose into people's relationships, and I'd probably vote for multiple-partner-marriage becoming a recognized legal entity like man-and-woman marriage is today.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I knew it was just too good to be true!

</comment><comment><USER5> Well that didn't last long. It seems the whole party has been affected by Romnesia.</comment>


Is $100,000 middle class in America? - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/wonk/wp/2017/10/25/is-100000-middle-class-in-america/ <comment><USER2> Obviously depends where you are located, and how you define middle class.

FWIW, this article offers a much better definition of middle class based on historical standards in the USA:

> "we define the middle class as a set of financial attributes and assets that > were widely considered an attainable norm in the 1960s"

[http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/are-you- real...](http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/are-you-really- middle-class/)</comment>


Real-world garbage collection with LLVM - <AUTHOR> https://www.gamedev.net/blogs/entry/2256288-real-world-garbage-collection-with-llvm/ <comment><USER2> This really should have (2013) in the title, it's severely out of date at this point in regards to the current status of LLVM

</comment><comment><USER3> That's a 5 year old article, any news on whether LLVM has fixed this stuff?

<comment><USER4> I think LLVM has a new approach to garbage collection, namely statepoints:

[https://llvm.org/docs/Statepoints.html](https://llvm.org/docs/Statepoints.html)

The old gcroot mechanism "is mostly of historical interest at this point".

<comment><USER5> But it's still terrible. And it's their 3rd jit now, the first, his, bring abandoned, the 2nd being extremely limited, and the current also not much better in this regard. Statepoints with OCR for loops is one goody. It's still much easier to use any other jit library written in C for C projects.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Now, if he really upstreamed his fixes... (it says he will, but in the next blog post he immediately backtracks saying 'I still want to ponder submitting an LLVM patch to make all this less hackish, but I also sort of don't really care because my changes are really minimal and doing them "right" would involve a lot of heavy lifting. Maybe I'll tackle it some other time.')

</comment><comment><USER7> Only in HN would we find an article with that title that does not involve any bins and trucks.</comment>


Show HN: Steampunk AWS Ansible Collection - xlab-si https://galaxy.ansible.com/steampunk/aws <comment> xlab-si We just released a brand new AWS Ansible Collection, built from the ground-up using modern libraries and with reliability and robustness in mind. You can get it on [https://galaxy.ansible.com/steampunk/aws](https://galaxy.ansible.com/steampunk/aws). Documentation is available at [https://docs.steampunk.si/aws/](https://docs.steampunk.si/aws/).</comment>


Quibi's CEO Meg Whitman Compared Reporters to Sexual Predators - <AUTHOR> https://www.theinformation.com/articles/quibis-ceo-meg-whitman-compares-reporters-to-sexual-predators?pu=hackernews61grs6&utm_source=hackernews&utm_medium=unlock <comment><USER2> What did she actually (allegedly) say? As far as I can tell from the article she said reporters "groom" sources, and The Information then extrapolated that to draw a comparison to sexual predators because "the term 'grooming' has been used by child safety advocates to describe how predators gain trust with their victims", which seems to be quite a stretch.

<comment><USER3> Not a single article covering this has the quote - they all refer back to the The Information article.

I suspect if the quote was as damning as it is being made out to be, it would be included.

<comment><USER4> They probably don't have the quote. It's not surprising that they don't, because whoever heard it probably wasn't taking notes or something, they're just recollecting what was said. I think it's still pretty clear from the article that the term "grooming" was used as part of a larger analogy between reporters and sexual predators though. Either way, and regardless of how "damning" this actually is, Quibi's response isn't really denying that it happened.

<comment><USER2> If they don't have the quote, a credible journalist wouldn't run the story.

<comment><USER4> I don't agree with that. Obviously it's better to have a quote, but in many cases having an exact quote isn't possible. Most "credible journalists" write stories detailing "what happened" all the time without exact quotes, because if that was the standard required then we would never hear about anything that wasn't public.

<comment><USER2> This is someone who was in a meeting and decided to go leak something they heard to a journalist. Asking them to recall more than "she used the word grooming" is not a high bar to clear. You can believe whatever you like but it doesn't clear my threshold for credibility.

<comment><USER4> It wasn't just the word "grooming" \- the source(s) leaked that she compared journalists to sexual predators _and_ used the word "grooming". How much more detailed could a source be without a quote if the quote was something like "journalists are like sexual predators - they groom their sources etc. etc."?

Totally fair not to believe the article. I do, because if it didn't happen then Quibi would have said so in their response (they didn't - it's a classic denial-non-denial). But even if you don't, credible journalism doesn't use exact quotes all the time.

<comment><USER3> I don't see anything in the article to indicate it wasn't just the word grooming. To quote the relevant part:

She compared how reporters develop a friendly rapport with sources to how sexual predators "groom" children they're targeting, the two people said. The term 'grooming' has been used by child safety advocates to describe how predators gain trust with their victims. Whitman's comments upset some Quibi employees who described them as strange and off-putting.

That's it. She used the word "grooming," and then some commentary from third- parties about grooming being used to describe sexual predators. Except it's also been used to describe, you know, cultivating a contact. It's an old idiom. Additional context could further strengthen the assertion that this was meant to be related to sexual predators, except "journalists are like sexual predators" _isn 't_ being described as having been said.

As to a non-denial denial: "This reporting from The Information is materially inaccurate" is a moderately strong denial from a PR hack.

You're free to extrapolate from that as much as you like, but it just isn't there. There's no meaningful amount of information to conclude what she meant in one direction or another. I think given the incentives of the media outlet to generate controversy, it's safe to assume that if this is the most smoke they could generate, there likely isn't any fire.

<comment><USER4> Worth noting that Whitman has acknowledged the reporting was accurate and apologized.

<comment><USER2> Well, I stand corrected then.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think she's referring to the social engineering part of the activity of getting people on the inside to open up and give up company information.

From a psychological perspective she's probably right. The results sought are obviously quite different.

<comment><USER6> I know Meg, she wouldn't mean it in a way "journalists are rapists" but more like "journalists/corporate espionage are relentless (with the same intensity) as sexual predators" in the pursuit of company secrets".

I remember there was a couple of similar incidents issue while in HP, so she's been burnt before.

Edit: added a couple of words for clarity

<comment><USER7> "similar incidents issue while in HP"

Considering the politics at HP and all the crazy things that happened, I'm not sure journalists were were even required to get less than positive news out of HP. Plenty of folks inside HP playing games there before and after she left.

<comment><USER6> It wasn't "positive news", there were some things that we planned to be announce at a certain date/time (e.g. Monday after NYSE trading closing) and they would be leaked on Friday or during the weekend. And some sensitive news (e.g. M&A's).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Louis Brandeis and Samuel Warren published the first notable article about privacy in 1890, "The Right to Privacy".[0] It's often cited for the "the right to be let alone".

What's not well known is that its focus was newspaper reporting, which it basically characterized as "gossip".

0) [https://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/6.805/articles/priv...](https://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/6.805/articles/privacy/Privacy_brand_warr2.html)

</comment><comment><USER9> As with previous articles [1], The Information has unlocked this one for HN readers. Thanks! We've changed the URL from [https://www.theinformation.com/articles/quibis-ceo-meg- whitm...](https://www.theinformation.com/articles/quibis-ceo-meg-whitman- compares-reporters-to-sexual-predators).

[1] [https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20%22the%20information%22%20unlock&sort=byDate&type=comment)

<comment><USER10> The article is an unsubstantiated lie though.

<comment><USER9> If you can demonstrate that it's a lie, we'd certainly moderate it differently.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> HN's comment policy on arguing in good faith seems to apply to this story. Surely we can read her comment and understand her intent rather than find a way to be upset? The media is served by manufacturing and fanning outrage. The HN community shouldn't be part of that, IMO.

<comment><USER12> > Surely we can read her comment and understand her intent rather than find a > way to be upset?

It would be helpful if the article _actually included the comment_. Instead, it's hard to discuss at all, since it's a very hollow story.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> "But children, I submit, cannot be fooled. They can only be betrayed by adults, not fooled—for adults, unlike children, are fooled very easily, and only because they wish to be. Children—innocence being both real and monstrous— intimidate, harass, blackmail, terrify, and sometimes even kill one another. But no child can fool another child the way one adult can fool another. It would be impossible, for example, for children to bring off the spectacle—the scandal—of the Republican or Democratic conventions. They do not have enough to hide—or, if you like, to flaunt."

—James Baldwin, "Dark Days" [1]

[1] [https://classic.esquire.com/article/1980/10/1/dark- days](https://classic.esquire.com/article/1980/10/1/dark-days)

</comment><comment><USER14> I can't speak to the article in question. But the Quibi CES 2020 keynote is worth a watch

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXOG9yNRjxk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXOG9yNRjxk)

The idea of using a camera's extended sensory capabilities to create new video viewing experiences is quite exciting.

But Quibi feels high risk. Even with old masters such as Spielberg at the helm, asking consumers in the age of TikTok to pay for a four minute film seems worthy of scrutiny ;)

<comment><USER15> I hope the different edits for portrait and landscape eventually become standard.

I also think the short, serial stories by prolific and talented people is a good idea, assuming there are a lot of episodes and they release frequently. I'd hoped for more of that on YouTube.

I don't think Quibi will be the service providing these feature in five years though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Huh? She's not complaining about something in her personal life. She's complaining about press coverage of her startup having trouble getting another funding round. That's ordinary business news. It's something VCs, suppliers, customers, and competitors all want to know if they're in that sector. It's probably known outside the company, since fund-raising will have been in progress.

</comment><comment><USER7> I suppose there has always been tension between executives and reporters or more generally what folks call "the media" these days.

But I find the rhetoric and severity of the language used extremely disheartening. So many folks willing to throw such vitriol towards people and things it feels like folks want to race towards the only valid information is that are those echoing in our heads...

<comment><USER17> This came up earlier in the week. An excellent, if depressing, summary of lot of new behavioural norms on the net and beyond.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22101244](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22101244)

<comment><USER7> Thank you for that link.

I think I saw that link and honestly misread the title and figured it was a story about fake beef and moved on... maybe that says something too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I have trouble understanding why anyone would possibly care about this story.

<comment><USER19> It's a new twist in the war between tech and media companies for a prominent CEO to speak this strongly, even if her current company isn't so prominent and even if what she said wasn't intended to be public.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> So basically whenever there's ulterior motive (profit, sex, whatever... but mostly profit or sex), the relationship's tainted? Not very shocking. Ever befriend a real estate agent who then finds out you're selling a house? Ever spend a year as a friend with someone before realizing that person won't rest until they can bang you? Ever befriend ANYONE in an MLM scheme or end up with one in your extended family (ugh)? Ever marry someone to become a citizen? Ever wonder why your wife wants to keep hanging out with that one particular couple only to find out she has a crush on the other dude? Etc.

With regards to reporting, it is probably worse lately than in past years what with the rather severe need to twist things into clickbait to get ad dollars instead of being boringly sincere.

</comment><comment><USER21> She's not wrong.

Talking to journalists is vanity, and that's how many reporters justify obtaining peoples trust and then betraying it. Personally, I thought quite a few journalists I met were actuated by a kind of sadism, where to bait and smite people they envied was something they really enjoyed. Comparing this trap setting mentality to a perversion is not as far a leap as it might seem. The lunatics who threaten and harass them are no better, but the whole thing is a seedy enterprise. Whitman is right to caution staff about them.

Anyone who has had their reputation harmed by having a quote taken out of context and used to drive a writers narrative can attest to this. Journalism as a story form relies on conflict, and preying on vanity to draw people into conflict is literally the game.

</comment><comment><USER22> Just because attention is unwelcome does not necessarily mean it's unwarranted</comment>


Unconference about online media and the future of journalism / May 2, SF - <AUTHOR> http://remakecamp.eventbrite.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> Paul Biggar (YC - NewsLabs) is among the speakers

</comment><comment><USER2> That's a really good ticket pricing strategy.

<comment><AUTHOR> I plan to have all tickets free. 10$ tickets are just to convince people to sign up. If they will sell out I just add more free tickets.

<comment><USER2> That works even better.</comment></comment></comment>


Design for Hackers: Why You Hate Comic Sans - <AUTHOR> http://www.kadavy.net/blog/posts/why-you-hate-comic-sans/ <comment><USER2> He keeps saying it's an 'unattractive font', but the truth is, it became popular because so many people like it.

Here's the kicker: It's only 'unattractive' to people who know everything about typefaces. Nobody else cares, and they find it pleasing.

<comment><USER3> I don't think people really like it, they pick it because their choices are overwhelming, confusing and subtle.

Comic Sans' message is obvious, it's easy to pick out in the long list of fonts in Word and has a memorable name. It's obviously and painfully friendly and playful.

How are normal people supposed to be able to tell that a font like Georgia is also much friendlier than the angular and rickety Times New Roman while at the same time being entirely appropriate for nearly every imaginable formal setting (unlike Comic Sans)?

Friendly fonts exists on everyones' PC, it's just that Word's font picker doesn't allow you to tell the difference at a glance unless it's really obvious like in the case of Comic Sans.

Using fonts is hard, that's why most people who are not used to doing it and have no experience with it pick extreme fonts with obvious differences.

<comment><USER4> Is there a website/app/service that will ask you what features you want of a font and it will show you recommendations?

<comment><USER5> I haven't seen one, but it could be a fairly nice weekend project. Use a couple of hacks[1] to get the fonts, compare that with a list of font uses, and ask the user:

What's the emotion to be conveyed? Where's it used? (Heading, wherever)

Then, display the top font, and a visual list of choices. I suppose that one could also link to free OSS fonts as well, but that would likely have to be second-tier compared to using what's on the computer already.

1\. <http://www.lalit.org/lab/javascript-css-font-detect>

<comment><USER6> I would love to do this as a weekend project, although I don't have the first clue as to what fonts should be recommended based on what uses are intended. Anyone interested in collaborating? I'll do the backend and you develop the questions and font recommendations.

<comment><USER5> PM'd you. I do front-end as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> People with dyslexia apparently find Comic Sans substantially easier to read than many other common computer fonts: <http://www.dyslexic.com/fonts>

It would be interesting to have something similar to CSS media queries for screen size for accessibility flags. Making it easier to change fonts for dyslexic people or color schemes for colorblind people would be great.

<comment><USER8> Your summary is much more emphatic ("people"; "substantially easier") than any of the research I've seen.

As for color schemes: any scheme which makes a website unreadable by the color blind will make it mostly unreadable by everyone else, too: human vision distinguishes shapes and details mainly via lightness contrast.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Thank you, this was a very convincing statement on a subject that I usually cannot find a solid answer to. I have queried quite a few designers on Comic Sans as to why they hated it. Most of the time the answer is "Cause it sucks". Sometimes the answer is "because it is used everywhere". However, in terms of the web, there are a couple of surveys showing the usage of Comic Sans is pretty far down the list. Why don't design schools teach designers how to articulate why something is bad? Even if the answer is "because it evokes a negative emotional response" should be followed up with some description of the kind of emotion it invokes and hard data.

</comment><comment><USER10> McSweeney's imagined monologue <http://www.mcsweeneys.net/links/monologues/15comicsans.html>

<comment><USER11> I love this piece. It gave me a hard kick in the face, and I kindof liked it =)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Holy cow. Aside from the terrible kerning, Comic Sans actually looks pretty reasonable without anti-aliasing.

And even saying that makes me feel dirty. :(

<comment><USER13> I think the small font size may be a factor too. Some of the 'yuk' factor of Comic Sans comes from seeing it too many times in poster sizes, usually in a range of colours too, with the large size accentuating the poor letter spacing demonstrated in the article.

Served up small, Comic Sans doesn't have quite the same feel of awfulness.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I never really wondered why Everyone hates comic sans so much,that much is obvious. What I want explained is why everyone _loves_ helvitica _so_ much. It's just a plain but readible font, there are _tons_ of those.

<comment><AUTHOR> Personally, I actually don't like Helvetica. It produces a rough texture, and I don't feel that the forms are harmonious. I adore Akzidenz Grotesk (the predecessor of Helvetica), but it's much less common.

I concede, however, that Helvetica really is an excellently readable and anonymous font.

<comment><USER15> I really like Helvetica, although I also really like Akzidenz (perhaps more). I'm not entirely sure why, but Akzidenz seems to be used a lot in German print and often looks downright gorgeous when paired with a good font for copy. For example, Fluter has some nice design… [example (PDF)]([http://www.fluter.de/heftpdf/issue95/artikel9084/pdf_article...](http://www.fluter.de/heftpdf/issue95/artikel9084/pdf_article9084.pdf)).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Can't help but link to an old favourite picture of mine, seems appropriate.

<http://www.corincole.com/misc/random_pics/comicsans.jpg>

 _edit: in case it's ambiguous, 'mine' refers to it being my favourite, not my photo_

<comment><USER17> Funny that someone feels fit to critique the use of a particular font, but has no clue how to use proper capitalization.

Now I'm imagining a copy of the _Chicago Manual of Style_ , all in Comic Sans.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I don't think aliased 12px Comic Sans (a heavily hinted font, with large x-height and even strokes, designed explicitly for the screen) can fairly be compared with whatever Garamond variant he flashed on screen (a font intended for use with high-resolution printing on paper, by appearances not at all hinted, and maybe even a type 1 font). A reasonable comparison would be to Verdana or Georgia, which would nicely show the Comic Sans version to be dramatically worse looking.

</comment><comment><USER18> Comic Sans is despised precisely because middle-aged, middle-class moms love it. It's not great, but it's not as terrible as the design snobs, itching to deploy their portfolio of expensive Zapf typefaces, are making it out to be.

You want a _bad_ font? Try the garbage that MTV used for titling in the mid-90s. They stopped using nice, clean Kabel for music video lower thirds and started using this uneven-baseline, uneven-stroke-width trash font.

The 90s sucked in so many ways...

</comment><comment><USER19> The nerd and wannabe designer in me was fascinated by reading the article, but I struggled with the takeaways other than a detailed reason to "not use comic sans" (which I think I've been able to do post 1997.)

Are there more conclusions in the article that I should apply to my designs beyond the typography choice?

<comment><USER20> Consiration of text weight translates directly to design weight all across. Text is meant to be read, therefore even weight helps the eye move quickly, smoothly across it like a well-paved road. This might not be the goal you're shooting for in a page design though!

Aliasing and antialiasing is a big deal with web design as well. Oftentimes making your designs match the pixel grid will render them uniquely sharp allowing smaller details to be visible. If you miss the pixel grid you'll deal with antialiasing tech which will induce a subtle blur. Either effect may be desirable.

Finally, it's always worth refreshing the value of detail in design. The pixel level comparison of Garamond, Helvetica, and Comic Sans can be inspiration for the level of detail required to make a truly lively design.

<comment><USER19> Thanks, that sounds so well thought out and reinforces to me that there's a lot I need to learn.

But at the same time, I barely understand what you wrote :(

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I know, I post this on EVERY Comic Sans thread. But, it's still awesome, so I'll post it again. The Best Comic Sans Story Ever: [http://www.metafilter.com/86695/I-thought-I-was-the-only- one...](http://www.metafilter.com/86695/I-thought-I-was-the-only-one#2824387)

<comment><AUTHOR> I hadn't seen that before - it's moving and funny at the same time. Thanks for that :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I appreciate that Kadavy actually delves into the technical deficiencies of Comic Sans before he gets to the real heart of the matter at the end.

He misses the larger 'hacker design' point, however - unless you are an experienced designer, you are much better off picking a standard classic font, such as Helvetica, than trying to get all 'design-y' and picking some weird display font, in the mistaken belief that somehow this is adding 'personality' to your design.

<comment><AUTHOR> > unless you are an experienced designer, you are much better off picking a > standard classic font, such as Helvetica

I'll definitely be making a similar recommendation in my book. Thanks for reading.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I have a friend who works at a well known management consulting firm. One of his clients insisted that every deck was done in Comic Sans. The client already had a bad reputation, and this quirk just made it worse.

<comment><USER24> Rookie mistake. Always have a no comic sans clause in your contracts. If the client asks to remove the clause during negotiations, run.

<comment><USER25> You seriously have a comic sans clause? Any chance of a quote of the legalese around that?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> This article is very interesting, but as a comic sans hater myself, I don't think it's really the technical details of the typography that are at the root of my loathing.

I have the same hopeless feeling when I receive a letter in comic sans as when my boss's assistant sends me an email with a 1Mo gif saying "happy new year" or when I see a billboard ad where the pixels are 10cm wide because someone thought resizing the 100x100px jpg in MS paint would do the trick. Or, more extreme, when I found this website yesterday: <http://taxis75.fr/> .

The annoying part is that it looks unprofessional, and out of place. It makes me think the person didn't even _try_ , didn't even take 2 seconds to contemplate the result of their "work" and realize what a mess it is. As someone who tries to be perfectionist, not to overlook the details; seeing people making such a terrible work and getting away with it is a bit offensive. And when I receive a letter or a service note written in comic sans, I feel it's disrespectful.

<comment><USER27> > I don't think it's really the technical details of the typography that are > at the root of my loathing.

> The annoying part is that it looks unprofessional, and out of place.

I submit that the reason behind sentence two are the technical details mentioned in sentence one.

<comment><USER26> Well, it's designed to be a "comics" font, it doesn't really try to hide it. It's by design, not a technical failure. The name of the font alone should tell anyone it's a no-go for any serious communication.

<comment><USER27> Correct - that doesn't disagree with my point. The technical details of the look of the font are _why_ it looks like a comics font.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> For obvious reasons, I'm reminded of this marvellous (true) story about recognising, rewarding, and hating Comic Sans - [http://www.johnbraine.com/2010/10/the-king-of-comic- sans.htm...](http://www.johnbraine.com/2010/10/the-king-of-comic-sans.html)

In actual fact, I support the continuation of Comic Sans solely so I can share that link / story with people.

</comment><comment><USER29> Because what's a sans face without a serif? Introducing Comic Serif!

Download: <http://www.dafont.com/hvd-comic-serif.font>

Real life examples: <http://www.idsgn.org/posts/comic-sans-comic-serif/>

FYI: This is a real font, though these sites have some NSFW language.

</comment><comment><USER30> I agree that comic sans is the wrong choice of font in most applications, both from a legitimacy and readability standpoint. However, if you're into game development, I've discovered no better font for in-game text. Almost all other popular fonts looks out of place in a game.

<comment><USER31> I agree. I'd love to hear of a readily available font that has similar feel.

In games, I occasionally use a font called Galette Medium, but it has a decidedly different feel.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> >When aliased at 12px, Comic Sans is more readable than Garamond.

It's also bigger. Why not increase the Garamond size until it fits the same amount of text in the box?

I could believe that comic sans is still more readable, but this doesn't seem a fair comparison.

(For that matter, what does "12px" even mean, when one font seems to be larger than the other in both x and y directions?)

<comment><USER33> Font measurements are given in terms of the "em square", a notional square inside which each glyph sits (this is why the CSS "em" unit has "1em" equalling "the current font size"). A 12px font should have each glyph fit within the same 12×12px square. Exactly where the characters are drawn in that square, and at what relative size, is up to the designer - but usually they're drawn so that the em covers the distance from the bottom of lower-case descenders (j, p, q, y) to the top of ascenders (b, d, k, l).

Historically, in the days when a "font" meant "a set of metal blocks of uniform size with a glyph engraved on the end of each one", the "font size" was the height of each block of metal, which was an important thing to know when all the metal blocks used to set a page of type had to physically sit next to each other.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Does anybody know what font Larry Gonick uses in his "Cartoon Guide to..." books? It's informal and cartoonish, but it doesn't bother me (in the context of Gonick's books). I wouldn't want to read a novel in it.

<comment><USER35> It is a custom font based on his own handwriting.

[http://www.simple-talk.com/opinion/geek-of-the-week/larry- go...](http://www.simple-talk.com/opinion/geek-of-the-week/larry-gonick-geek- of-the-week/)

If you're looking for comic book fonts, Blambot has some nice ones, used throughout the industry.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Comic sans is popular because it is unpretentious, disarming, casual, and playful - it looks a bit childish, messy, and handwritten. It's interesting to read why designers don't like it, but they are completely wrong to "hate" it or advocate that people stop using it. Were comic sans "properly" designed, it would likely look overly clean and pretentious, the opposite of the effect people use it for.</comment>


Ask HN: Why do people keep saying that software interview process is broken? - <AUTHOR> The companies that are trying to push this agenda are companies that are in business of selling interview/collaboration tools.
I accept that the interview process can be improved but not so much as broken. I still feel that the ability to solve data structures and algorithms problems is a good measure of swe skill. Though one can argue that swe is much more than just ds and algo problems. But it still is a good measure.
Please give me an alternate perspective here? <comment><USER2> Look.

After a certain point, software engineering becomes less about handling raw data structures, or coming up with some whizbang new algo and devolves to a matter of A)plumbing and B)bridging the gap between what everyone thinks the machine is doing vs. what it really is.

I keep around my old CS textbooks. Why? Because I know they have valuable details on algorithms and such in them. Those have been sorted out, are good things to refresh every now and again, and are important in terms of knowing in which circumstances they should be applied; but don't ask someone to play the part of a compiler. Also, all that pales in comparison to the importance of actually being able to cobble together, understand, and reason through systems, and to explain the "why"s of different implementations.

I also don't believe anyone should come out of an interview empty handed, which happens more often than not with places that fall back on "lets see how they do on brain teasers!" I do my best to shift interviewers towards actually talking problems they're having or things they think they'll have problems with to get a feel for whether I might be able to immediately help them or not.

I don't find that the traditional whiteboarding exercise is helpful, especially when I tend not to do my best work until I have time to reflect on a problem without it being the spotlight of a social interaction.

All that being said, I'm not sure there is much that will change about it in the long run. So, I just try to get practice when I can.

</comment><comment><USER3> I have a CS degree from MIT. I built numerous systems at edX that are still in place today. At Stripe I've worked on software used by many of the folks here, and far more outside of this forum.

I haven't focused on data structures or algorithms since early interviews when I graduated. My most complex data structures are usually hashmaps. The most complex algorithm I've written mostly deals with heuristic string matching to account for human error. I last used binary trees directly about 3-4 years ago.

I can probably do many of the software jobs in industry today, but I wouldn't get them because most of the interviews are focused on measuring skills that have little to do with the actual job. All I need is Apple and Netflix to be able to say I've bombed interviews at all the FAANG companies.

</comment><comment><USER4> It's broken because the interview has little to no correlation of on-the-job success. The current process does a poor job answering: "Can the candidate succeed in the role we need filled?"

<comment><USER5> Nearly every other industry has things worse. We just like to complain.

<comment><AUTHOR> Also, we are very quick to jump the bandwagon and not analyse it objectively. The people who say the interview process is broken are themselves selling the same solution just in a different medium.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> incrediable

<comment><AUTHOR> Can you please elaborate on this? Might give me a better viewpoint.</comment></comment>


Our Civic Duty as Techies - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@USCTO/our-civic-duty-as-techies-fd2008df76e4#.f0ee1jqjf <comment><USER2> Excited to be at USDS telling stories about how tech in government has already changed the lives of so many Americans.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I work at 18F on cloud.gov.

Shameless plus: I'm giving a talk on cloud.gov at Structure 2016 in SF next week. [1]

[1]: [http://www.structureconf.com/structure-2016/schedule/](http://www.structureconf.com/structure-2016/schedule/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Yes! It is our Duty. We, collectively, can change the way people experience Government services.

</comment><comment><USER4> there was very little information about what steps to take or who to contact to get involved. does anyone know, specifically, how to help out?

<comment><AUTHOR> [https://join.18f.gov](https://join.18f.gov)</comment></comment>


$2,000 Custom PC vs. $4,000 Mac Pro - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDmOHU6lmRw <comment><AUTHOR> I wonder how Apple gets away with its under powered machines. Is it marketing or something else?

This custom PC uses following components:

Intel i7-5820K CPU – [http://amzn.to/21TmH82](http://amzn.to/21TmH82)

Corsair H115i CPU Cooler – [http://amzn.to/1p95eKU](http://amzn.to/1p95eKU)

ASRock X99e-ITX Motherboard – [http://amzn.to/21TmTE9](http://amzn.to/21TmTE9)

Corsair Vengeance 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 RAM – [http://amzn.to/21Tn16S](http://amzn.to/21Tn16S)

Crucial MX200 500GB SSD – [http://amzn.to/21Tn7LB](http://amzn.to/21Tn7LB)

Samsung 950 Pro M.2 NVMe SSD – [http://amzn.to/1pt0FLx](http://amzn.to/1pt0FLx)

EVGA GTX 980 Ti Hybrid Graphics Card – [http://amzn.to/1pt0JL8](http://amzn.to/1pt0JL8)

EVGA P2 750W Power Supply – [http://amzn.to/1p95Dgp](http://amzn.to/1p95Dgp)

Fractal Design Nano S mini-ITX Case – [http://snazzy.fm/PT7F3](http://snazzy.fm/PT7F3)</comment>


Why Are Dead People Liking Stuff On Facebook? - <AUTHOR> http://readwrite.com/2012/12/11/why-are-dead-people-liking-stuff-on-facebook#awesm=~o9B9cbHZDdO1h2 <comment><USER2> I am not convinced by the explanation from the Facebook spokesperson. I am an active Facebook user and I am not a basketball fan but there have been atleast 2 or 3 instances where I noticed that I had to "unlike" the basketball page and I have no recollection of "liking" the page ever.

I don't follow basketball so its very unlikely that I would find its Facebook page and "like it".</comment>