Without morality, the market economy will destroy itself - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/21/morality-capitalism-missing-link-marketplace <comment><USER2> We haven't actually given a genuine 'market economy' a chance to prove itself. One critical aspect of this is taxation. We all know that the big multinational companies can put their profits somewhere else, where they will not get taxed. In most cases this is fully legal even if it is morally wrong.

There is also the matter of subsidy and when the government bails a company out. Old business models get kept running when the invisible hand of the market would have swept them to one side, maybe to allow new business models to take hold.

Then there is outright corruption - backhanders to win government contracts. This is not 'letting the market decide'.

Even worse there is the likes of Lockheed Martin able to own the government, listen in through NSA on rival contractors bids and win favourable contracts for themselves and the companies they do business with.

Then there is the small matter of law. Larger businesses can get away with polluting the environment and running unfair business practices that mean their rivals are not playing on a level playing field.

Also, there are costs to business that are not paid for by those businesses. If the taxpayer is expected to pay for the road to an industrial estate on a greenfield site just to get some lousy business to setup in that area then again this is not 'market economy'.

Also there are those government services that are sold on the private marketplace. For instance, the market in weather information, e.g. for television news, should be a profitable one, however, if the government's private arm of their weather service - e.g. the UK Met Office - competes in that space then again things are not fair.

However you look at it we have not got a 'market economy', we have something corrupt, with cronies and their backhanders rigging the marketplace. It is not free and fair trade. We can forget about 'morality', let's just do things by the book.

<comment><USER3> Real capitalism has never worked "by the book". "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and expecting a different result."

<comment><USER4> Have you read his comment ? Or you just wanted to make a blanket statement devoid of sense?

<comment><USER3> Of course I've read it. However, demanding that capitalism work according to how Milton Friedman or anyone else described it is about as effective as _demanding_ that it rain tomorrow, simply because it was forecasted to do so. You're standing there shaking your fist because reality doesn't want to conform to the stories you've told yourself.

Or the original poster could be trying to _impose his story on reality_ , in which case I'd have to ask why he thinks that's such a great story in the first place[1]!

[1] [http://jacobinmag.com/2013/09/dont-mention-the- war/](http://jacobinmag.com/2013/09/dont-mention-the-war/)

<comment><USER5> The poster isn't painting capitalism with a broad brush, we're specifically talking about a free market economy.

We've never seen how a free market economy actually works because we don't let free market economies form without first destroying them via regulation.

We have models which persuasively suggest that a free market economy would be the most efficient possible form of trade, or at least way _more_ efficient than our overrregulated fustercluck.

So the poster seems to be saying "jeeze, why don't we try an actual free market economy"!

Which seems eminently reasonable to me, and not at all "imposing his story on reality".

<comment><USER3> This is equivalent to saying that criticisms of the Soviet Union have nothing to do with socialism because, "Workers controlling the means of production has never been tried!"

Yes it has. If you are going to claim that your desired system has never existed on the face of Earth, then your desired system is a utopian ideal that most likely _cannot_ exist in the real world, or worse, would behave like a standard revolutionary utopia by _destroying actually existing societies_ when you attempt to create it.

Oh, wait, _that 's exactly how neoliberalism behaves._

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

<comment><USER5> >This is equivalent to saying that criticisms of the Soviet Union have nothing to do with socialism because, "Workers controlling the means of production has never been tried!"

The word you want is _communism_ , not socialism. And the criticism is valid: the USSR was far from a communist state. It was more like a mixed economy leaning communist. Nobody is going to deny that there were elements of socialism in the USSR, just as there are elements of socialism in the USA now. Socialism != communism.

And I'll repeat: we're talking about a specific thing, _not_ all capitalism. This thread is re: whether or not pure _free markets_ work, not whether or not capitalism works. Hence your link misses the point; as, I suspect, do you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I always wonder why people bring up the 2008 crisis as an example of the problems with Capitalism; in my view, it was just the self balancing mechanisms inherent in the market economy kicking in. The fact the crisis happened at all is a testament to the viability and adaptability of Capitalism. State sponsored market deficiencies can go for much longer and have worse implications.

I don't like the tone of that article at all. When you start demanding that morality, for all its subjectivity and relativity, be involved with economics, you invite troubles. The next step is for morality to be mandated through regulations. Such regulations rarely do more than benefit specific players, those who know how to bend the rules or those with higher up connections.

While I was expecting the author to call for such regulation, he surprisingly didn't.

In my view, the correct way of fighting monopolies would be using the great social tools at our disposal to make consumers more informed about the distant implications of their buying decisions. This will create an informed Capitalism, one where in the consumers are the ultimate regulators.

<comment><USER7> _In my view, the correct way of fighting monopolies would be using the great social tools at our disposal to make consumers more informed about the distant implications of their buying decisions. This will create an informed Capitalism, one where in the consumers are the ultimate regulators._

Can't upvote this enough.

<comment><USER8> Great idea/ideal, and I share it... but until I'm wearing a HUD that can tell me what materials and processes in which factories and ports were used at each step of production and distribution contributing to each lot of cereal in the store, I'm not really informed enough at the point of economic decision to accurately reflect my utility function through my purchases. And good luck getting the producers of goods to share details even approaching that. As a class, they routinely fight additional labeling of their products, getting access to their production and distribution databases will be a far worse fight.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Without morality, people will destroy themselves regardless of their socio- political-economic system.

</comment><comment><USER10> I didn't find a single argument in favor of the claim in the title, i.e. that the market economy will somehow destroy itself without morality. It's just a firm belief the author has, or perhaps a hope ...

<comment><USER11> Yes, there's zillions of better articles. But why would a serious argument against markets be voted up here? (Any serious market abolitionist would explain pervasive externalities, enormous inefficiency of markets, rewarding participants for acting sociopathically and punishing others, etc.) But this is a place where people discuss hawking things called "minimum viable products" and so on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I used to believe that at least the _consumer_ market economy would start to correct itself once we reached the point where there were no longer enough gainfully employed people to buy the goods and services being offered. And that would push corporations to start to re-hire the unemployed and not slash to the bone in pursuit of astronomical quarterly gains.

But that was a very myopic, "developed" nation view. I hadn't considered the use of cheap global labor and the rise of the middle and upper classes in developing nations that would provide the necessary demand for goods and services, making the "workers" in developed nations mere surplus to be discarded/ignored. (I'm watching "A Christmas Carol" right now.)

</comment><comment><USER13> Reminds me of "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." (John Adams)

</comment><comment><USER14> "Friedrich Hayek once said that to complain about the workings of the market was like complaining about the weather. But at least the Met Office never colonised our souls."

Seems to be a lot of expressions like that in left wing journalism. "Colonised our souls." Like all of a sudden you're reading a Yeats poem.

<comment><USER15> In my experience you almost never see phrases like that being used, certainly not in news sections. In any case, this article is an opinion piece, on Comment Is Free, which is a free-for-all, and it's not written by a journalist, but by an aide to the Archbishop of Canterbury.

For those who don't know, the Archbishop of Canterbury is the leader of the Church of England, and the current incumbent, Justin Welby, used to a finance executive in the oil industry, and tends to be engaged with these sorts of issues.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is a bit off topic, but I hate it when they use pictures of malls to illustrate capitalism. I consider myself a capitalist and I despise malls, they represent mindless consumerism. They might be somewhat related to capitalism, but they will never be a paradigmatic example.

<comment><USER3> Capitalism _needs_ consumerism to deal with its overproduction crises. The imagined "sober Protestant bourgeois ethic" of capitalism stopped having any basis in reality hundreds of years ago, around the time usury and Enclosure Laws, and Poor Laws were used to evict the peasantry from their land to forcibly create a landless proletariat.

<comment><USER7> _Capitalism needs consumerism to deal with its overproduction crises._

This only illustrates the fact that "capitalism" and "free markets" are not synonymous. In a free market, producers who overproduce go out of business.

<comment><USER17> Actually, in a free market overproducers try like hell to increase demand. They do that through better advertising, which these days means directed advertising. Mass media (starting with newspapers) has really changed the way the world works because it gives producers a way to affect the very fabric of society. Advertisements, TV commercials, billboards - we just accept these as part of the landscape. We accept the constant intrusion of private enterprise to influence our thought, which is strange indeed.

Mark Twain wrote a remarkable little book called "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court", which to me is the quintessentially American book on capitalism as it is fetishized by Ayn Rand etc. The man travels back in time, and proceeds to use his technical knowledge to enrich himself, and civilize the medieval society. One of the steps he takes is to introduce advertising to the knights shields. This is presented un-ironically.

Of course Twain grew up in a very different time where the ratio of city to country was far different, and cities themselves were much humbler affairs. It was easy (and indeed the default) to be "in nature". So the product of "American ingenuity" no matter how crass represented lovely "civilization", and one could turn away from it if one didn't like it, and venture back into the forest. But now, with our mega-cities there are few forests left, and they are far away, and if we turn away from one advertisement we are just confronted with another and another and then another.

<comment><USER7> _Actually, in a free market overproducers try like hell to increase demand._

They can _try_ , yes; but if they don't succeed, they go out of business. In systems that are referred to by the term "capitalism", OTOH, they can often get the government to _force_ increases in demand--for example, railroad owners in the late 1800's who had failed in open competition went to the government to get laws passed that gave them exclusive rights to certain routes.

Also, a free market means that if people choose to buy something, then that something gets made, whether or not it's something that you think "ought" to be made.

 _with our mega-cities there are few forests left_

Do you have any actual numbers to back up this claim? AFAIK there is still a _lot_ of land occupied by forests and other "natural" environments. I live near a major city but there is plenty of forest an hour's drive away. Maybe you need to get out more?

 _if we turn away from one advertisement we are just confronted with another and another and then another_

I think that depends on how you choose to spend your time. Yes, if you spend a lot of time watching TV you can't avoid seeing a lot of ads. I solve that problem by not watching much TV. Similar remarks apply to other kinds of advertising.

Btw, I'm not trying to say I'm in favor of advertising; I'm not. I think most of it is a great waste of effort. But ads aren't aimed at someone like me anyway; they're aimed at people who are actually influenced by them. So if you really want to get rid of ads, you need to find a way to convince people that they shouldn't be influenced by them. Which, btw, is what a true free market requires anyway: it means the responsibility for making sure that your buying decisions reflect your actual values lies with you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The many legions of people more thoughtful than us all throughout the millennia who have moralized against greed might've made a dent by now if moralizing were the answer.

<comment><USER19> "It's not about morality _versus_ markets" (my emphasis)

Markets are a great optimization mechanism. It is up to societies to decide what they should optimize.

<comment><USER18> This is a wonderful way to say it.

My further extrapolation is to turn the full might of the market to advertise and sell poverty relief without treating it like charity but instead treating it like a product. None of the moralizing, just focus on what the purchaser will get out of the exchange, like any other product.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Without morality, ANY social system, not just a market economy, will have problems, since many moral constructs directly lead to social stability. Some basic examples:

1) Thou shalt not steal, cheat, murder, etc... 2) Notions of karma -- i.e. everything you do unto others will come back to you.

</comment><comment><USER21> From the headline I thought this was a stunning result from academia. Then in the first two paragraphs I read the words "Pope", "Rush Limbaugh", "Archbishop", "Jesus", "Marxist", etc.

</comment><comment><USER22> There are no moral phenomena, only moral interpretations.

</comment><comment><USER23> This is true in the sense that a market economy, i.e. capitalism, is based on morality. Few people are aware of the moral justification for capitalism. Morality trumps politics. Without a moral justification, the market economy won't survive.

> "No social system (and no human institution or activity of any kind) can > survive without a moral base. On the basis of the altruist morality, > capitalism had to be—and was—damned from the start." -Ayn Rand, Capitalism: > The Unknown Ideal, 30

<comment><USER24> When was capitalism ever based on altruism? Isn't the idea rather that everybody being as selfish as possible magically leads to good results?

<comment><USER25> The idea you are referring to is about self interest not selfishness.

<comment><USER24> I know that the idea is enlightened self-interest.

Is it in the enlightened self-interest of a person that after they died, there is still life in the Universe? Is it in my enlightened self-interest that those who starve and have no water have a better life?

What, exactly, is the difference between self-interest and selfishness? Is one not just a euphemism for the other?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> The latest podcast of Freakonomics discussed this; believe it or don't, but it was quite thought provoking nonetheless.

</comment><comment><USER27> "Many have argued that capitalism does not offer a satisfactory moral message. But that is like saying that calculus does not contain cabrohydrates, amino acids, or other essential nutrients. Everything fails by irrevelant standards."

\-- Thomas Sowell

<comment><USER28> Wait does that mean slavery is morally neutral?

Because capitalism predates feudalism as the economic model and slavery predates feudalism.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> For some reason, I thought of Rahm Emanual (used to be Obama's chief of staff) when he said "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste" [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yeA_kHHLow](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yeA_kHHLow)

Unfortunately, you have leftist statists that want market economies to fail so they can impose their statist, opressive regimes on people under the guise of "helping the people"

<comment><USER30> > _Unfortunately, you have leftist statists that want market economies to fail > so they can impose their statist, opressive regimes on people under the > guise of "helping the people"_

You really believe this is the case with people like Emanuel and the Obama admin in general? Because, I wonder: what do you think their endgame is? What is their _true_ motivation for wanting to establish a statist, oppresive regime?

It seems to me that we currently have a corporatist regime. If I am to choose between rule by corporations (where the motive is profit) and rule by the state (where I presumably have a voice), I'd choose the latter.

Problem is, however, we currently have the worst of both worlds: rule by a corporatist state.

<comment><USER29> The bottom line (a big one) is that corporations don't have guns and can take you away.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Author: "Malcolm Brown is director of mission and public affairs for the Church of England".

</comment><comment><USER32> All social problems will be eventually solved through technology, not morality.

<comment><USER33> Morality was one of the first technologies.

<comment><USER34> Is this Nietzschean or something? What is it saying?

<comment><USER13> At some point in our past we transitioned from being an amoral animal to a self-aware species with notions of morality. Certain things/behaviors are right and others are wrong. That clearly had a survival advantage.

<comment><USER34> Moral facts are not self-evident. We became aware of disagreement, but about the games we use to describe right and wrong. It's what comes after the "because".

Saying "X is wrong" and "Y knows X is wrong" mean two very different things depending on your analysis. "Notions of morality" is about the first statement _and_ about the second. Does Y know X is wrong in virtue of the moral fact that X is wrong? If grass is green, there's something I'm learning when I read "Grass is green" — or is it upon seeing grass that I know grass is green?

The point here is the features of facts: one does not see the wrongness of an act in the way that one sees grass is green, irrespective to the question of language. Now, of course, morality is primarily codified into symbols — do facts exist here, behind the veil of language? Perhaps. But the main question here is the structure of a fact: Is it a picture? If I know the constant of gravity, I know something about the shape of galaxies through relativity. I can see regularity across the heavens. I can test it and measure its components, but only in virtue of axiomitization, which is linguistic. Well, how does one test morality? Does one collect report on opinion, or does one look into the world to discover their structure? Certainly reports on moral opinion will be picture-like, but do they disclose the structure we would find if morality could be discovered in the world without reports on it? Is direct evidence possible without the existence of indirect evidence?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Are non-collaborative, non-realtime web software looked down upon? - <AUTHOR> I have a neat little idea for a product that I have wanted to build for quite some time. Basically, its a personal tool (in the same vain as excel) that runs in your own computer. A lot of it has to do with form building and CRUD operations (along with pre-save, post-save signals). However, everywhere I look these days, everything is realtime, collaborative and always on. I simply do not have the team/energy/money/skills to pull off something like that. Are tools like the one I described (single user based, runs on your computer with a local db) looked down upon these days? <comment><USER2> If you're building a portfolio piece, to get a job working on web-based software, it might be better to make it a web-based application.

If the software is for yourself or other users, however, judge it first by how well it _meets those users' needs_ , not by whether it uses a trendy programming paradigm, language, or architecture.

I wouldn't think less of anyone for delivering a stand-alone desktop or mobile application, if it gets the job done. Sometimes there isn't much value in sharing information continually with other users or a central service, and the privacy of locally-stored data can be an advantage.</comment>


Sass isn't for me - <AUTHOR> http://nathanborror.com/posts/2009/nov/30/sass-isnt-me/

<comment><USER2> This is a fantastic post and discussion. I've had many a debate about this, and I tend to come down on Jeff Croft's side.

For the record, I'm more of a developer than a designer, but design was my first love, and I've been wrangling HTML by hand for 15 years now, and CSS for 10.

I see the value of Sass. CSS has some really obvious pain points when it comes to things like standardizing color palettes and certain types of design constructs. It doesn't take much to add a lot of value to CSS, which I think Sass does admirably.

But my problem really boils down to the ubiquity of HTML and CSS. Everyone knows it. Windows, Mac, .NET, LAMP, it doesn't matter, everyone uses it. All the tools support it, and all computers have a web browser where you can view the raw files directly.

As soon as you add a pre-processor like Sass that simplicity is gone. You can no longer work with _any_ designer, you need one that has the pre-processor set up and is comfortable with the syntax. In a pinch you can pass the processed CSS to a designer, but then you have a versioning problem, and you are likely creating lots of busy work for yourself.

You face a similar issue with tools. They all support CSS, and some of them have some really cool features that can only come from having a userbase of a million developers battle testing it over years. It's not just text editors I'm talking about here, but debuggers, spiders, javascript libraries, and who knows what else.

So the real issue with any kind of CSS preprocessor is that by choosing it you are limiting your ability to leverage a whole ecosystem of talent and tools. Ideally a really great pre-processor could someday get enough traction to see itself become a standard, but that is not something we can hope for any time soon.

Is the tradeoff worth it?

For me I default to saying no, because I already have learned how to deal with CSS and it's an insignificant pain point to me compared to all the other things that go into building a great web product.

However in the general case costs vary. If your canonical design already lives in a framework like Rails then Sass doesn't really incur any additional tooling cost, because anybody working on the design already has to have the framework running locally anyway. However there are many team structures and workflows where HTML/CSS mockups ideally can stand alone.

I would love to join a team working with Sass, but I don't think I would choose it for a greenfield project (yet).

<comment><USER3> You're not what we call an "early adopter".

<comment><USER2> Sure I am. When I said 10 years on CSS I wasn't kidding. Do you know how few web designers were using CSS in 1999? Also, I started using Rails in early 2005, almost a year before 1.0.

It's sort of insulting to minimize my points by suggesting that I just don't like new stuff.

<comment><USER3> I'm sorry if you took offense. Your arguments are valid ones -- they are borne of wisdom over time that makes you more risk averse. Early adopters throw this kind of caution to the wind because they see promise and are looking for a competitive edge. Instead of waiting for a tool to mature, they help it mature. It's not an insult that you've matured, you should take it as a kind of a compliment.

But the 10 years ago you wouldn't have taken your advice. 10 years ago CSS was not ubiquitous. There were not good tools. The ecosystem was just getting going. And yet somehow the tradeoff was worth it for you.

Technical designers learn sass quickly. They like it and so the tools will follow. The ecosystem will grow. Already Sass experience is considered a plus in job reqs for many forward-thinking startups. Sass and Compass will mature in the next few years, and you're objections will fall by the way side and a few years after that, instead of having a competetive advantage, you'll be at a competitive disadvantage by not using something like it.

I don't know if Sass and Compass will ultimately be the tools of choice for generating CSS, but I'm certain that there will be tools like them.

<comment><USER2> _Instead of waiting for a tool to mature, they help it mature. It's not an insult that you've matured, you should take it as a kind of a compliment._

If that's not a back-handed compliment I don't know what is.

Here's the thing though, I'm not risk averse. I am the first one to jump into a nascent project and throw down code. The problem here is the cost benefit just isn't there for me yet. I feel I have more competitive advantage to gain by working on greater pain points (for me personally) like lack of continuations in Rails, or even something a lot more ambitious like writing a usable web framework in Haskell in order to gain the advantages of pure functional programming.

In other words, just because I don't a big competitive advantage in your project doesn't mean I'm not an early adopter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't see how this is any different from any other Blub paradox: these people don't see what's useful about the features Sass adds to CSS, because they think in CSS, and think the syntax is funny-looking, so they don't want to bother.

<comment><USER5> SASS takes it way too far. CSS is for styling, it's not a programming language and it never should be.

<comment><USER3> That what CSS is, but that doesn't mean that's the only way to style a website. Use your imagination and stop accepting the constraints that have been placed on you by those who got here first.

<comment><USER6> Some constraints are good. If it's not for constraints, you'd have cats marrying dogs and so on. Putting programming logic in a stylesheet language is asking for more complexity, not less.

I agree with the author. CSS is universal. SASS is entirely different language with far less "speakers" and far less support. It may be superior to CSS, but that's only part of the equation.

<comment><USER7> x86 assembly language is similarly universal. Nobody writes in it.

<comment><USER6> CSS is closer to C than x86 (and C is _more_ universal) Are you going to say nobody writes in that, too?

Edit: I meant universal in that everyone reads/writes it -- not that it's the lowest level. Yes, nobody writes x86 so it's not similarly universal. C is pretty universal. Even if you code in Java, C#, or PHP you've still got a lot of C heritage there.

<comment><USER7> I have no idea what your point is. People write in Java, Ruby, Lisp, Javascript, and any of 50 other languages to avoid writing bare-metal C, too.

<comment><USER6> I'm not sure what your point is! Your original comment about x86 doesn't even make sense -- most people don't know x86 assembler! However, _all_ web designers know CSS. Nearly all web developers know CSS. That's what makes it universal! It's not about how low-level it is.

We recently had to fire a design team and are in the process of moving to a different team. If all the styles were in SASS, I'd have a much bigger problem.

Even something like LessCSS has a much smaller learning curve because it looks like CSS. You can use it much more minimally (using only variables, for example) and get a small benefit with a small learning curve. Think of how many of those 50 other languages look like C.

<comment><USER7> It really seems like you don't understand how Sass works, or at least haven't actually run it. If anything, Sass layers _more_ gracefully than C does over x86, since compiler-generated x86 is incomprehensible, and Sass-generated CSS is probably more readable than what a typical designer produces. Sass also promotes CSS best practices, in part by automating them, and in part by providing syntactic sugar for them.

If your designers can't grok Sass, you do what every professional team using template languages has always done; you back-and-forth with the designer in CSS/HTML, and you convert final comps to templates. Designers by and large don't speak Haml, Erb, Clearsilver, or Cheetarah (or Mum-raah or whatever Django calls it) either.

<comment><USER6> The designers produce the CSS, I don't. In most cases, they use their fancy tools to produce it. If they're not using SASS, what's the advantage to me? Why would I convert their CSS to SASS to get the same result in the end?

Templates are a different story -- that's where the design and the functionality meet. I do convert the final comps to templates and if necessary the templates back into static code to repeat the process (rarely necessary, but it happens). This is a necessary evil. Why would I want to perpetuate that evil in CSS as well?

<comment><USER3> You know what's funny: I know of several design firms that are using sass to generate their css and they deliver the generated CSS to their client without ever telling them that they used sass to make their development process faster.

If they had given you their Sass code, you would be empowered to make design changes much more easily that you could have with CSS. If I were you, I'd be demanding that my designers use it ;-)

<comment><USER7> Funny thing about Hacker News, where the guy who wrote Compass gets modded down below the guy criticizing Sass without ever having once used it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> SASS is bad because it got addicted. Starts with math, leads to variables, then someone suggests recursion and iteration. Suddenly you've got a really crappy programming language instead of a useful tool designed to make bullshit easier.

<comment><USER3> Those aspects of the syntax are not there because you're supposed to use them to design a website. They are they because frameworks need a very basic level of programming in order to build simple abstractions. You're supposed to use selectors, properties, and mixins to design your website.

Occasionally, you might see an opportunity to make your own mixins to simplify your site and make your design easier to maintain. When you do, you'll be glad that the mechanisms for abstraction are there for you too, not hidden away from the "designers who have to be protected from code".

<comment><USER8> Well the bad part about Sass is that designers won't work with it. Unless you work on a team of 3 and you've got a programmer that does the CSS, there's no problem, but I think most companies that have 8 or 9 people on staff probably has a full time designer that may or may not like sass.

At least with CSS, everyone is speaking the same language. Also, most big websites end up having CSS in other places other than a central location driven by sass. You'll probably end up having some element level css, maybe a few scattered in various jquery plugins, or one-line jquery hacks for modifying css classes or changing colors etc.

<comment><USER9> Anecdotally, that is not true. I work with a reasonably sized team on a large website. We are collaborating with a well-respected design firm and our teams are both using Sass/Compass. Thus far, I would say it has been a great success.

Variables, arithmetical, and mixin abstractions make the team integration much smoother. All this, and the learning curve is incredibly small.

<comment><USER3> That's awesome. I'd love to hear more about this! Could you please blog or send a posting to the compass mailing list describing your experience in greater detail?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Although I disagree with most of Nathan's points, there is a really good discussion going on.

</comment><comment><USER10> Compile CSS 3 down to CSS 2? Is this guy on crack? How do you compile border- radius or drop shadow down?

<comment><USER3> Like this: [http://github.com/chriseppstein/compass/tree/master/lib/comp...](http://github.com/chriseppstein/compass/tree/master/lib/compass/frameworks/compass/stylesheets/compass/css3/)

Many of the CSS3 attributes are here today in the form of vendor prefixes. But there are subtle vendor differences and you have to duplicate each property several times. It's tedious.

But compass provides a consistent API across all the browsers and it's available today.</comment></comment>


Is it too easy to spam Twitter by using hashtags? - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/jul/08/hashtags-twitter-spam

<comment><USER2> It's way too easy - #beijing is full of spam and reporting it via block or @spam seemingly doesn't help

I've been working on a tool to solve this problem for myself where I can mute bad users or only show known good users : <http://tweetbe.at/>

<comment><AUTHOR> good idea. spam filter for hashtags</comment></comment>


The Self-Serving Myths of Silicon Valley - <AUTHOR> https://jacobinmag.com/2018/11/live-work-die-silicon-valley-review-pein/ <comment><USER2> If tech workers keep traveling down this road, and manage to elicit class consciousness in America's white-collar professionals — a cause long thought to be hopeless — now that would be a true innovation.</comment>


Donald Knuth: My advice to young people - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75Ju0eM5T2c <comment><USER2> > Don't just believe that because something is trendy that it is good

The JS community would do well to listen to this advice. I see a lot of JS developers choosing a library or framework without putting a lot of thought into considering the long term tradeoffs of using such dependencies. This is acceptable for side projects as they're done for learning, but it's irresponsible if you do this for production codebase.

It saddens me that the choice of a tool is driven by resume or coolness factor rather than being the right tool for the job.

<comment><AUTHOR> JS wasn't the first thing I thought of. I was thinking about late AI and machine learning trend. I was so excited about the whole trend as a newbie to ML, especially the "you do X better if you incorporated ML in your logic" thought. While practically true, the trend of jumping into ML as a solution to everything (e.g. wouldn't be nice to have machine tell us which infrastructure event is worth looking at?) often turns into premature solution.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Count your stuff, learn from data - <AUTHOR> http://numbers.today

<comment><USER2> Looks like a data input site .. do you have to manually enter data ? is this another health data repo.. whats unique .. any demo ?

<comment><AUTHOR> You have a tokens section and you can use them to enter data automatically by calling the endpoints from, let's say, anything. Rasperry Pi comes to mind as an example for that.

Demo account: demo/demo

<comment><USER2> means can u enter your data in JSON format ? looks very simple ,in frontend i can see you are using jQuery ..whats the Application layer language/framework. also looks very fast . which db are u using?

<comment><AUTHOR> I have a REST API in place already (you can check the graphs page and use that endpoint to return whatever you want from your data), but read-only at the moment, as I'm doing some adjustments to the 'write' part. You'll be able to insert data in JSON, bulk or not, within days. Need to write documentation and put it live.

The tokens are just a simple GET call you can make and it counts +1 to the dataset (for that token).

The stack is Django, Postgres, uWSGI, nginx.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> You can use HACKERNEWS invite code to play around with it.</comment>


Implantable device aids weight loss - <AUTHOR> https://www.engr.wisc.edu/implantable-device-aids-weight-loss/ <comment><USER2> wonder if you could turn it off/on with an app on your phone. literally put a number in your phone and it turns off/on based on what you weigh.</comment>


40 Maps That Will Help You Make Sense of the World - <AUTHOR> http://twistedsifter.com/2013/08/maps-that-will-help-you-make-sense-of-the-world/ <comment><USER2> Very interesting, thanks</comment>


Let's Play Half-Life Upside Down [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5VTWEQdVhA

<comment><AUTHOR> Games are not the usual fare on Hacker News, but with this creative twist I believe it would qualify as something hackers (and nostalgic Half-Life fans) find interesting.

Part two and three are located here:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBIZt8Pp31Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBIZt8Pp31Q) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZO5_Cv21KsQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZO5_Cv21KsQ)</comment>


Ask HN: I have $25,000 to invest - <AUTHOR> I have $25000 to invest. I am thinking of applying to angel.co but they are asking for $1M is assets! Where can I apply!
I am software engineer in bay area and have experience in programming.
So ideally I would like to invest in a startup that is gaining traction, and need money + expertise !
Any advice? I should be able to contribute both financially and in developing the company!
Any ideas? I am willing to help out a current startup in bay area or remote! <comment><USER2> If you only have $25,000 in savings, please don't invest it in a startup! Until you can write a check that you're okay with never seeing again, you should invest in more conservative assets.

Technically speaking, no private startup can legally take investment from someone who does not meet the SEC's definition of an "accredited investor." The Jobs Act was supposed to change this, but that part of it hasn't come into effect yet sadly.

<comment><AUTHOR> it is what i think I can afford to invest keeping my nest egg safe!

I was thinking of investing as partner, financially + hard work!

<comment><USER3> Putting your nest egg in a startup is very nearly a guarantee that you'll lose it. Even the best of the best are terrible at picking winning startups.

If you want to keep your nest egg and see it grow at least a little bit, you need to find something low-risk, low-reward. Startups are literally the worst thing you could invest in.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Read a little bit about "adverse selection". The startup investment opportunities open to you with this amount of money are likely going to be ones that savvy investors have rejected. The people telling you to put this money into an index fund are right.

<comment><USER5> Not true at all. His experience + $25k pooled with other angels could be valuable to another company.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> If you only have $25k in savings, you'd be better off putting it into a low- risk ETF like Vanguard or similar.

</comment><comment><USER3> $25k in the Bay Area is NOT an amount you should invest. It's something you should save for a rainy day. Of course, savings should be put into something that yields more than a checking account, but that depends a lot on how liquid you need to be.

</comment><comment><USER7> Here's a different slant ...

Why not be a technical co-founder in a startup that you truly believe in. Then use the $25k to support yourself and get the startup to angel stage quickly.

</comment><comment><USER8> The reason investment funds require $1 million in assets (and that isn't your house) is because that is what it takes for a natural person to be deemed an [accredited investor] in the US.

Nothing personal, but $25,000 doesn't make someone even a _prosumer_ investor. That is the kind of money a company raises in an FFF round. As a stranger, you're neither friends nor family.

It doesn't make sense for a company with traction to take your money. It's a week of operations, maybe. In exchange they get someone without diversification and without experience writing off five figure investments. And that person gets legal standing beyond anyone can sue anyone normalcy.

[accredited investor]: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accredited_investor#United_Stat...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accredited_investor#United_States)

</comment><comment><USER9> What is the best way to reach you?

I've been working on a Bitcoin related web-based/mobile software for the past few months and have a working MVP (Node.js, PostgreSQL, Angular stack although I'm flexible about using other technologies in the future - Go and React come to mind). I haven't publicly launched it yet (no traction :/) but I'm fairly certain there is a market for it and there are a few obvious paths to monetisation. The idea is novel, it's a white market (no direct competition at the moment) and the barrier to entry is reasonably high (mostly due to technical complexity and potential network effect).

I'm not sure if in its current incarnation the idea could scale to become more than a "lifestyle" business but I have some ideas. I've been thinking about the possibility of getting a co-founder and funding lately. One problem I'm facing right now is that on one hand, I want to give my potential co-founder a large chunk of equity (30-50%) so that (s)he feels motivated but on the other hand, I'd feel a bit uncomfortable about just "giving away" a few months worth of labor and expenses. Having a co-founder who is willing to throw in a small investment would solve that problem.

If you think you might be interested, shoot me an email at firstname.lastname@example.com

</comment><comment><USER10> $25k is obviously a drop in the bucket for angel investors. You'll really only be able to invest in one startup with this. Maybe your best strategy would be to hand pick projects with promise and make offers to invest.

</comment><comment><USER5> What's your engineering background?

I don't need money, but I'd still like to buy you a cup of coffee if you're free before Wednesday. Phone number/twitter is the same as my HN handle.

</comment><comment><USER11> What skills do you have? Possibly looking for an engineer/cofounder for a media/streaming startup out of the Chicago area.

</comment><comment><USER12> If you are still looking for a place to invest. I have a good business model and good references from a previous investor.

</comment><comment><USER13> If you really want to invest it, invest it in yourself. Get a good suit. Get a gym membership. Buy educational material on a healthy lifestyle. Get a good pair of shoes. Or two. Maybe a watch. Consider upgrading your drivers license.

25K is barely a yearly salary, don't throw it away by investing it.

</comment><comment><USER14> Which languages do you know and would you be willing to learn Clojure ? =)

<comment><USER15> I know Clojure... What are you looking for ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> To invest in a startup, you need to be an accredited investor, defined here [[http://goo.gl/aoKtaz](http://goo.gl/aoKtaz)].

<comment><USER5> I've taken friends and family money as notes for multiple ventures. Most weren't accredited investors and my lawyers assured me it was just fine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> or you help me build fundership.com

</comment><comment><USER18> Casino. All on Red. :)

</comment><comment><USER19> Great Idea. You can invest on Education Industry. So it never Get down.

</comment><comment><USER20> Do you have any interest in competitive gaming?

</comment><comment><USER21> Bitcoin is low right now. Double your money in a few months.

</comment><comment><USER22> hi, i would like to support fo this cause remotly from india regards, vijendra singh Skype ID:viju.s0731 Mobile:7049276421</comment>


Chrome's Javascript isn't really that fast (according to TinyMCE) - <AUTHOR> http://blog.moxiecode.com/2008/09/04/browser-performance-chrome-compared/ <comment><USER2> It also has trouble running tinyMCE correctly. I haven't dug deeply enough to figure out whose fault it is, but all kinds of strange things happen when pasting copy into tinyMCE while in Chrome.</comment>


Stack Overflow has fired two longtime Community Managers - <AUTHOR> https://meta.stackexchange.com/q/342039/258777 <comment><USER2> _Previously on AMC 's Stack Exchange_

This is coming a few days after this post [1] where they "settled" the whole Monica Cellio drama. ANd by "settled" I mean upset the community even further.

All of this is coming a few months after the whole drama started [2] which resulted in the leaving of many prominent members of the Stack Exchange community across many of the SE sites.

Context on HN has been [3] and [4] when this was on the front page a few months ago, including a link submission to [5] which was an open letter to the Stack Exchange company.

After a few months of drama it's interesting to go back and look at [2] and see that some of the mods have returned and the thread has been updated to reflect that. (How up-to-date these changes are I don't know)

If I've missed anything in this recap or made a mistake please let me know.

[1]: [https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/340906/update-an- ag...](https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/340906/update-an-agreement- with-monica-cellio)

[2]: [https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/333965/firing- mods-...](https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/333965/firing-mods-and- forced-relicensing-is-stack-exchange-still-interested-in-cooper)

[3]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21113344](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21113344)

[4]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21176712](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21176712)

[5]: [https://dearstackexchange.com/](https://dearstackexchange.com/)

<comment><AUTHOR> I think it's worth mentioning that these CMs have been on staff for almost 10 years and users for even longer than that [1] (Shog9's user ID is only three digits). They have an impeccable track record of listening to the community and making very good decisions, and as a result they have earned a _ton_ of respect and trust from the community. There should have been a "thank you/farewell/tribute" blog post celebrating their legacy.

In light of all the recent turmoil, they were among the very few SO employees that anyone still trusts, which is what makes their firing such a big deal and yet another indicator of the culture shift within the company.

[1]: [https://stackoverflow.blog/2011/03/25/welcome-valued- associa...](https://stackoverflow.blog/2011/03/25/welcome-valued-associate- josh-heyer/)</comment></comment>


Add multitouch gesture support to laptops running Linux - <AUTHOR> http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/opensource/library/os-touchpad/index.html?ca=dgr-twtrLXSwipAppsdth-A&S_TACT=105AGY83&S_CMP=TWDW <comment><USER2> I made a Multitouch table once which uses pymt library (thanks to <http://www.nuigroup.com/> ). It can be operated on linux but needed a custom- made multitouch table. The effort of synchronizing synaptic touchpad,which is most widespread touchpad with multitouch gestures is a worthy effort. Will be keeping tab on its progress.

</comment><comment><USER3> Unfortunately it's only an imitation of multitouch - [http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/news/item/9051_Multi- touch_on...](http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/news/item/9051_Multi- touch_on_resistive_touch.php) is IMHO much more impressive.</comment>


Ask HN: What lang and web stack is both popular and similar to Ruby and Rails? - <AUTHOR> By lang, I mean language.
I need that monk like enlightenment which Ruby and Rails have given me.
By popularity, I mean adoption at industry wide and scalable. <comment><USER2> Django / Python sounds like the obvious answer. Almost every comparison between Rails and Django I have read seems to rate them fairly evenly.

<comment><USER3> If the main criteria is to be similar to Ruby + Rails, Python + Django is the right way to go. Beyond the many similarities of Ruby and Python as languages, Django fills the niche for the Python web development ecosystem that Rails does for Ruby; a fully fleshed-out framework, which comes with batteries included.

Many people have had the experience of choosing a lightweight framework (Sinatra, Flask, etc.) and gradually needing more and more features from a heavier framework. Eventually you find that you wrote a poorly documented, poorly implemented version of Django or Rails, and bringing new people onto your team is now far harder than just finding people who've used a specific framework.

<comment><USER4> It's unfortunate that Ruby doesn't get the push towards more applications like Python does. Especially for scientific computing and machine learning.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > I need that monk like enlightenment which Ruby and Rails have given me.

Then I suggest you scratch both the "popular" and "similar to Ruby and Rails" requirements. When you do that, you have things available to you such as Elm and Reason (with ReasonReact) for the frontend and F#/Haskell/Scala on the backend.

Popular will tend to the lowest common denominator, and similar to what you already know means you won't gain much if at all :)

<comment><USER3> If you end up listening to this advice and doing away with the "like Ruby/Rails" requirement, but find that a random pair of functional languages is a bit too esoteric, I'd recommend checking out Elixir and Phoenix. Lot's of interesting ideas that can give you that monk-like enlightenment again, but you won't struggle with as many of the problems that are endemic to small ecosystems. Plus Elixir/Phoenix have been designed web-development first, and won't leave you to reinvent the wheel (or all of Rails), as you often have to when using a more spartan framework.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> [https://laravel.com/](https://laravel.com/) (PHP) will remind you of Rails. Even the directory structure.

<comment><USER7> For PHP, Yii Framework has awesomeness. I just v1 and a bit of v2 (though the simple vs modules split adds more complexity than just having modules always).

The great thing with Yii is performance (efficient generated SQL queries, multilevel caching, mixed eager/lazy loading) and instrumentation for application tuning. Other stuff is like other good frameworks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> If you are looking for something that gives you a very similar feeling to something you already know/love/use, you are likely to find yourself disappointed. Or at the very least, without a good reason motivating you to leave Ruby/Rails, you'll just find yourself returning quickly.

It might be more interesting to ask "what is nothing like Ruby and Rails?" to push yourself to learn something new that's entirely different, can give you new feelings.

If you are interested in exploring truly new things, there's a lot of interesting stuff happening in Universal or Isomorphic JS space (both names are basically for the same thing, and about equally common in usage), some of which becomes _very_ different from the traditional Rails approach to a web backend. (Also, there's a lot of interesting variety in language options from transpiling ES2018 or ESNext to Typescript to increasingly more obscure transpiles to JS languages. I recommend Typescript as the best place to be, for what that is worth, but you'll get a bunch of other opinions pretty easily.) It could be useful experiencing some of that, and get a very different experience from just "Rails but in a another language". Server-side React seems to be getting increasingly popular, and the GraphQL approach to database work can be very different from a traditional ORM approach like ActiveRecord.

</comment><comment><USER9> You should try Elixir and Phoenix.

Phoenix is similar enough to Rails that you won't feel totally lost, while using Elixir will teach you about functional programming and actor systems.

</comment><comment><USER10> [https://luckyframework.org/](https://luckyframework.org/)

Lucky uses crystal, you get all the benefits you are used to with rails, i.e. migrations, models views etc.

The main benefit is that crystal is a compiled language and is type safe. So you get to use all your ruby skills and the compiler adds a whole new level of safety to your code.

[https://crystal-lang.org/](https://crystal-lang.org/)

<comment><USER7> I tried LuckyFramework, Amber, and eventually settled on Kemal. The main reason being edit/compile-reload iteration time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Scala/Play

Python/Django

Groovy/Grails

Elixir/Phoenix is far less popular, but very fun and gaining steam.

<comment><USER12> Another one for Scala/Play which coincidentally can also be Java/Play, although I would choose Scala hands down. Play was inspired by Rails, too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Most similar is Django/Python. Nothing even comes close to RoR _and_ Ruby in similarity than Django and Python. The languages are very very similar to one another. The framework less so in smaller ways but very similar overall.

</comment><comment><USER14> Rails, or in other words Web MVC is the most copied paradigm I've seen. Pick almost any modern language and there will be an MVC web stack for it.

I'd pick Node JS given that most web devs end up having to use Node anyway even if just as a build pipeline. Knowing Node better will always be useful. Also the dynamic typing will feel at home for a Ruby dev, and if you want to use types then try Typescript. If you want to go functional there is Purescript, Reason etc. All compile to JS so you can use on Node.

</comment><comment> jon-wood I'm not really sure what you're aiming for here, but if you want something similar to Rails but with a different approach take a look at Phoenix on top of Elixir.

</comment><comment><USER15> Why do you want to switch? There are frameworks for other languages, but they are not really better.

<comment><USER16> For a MVP you're right. But a few years (months) down the line, you may find that some alternatives scale better. Elixir, for instance.

<comment><USER15> I am writing Ruby for 5+ years with a lot of Rails project that have the same age without problems, they are scaling happily without issues, easy to maintain as well.

<comment><USER16> And I believe you. In the end, no language is better than another one in absolute. It all depends on the use case. In mine, Elixir and Go happen to outperform everything else I _know_ but they are probably terrible somewhere else.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> For writing APIs, Echo and Go are pretty great. Then write your site or app as a one pager in angular or react.

Many huge sites are running on rails though, so switching to a new framework isn't going to give you automatic "scale". I'd recommend reading this post which summarizes a re:Invent presentation about scaling to 10 million users on AWS [http://highscalability.com/blog/2016/1/11/a-beginners- guide-...](http://highscalability.com/blog/2016/1/11/a-beginners-guide-to- scaling-to-11-million-users-on-amazons.html)

</comment><comment><USER18> Python + Django

But i really don't see the benefit of learning that stack when you already know Ruby+Rails. They are veryyy similar and unless your absolutely need some special Python library, it is simply a matter of personal preference.

<comment><USER19> I agree Python + Django is the closest experience to Ruby on Rails. But yeah if you're already doing rails there is no reason to swap.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I've been thinking about this too. React_on_rails makes react really nice with rails for universal rendering.

It seems a pretty great framework similar to rails could be assembled out of typescript, next.js, react, typeorm, webpack, ant design, terraform, postgres, cloudflare workers, cloudflare key value store, rds and by adding model and view generators, plus project and crud scaffolds.

</comment><comment><USER21> Wouldn't that be Elixir and Phoenix?

Not so popular, but a number of those who have made the switch swear by it.

</comment><comment><USER22> So no java fans out here? I used Spring Boot in production. It is high performant, super configurable and with lot of community support.

</comment><comment><USER23> JavaScript/Gatsby</comment>


How Women Can Get What They Want in a Negotiation - <AUTHOR> https://hbr.org/2018/08/how-women-can-get-what-they-want-in-a-negotiation <comment><USER2> The points in the article seemed to applicable to anyone who is negotiating regardless of gender.</comment>


Show HN: Free Django Hosting with SSL, managed database and custom domains - <AUTHOR> https://www.divio.com/en/ <comment><USER2> Sockpuppet and promotional voting isn't allowed on HN, and will eventually get your accounts and sites penalized or banned.</comment>


Ask HN: What is your favorite data structures book? - <AUTHOR> What is your favorite (preferably language-agnostic) data structures book? <comment><USER2> For a different but useful approach, one book I liked is:

How to Solve it by Computer - by R. G. Dromey, a lecturer or professor at a university in Australia, IIRC:

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

Acording to Wikipedia (and also mentioned in his book, IIRC), Dromey was inspired by the techniques of the book "How to Solve it" by George Polya, a famous mathematician, and applied some of his techniques to programming with data structures and algorithms.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_P%C3%B3lya](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_P%C3%B3lya)

But he doesn't just translate the Polya book from the domain of mathematics to software; he builds up the solution to each problem posed in his book, in an incremental way, sort of as he discovers or invents them, sharing the reasoning behind the decisions as he goes along. I found this to be one of the good features of the book.

I had the good fortune to read Polya's book too, early on in college - I think it was rare even then. It had gems like "solve the more general problem" (if there is one), which will automatically solve the specific problem you are working on, as just another special case, and some times the solution to the more general problem may turn out to be simpler than the solution to the specific problem. But the book has much more than that, in terms of problem- solving advice.

<comment><USER2> Interesting, I just looked up the Polya book here:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_P%C3%B3lya](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_P%C3%B3lya)

and found this:

"In How to Solve It, Pólya provides general heuristics for solving a gamut of problems, including both mathematical and non-mathematical problems. The book includes advice for teaching students of mathematics and a mini-encyclopedia of heuristic terms. It was translated into several languages and has sold over a million copies. Russian physicist Zhores I. Alfyorov, (Nobel laureate in 2000) praised it, noting that he was a fan. The book is still used in mathematical education. Douglas Lenat's Automated Mathematician and Eurisko artificial intelligence programs were inspired by Pólya's work."

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I like The Algorithm Design Manual[0] by Steve Skiena. He actually discovered that students fared better with real code (written in C) as opposed to pseudo- code.

0 - [http://www.algorist.com/](http://www.algorist.com/)

<comment><USER4> This book is great, but could be overwhelming depending on how much you exposure you have to similar material. That said, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it. I particularly enjoyed the war stories.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I would recommend "Purely Functional Data Structures" by Chris Okasaki. It's not only for functional programmers - there is also a bunch of structures useful in imperative languages.

</comment><comment><USER6> Not a book but Wikipedia is awesome. Just start with a subject and branch away. No book covers the breadth of Wikipedia. Of course a book might be better for depth.

<comment><USER7> You invite the HN crowd to Wikipedia and the programming language articles will wind up more controversial and disputed than the politicians' biographies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> My favorite would be "Algorithm Design" by Jon Kleinberg and Eva Tardos. In my opinion, it is extremely well written and easy to follow.

</comment><comment><USER9> [http://opendatastructures.org](http://opendatastructures.org) is worth a look.

</comment><comment><USER10> Old school would be Wirth; he's done several data structures books. That's where a lot of the fundamentals got laid down.

Hard core is Knuths' "The Art of Computer Programming", but tackling it is somewhat akin to asking how to tell time and being shown, in exquisite (or excruciating) detail how to build a clock.

I think I learned the most/fastest from Sedgewick (Intro to the Analysis or Algorithms, Algorithms in C (or C++ or Java)). His style worked for me; YMMV. The book Rivest, Cormen, et. al wrote (Intro to Algorithms) is also very good, as is the Aho algorithms book.</comment>


Google and the Open Internet (Crazy like a fox?) - <AUTHOR> http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/113569-googles-plan-for-an-open-wireless-internet-crazy-like-a-fox

<comment><AUTHOR> An alternative look at Google's recent announcement than the current media position.</comment>


Ask HN: Idea feedback – Service where people pay to reach your inbox - <AUTHOR> Problem - The bar to sending an email is too low resulting in casual low-effort messages. These messages take up time and attention and are difficult to filter. For instance, recruiter spam.
Solution - A service where a person pays a nominal amount, say $2, to land in your inbox. These messages will have 'PRIORITY INBOX' in their subject. This lets you filter the high-effort messages at a glance.
Possible use cases
1. Recruiter spam - This will let you filter the serious from the casual requests at a glance. Messages with 'PRIORITY INBOX' in the subject tell you the recruiter paid to get your attention and likely worth your time.
2. For an influencer - Say you run a blog and review developer tools every week. If you get tons of requests to cover different tools, you could use this service to filter out low-effort requests
3. Mentor-mentee - As mentor you can filter high-effort queries via this service. As the sender pays to reach your inbox, the messages are likely to be more focused so that you respond
This model can apply to other types of unsolicited messages where
a) Sender wants to stand-out from the generic low effort messages
b) Receiver wants to quickly filter high-effort and casual messages
I'd like to get HN's thoughts on
1. If you see value in such a service
2. For what type of messages, filtering quality and low-effort messages is of most value to you? (like developer-recruiter, mentor-mentee)
3. What concerns about this service would keep you from using it? (Assuming privacy and mail deliverability are handled to your satisfaction)
I've started work on this product. If you want to join private beta, signup here - https://airtable.com/shr6ifqw3468JFT0H <comment><USER2> The problem is if it's worth $2 to send me an email then I'm worth a lot, so I don't care about receiving $2, is rather just not receive those emails at all. I can just subscribe to the emails I do want, and would be happy to do that for no payment.

</comment><comment><USER3> So the receiver pays you for access to the service and the sender also pays you for access to the receiver?

I hate everything about this double-dipping-middle-man-in-an-otherwise-free- interaction business model.

</comment><comment><USER4> Same post from yesterday [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22137578](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22137578)

</comment><comment><USER5> Lots of startups have already done this.

<comment><AUTHOR> I did a quick search but couldn't find any. Can you share a few names of those startups?

<comment><USER6> Earn.com did that, but since acquired by coinbase</comment></comment></comment>


What is Pythonic? (2005) - <AUTHOR> http://blog.startifact.com/posts/older/what-is-pythonic.html

<comment><USER2> I think it's important to think of Pythonic as something that's subjective and evolving.

The C examples given are idiomatic in C. The reason they're idiomatic is because they fit with a mental model that most of the C community uses: data structures in an enumerated address space, and passing around hunks of mutable memory with handshake semantics. If your code interacts with code that was written with that in mind, life should be pretty good.

Python has the same sort of thing, but at a different level of abstraction: objects, frequently enumerated by identity, grouped together by user-defined abstractions, with the understanding that function side effects are rare, unless they're object methods.

Haskell is arguably cleaner / terser, but it's yet another set of idioms. The only thing that makes pythonic Python is that it's used by the rest of the community. It's a shared understanding that's neither better or worse than any other shared understanding.

<comment><USER3> You can't have this both ways. Either what is 'Pythonic' is subjective and community-based AND your arguments about Haskell are also subjective and based on the Haskell community, or some things are just better than others both within Python and among languages.

But even in the second case, you have to do more than wave your hands around to show that Haskell is superior if you want to move beyond pure, substance- less snobbery. If you did that, you'd find that you were leaning on some assumed values - for example, the values of the Haskell community.

If all you have to say is that Python's values are subjective while Haskell's values are the actually important ones, this is really pure snobbery without any substance.

<comment><USER4> I don't think trjordan said anything like that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Nice overview. I think a lot of the tenets of pythonicness are based on the heuristic that there should be minimal cruft and friction between the reader and the code. I should be looking at a reasonably close approximation of my interpretation of the problem. Was it let or var? Semicolon or no semicolon? Was it := or set! <\- or <<\- ? Squiggly braces or none? Does the second indented line after a non-squiggly block count as part of the block? Was it private static or static private? Does const go before or after the function definition? Does i++ increment first or provide a value first? I should have to think less about any of these things and more about the problem.

Usually, syntax is minimal enough to get out of your way, and where there is syntax, it attempts to be consistent and to enforce clarity.

<comment><USER6> In most of those cases there's no point thinking of them, just type the first one that comes to mind and move on

<comment><USER7> I hate poorly styled code. Edit: I don't know why I'm being downvoted for this. That kind of mentality inherently churns out bad code.

<comment><USER6> They're all inconsequential to code quality except for some like i++ vs ++i which isn't even style, it's syntax. preincrement before, postincrement after, not hard to remember

<comment><USER7> Syntax and style are tightly coupled in Python. It's not hard to remember i++ is the same as i+=1 or that if(bool) { can optionally have a line break between the guard and the brace. In other languages, you have more choices. If you have more choices and just type what comes to mind first, you're going to get stylistic inconsistencies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I submitted a related link before - Unpythonic Python

[http://skien.cc/blog/2014/04/09/unpythonic- python/](http://skien.cc/blog/2014/04/09/unpythonic-python/)

</comment><comment><USER9> The article mentions Zope quite a bit - which was a big thing for a company I worked for in 2001 (Loudcloud), as we had a number of customers that wanted to use it. Whatever happened to Zope? Wikipedia seems to suggest there hasn't been much development in the last 4 years - anybody know?

<comment><USER10> Zope the framework really fell out of favor. Some of the good bits were pulled out and built into Repoze.bfg, which later merged with pylons (used by reddit etc) to become Pyramid.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> We might be in the "post-pythonic" Python era. There was a discussion a few months back on #python to the effect that judging "pythonic"-ness was a shibboleth indicating the judger was _not_ the best Python community member. Wish I could find a log.

</comment><comment><USER12> I have a lot of love for python but when I want to achieve something that is easy in other languages but not available in Python because "thats not Pythonic" for some reason I think Stockholm Syndrome.

</comment><comment><USER13> Functional is the new pythonic!

(edit: It actually is, half of the good things in Python, like list comprehensions and tuples and destructuring, were first seen in functional languages!)

<comment><USER14> BDFL Guido van Rossum is not in favor of adding functional programming stuff to python. So, by fiat, functional programming is not very pythonic. :)

<comment><USER15> You are both partially right. List comprehensions are considered pythonic, and they are similar to map and filter from the FP world. However the map and filter functions themselves are somewhat unpythonic.

<comment><USER16> I guess list comprehensions in Python are, as you say, similar to map and filter from the FP world, but they are even more similar to... list comprehensions from the FP world.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> (2005)</comment>


How Twitter is Changing the World of Pro Poker Player - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/how_twitter_is_changing_the_world_of_professional.php <comment><USER2> Is there nothing that Twitter won't drastically change in the eyes of the media?

<comment><USER3> Strangely enough, the only thing it has changed for me is that it basically allows me to SMS people for free via DMs. That's really Twitter's main purpose for me and I spend all day on a computer. Rather strange that the media thinks it is going to drastically change _everything_ when an always-on Internet user like myself fails to see it drastically changing _anything_...</comment></comment>


OneWeb announces HMG and Bharti Global Limited consortium as winning bidders - <AUTHOR> https://www.oneweb.world/media-center/oneweb-announces-hmg-and-bharti-global-limited-consortium-as-winning-bidders-in-court-supervised-sale-process <comment><AUTHOR> HMG: Her Majesty's Government (of the United Kingdom)

Some previous commentary: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23676307](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23676307)</comment>


Why don't websites immediately display their text these days? - <AUTHOR> http://superuser.com/q/547743

<comment><USER2> This was posted 24 hours ago, and discussed then.</comment>


Truckers Working Alongside Coders Trying to Make Driverless Trucks - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-06-22/these-truckers-work-alongside-the-coders-trying-to-eliminate-their-jobs <comment><USER2> > But ultimately, Seltz-Axmacher believes, the tools he's developing will be > good for truckers. He cites a new book by Garry Kasparov, Deep Thinking, in > which the chess great observes that middling chess players who play with the > help of a standard computer are reliably better than either grandmasters or > supercomputers by themselves. "I think humans and technology working > together are always going to be better than either one alone," Seltz- > Axmacher says. "But maybe that's just because I like humans."

This is amusing because this stopped being true a long time ago. Even by 2007, it was hard for anyone to improve, and after 2013 or so, the very best centaurs were reduced to basically just opening book preparation (itself an extremely difficult skill involving compiling millions of games and carefully tuning against the weakness of possible opponent engines), to the point where official matches have mostly stopped (making it hard to identify the exact point at which centaur ceased to be a thing at all).

<comment><USER3> I've never really understood Kasparov's pro-biological opinion along those lines. I suspect it's a combination of an observation that was true at that time (that humans are better are intuition), and his own comment "But maybe that's just because I like humans".

If you think about it, AIs have a significant advantage in that their evolution is completely artificially guided. They can be focused on tasks in isolation, and the results can be observed and improved upon. Biological evolution does not have this luxury, overall the entire organism has to "work", and survive long enough to reproduce. Sure, current technology is in its infancy, but extrapolating into the far future, things are interesting.

<comment><USER2> I think it's a mix of outdated information, wishful thinking, and the contrarian appeal. It _was_ true for a few years that a grandmaster or a random chess player with good 'mechanical sympathy' could crush a solo chess engine (which is why discussions of this tend to stop in 2007 despite being a decade ago), it would be very convenient if AIs required humans for the best performance ([https://github.com/JackToaster/Reassuring-Parable- Generator/...](https://github.com/JackToaster/Reassuring-Parable- Generator/tree/master) 'A computer will never play the best chess in the world'), and it provides a meta-contrarian ([http://lesswrong.com/lw/2pv/intellectual_hipsters_and_metaco...](http://lesswrong.com/lw/2pv/intellectual_hipsters_and_metacontrarianism/)) take on AI risk/technological unemployment which is clearly Tyler Cowen's main motivation in popularizing it (object: 'AIs will never be able to do X better than humans as they have no soul'; contrarian: 'they totally will, just look'; meta-contrarian: 'ah, but the human element is still critical for a last bit of performance due to the creativity and ingenuity of the human spirit!').

It's also interesting in that it demonstrates that there's at least two levels of 'superhuman' performance in chess and other domains: there's superhuman in being able to beat any living human one on one (Deep Blue, Sedol AlphaGo), and superhuman in being unable to be improved upon by a human collaborator (post-2013 chess engines; AlphaGo Master?). I'm not sure this gap was really expected, but though it only lasts a few years (or months), it's still interesting to note.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This looks like trucking's version of off-shoring.

You get paid to train your replacements. If you don't train them, someone else will. It's a no win for them. They don't have pull or unions that commuter train operators have so it's not like they'll get to ride along and supervise the autonomous vehicle, in the long term. Instead, there may be an ops center somewhere in TX where operators intervene remotely when an irregular operating pattern pops up. Those will be fewer operators.

<comment><USER5> I am not a trucker but from what I understood from other truckers is that this can be seen as a benefit to them. There is a lot more effort as a trucker in managing the cargo than the driving. Lots of paperwork at pickup, drop off and in between checks. There is effort to ensure the security of the cargo. I think the expectation is that wages would stay the same and truckers stop driving and start managing. Keep in mind wages are already fairly low.

<comment><USER6> _Keep in mind wages are already fairly low_

In comparison to a computer programmer, yes. In comparison to the nationwide average, no. [https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c...](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwi5vMKdsdLUAhVo74MKHVVTDHAQFgguMAI&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.truckdriverssalary.com%2Fhow- much-can-you-earn-your-1st-year-as-a- trucker%2F&usg=AFQjCNHrhbzA9AlajalycKMf_eI2Jie2vw)

I can immediately think of one (retired) truck driver I know who comfortably raised a family of 6 on a single salary.

<comment><USER7> You linked a site that makes money on convincing people to spend money getting a CDL, not really a reliable source. Very few truckers are doing well, even your source wages aren't that great for most positions when you add in the other costs. And USA Today had a piece last week about one working unsafe hours and making as little as $.67 a week.

[https://www.usatoday.com/pages/interactives/news/rigged- forc...](https://www.usatoday.com/pages/interactives/news/rigged-forced-into- debt-worked-past-exhaustion-left-with-nothing/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > Most people in Silicon Valley subscribe to either the first or second > school. Much of the rest of the country, including many truckers, favor the > third. "I can tell the difference between a dead porcupine and a dead > raccoon, and I know I can hit a raccoon, but if I hit a porcupine, I'm going > to lose all the tires on the truck on that side," says Tom George, a veteran > driver who now trains other Teamsters for the union's Washington-Idaho AGC > Training Trust. "It will take a long time and a lot of software to program > that competence into a computer."

Driverless trucks are a very interesting concept. Once they're on the freeway, I would think most automation would work (relatively) well. But getting through traffic congestions, busy multi-turn-lane intersections, and making sure you don't sideswipe someone who's hugging the line seems rather complex given the different trailer dimensions and blind spots, (un)marked lanes and everything else it takes to _get_ to the highway.

<comment><USER9> Don't forget what happens when people find out they can abuse driverless vehicles. Cutting them off, getting closer to them, slowing down in front of them, etc. God knows what commuters will do to them in the Boston area.

<comment><USER10> I live in (ok, ok, _near_ ) Boston and I constantly fantasize about this. I don't commute by car I look forward to riding my bike 5mph in front of driverless cars, at least if they don't run me over...

I also have to imagine they will be a ripe target for vandalism, especially if operators don't aggressively remove graffiti.

<comment><USER11> "ripe target for vandalism"

And they'll also be surrounded by camera's and hard drives. I would imagine that the sensors that can see through fog could also get more detail than the average CCV camera - meaning that even with a mask, you're going to get a lot of detail on vandals or road hazards (aka: You going 5mph in front of one)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > This is a company that employs truck drivers, is how the talk begins. The > coders are sometimes taken aback—this differs from the usual change-the- > world spiel deployed in hiring meetings. Truckers have very different ideas > and different experiences from people like you, Seltz-Axmacher continues. > Statistically speaking, many of them are Trump voters. They will say things > that you may find startling. Not in a malicious way, but because people > from, say, rural West Virginia talk differently than people from San > Francisco. Can you handle that?

It's good to see someone doing more than just talk about this sort of thing; both the employment aspect and the culture clash side of it. Compare that to say, how Google treats its ex-military drone contractors [1].

1\. [http://www.businessinsider.com/ex-military-contractor- google...](http://www.businessinsider.com/ex-military-contractor-google-x- employee-collapsed-on-the-job-2017-3)

<comment><USER13> And I love the counterpoint:

> _" We hire truckers,"_ Seltz-Axmacher tells prospective drivers right before > offering them a job. _" But we also have a lot of engineers in Silicon > Valley. Everything you've heard about San Francisco—it's all basically true. > There is something called raw denim, and in San Francisco people wear it, > which means that some of your colleagues will pay up to $300 for a pair of > blue jeans. They sometimes drink $7 lattes, too. Many of your co-workers > will not be from the U.S. They will have accents. Can you handle that?"_

In my experience, the culture clash seems to me to be more common in technology companies doing hardware projects than in hardware companies adding software to their processes. As a member of the latter, I take exception to this statement:

> _"We basically have people from two worlds, neither of which has ever talked > to each other,"_ says Seltz-Axmacher, who grew up in suburban Maryland. > _"That's kind of what's wrong with this country."_

Perhaps that's true of the founder's life experience, or true of the trucking industry, but most manufacturing jobs seem to be merging these cultures comparatively smoothly. I've been at a couple companies in the automotive industry, and been to hundreds of different plants, and everywhere you look there are blue collar technicians running the machines and white collar engineers building and automating the machines. The situation is not so bad as the article paints it outside the extremes of Ivy League PHD programs contrasted with the trucking industry.

<comment><USER14> I'm a software pro, not a trucker, and _I_ have a problem with $300 jeans and $7 lattes. And what is all this I keep hearing about $20 avocado toast?

The culture clash is Silicon Valley banging its own cymbals.

<comment><USER12> The examples in the article are trite, but the culture clash is a very real thing. I would point to things like the acceptance of alcohol in the workplace, expectations around work/home balance, the comparatively uniform social/political views of SF tech workers (and educational backgrounds), etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is eerily like a scene from Player Piano, Vonnegut's first novel. Some smart engineers find the best machinist at a factory, use some machines to record his movements and process and then use them to program the robots that replace him, and everyone else in his position at the factory.

For those that haven't read it, the book is an interesting and prescient story about what the future of America looks like when nearly all human labor has been made obsolete.

</comment><comment><USER16> I know it is novel to talk about blue collar workers working alongside phd grads who are specialists in this field... but surely any good system which needs to deliver a quality outcome needs to be built with domain expertise, in this case driving trucks. I just don't see why this is that exciting. I'd be bloody worried if developers writing vehicle AI _weren 't_ doing this.

<comment><USER17> > I'd be bloody worried if developers writing vehicle AI weren't doing this

Me too. There's so much more than just driving. Just as an example, we truck drivers learn to anticipate possible problems based on other people's behaviors. Why anticipate? Because 80,000 lbs can take too long to stop, and people can die.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> > Statistically speaking, many of them are Trump voters....Can you handle > that?

I hope this is a joke. If someone literally cannot handle working alongside someone who voted for Trump, that is so sad.

</comment><comment><USER19> This is an interesting approach in the short term and could help bootstrap Starsky's business before the conversion to fully autonomous driving.

I still think driving a truck as a profession will be a thing of the past within 20 years or so. There's just too much money riding on this problem, and logistics companies are fairly ruthless about efficiency.

<comment><USER20> "I still think driving a truck as a profession will be a thing of the past within 20 years or so."

I hope so. Trucking is one of the toughest professions for a person to endure that I've ever seen. It destroys a person's body and mind...and you're lucky to end up making minimum wage when you account for how many hours they spend working.

<comment><USER4> And what job alternatives will you provide them, think specially about current long haul drivers, not future candidates you can discourage and divert to greener fields.

<comment><USER21> Economic assistance. Give them the resources to choose their new career path for themselves.

<comment><USER4> From whom, the govt? I don't trust that would happen (see rustbelt industries). These automation startups? What's their profit if they have to train the people they help get laid off/made redundant?

<comment><USER21> You asked a pretty important question (we agree that this isn't simple) and I replied with what I thought to be the best solution.

And yes, the government. The funny thing about a democracy is that if enough people want the govt. to provide something, it will.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> If I was a trucker I'd be learning diesel tech, not training my replacement drivers

<comment><USER17> I'm actually learning to code. I drive over-the-road and live in the truck cab. Hopefully someday it will help me get out of here.

<comment><USER22> You know I read an article a long time ago about two guys who drove truck and took turns coding (team drivers so the person not driving would write code) and wrote shareware this way - it might have been a game published by Epic or Apogee in the early 90's or I might be imagining the whole thing

<comment><USER17> That's a good idea. For now I'm solo, so there's not really much time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> As much as the devs probably hate riding with truckers it's good for them

<comment><USER6> Why do you think they'd hate it?

<comment><USER24> I would hate it.

<comment><USER18> Why would you hate it?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Don't hold your breath for semi-driverless trucking. Automated systems to aid in backing of doubles and triples isn't even a common thing yet.</comment>


Introducing Game of Webs - <AUTHOR> http://gameofwebs.com

<comment><USER2> I couldn't tell what it is, anybody knows?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's a play on Game of Thrones...just a fun jest using well-known designers.

<comment><USER3> So...what, some sort of "Who is the best Net visionary, vote now" thingy?

I dont think they could be any less clearer.</comment></comment></comment>


Analyzing VMware, Docker, and Kubernetes Trends - <AUTHOR> https://brianchristner.io/analyzing-vmware-docker-kubernetes-trends/ <comment><USER2> Doesn't surprise me but I think that the VMware trend will flatten out because there will always be a need for full system virtualization. I say this as a huge proponent of both.

There's TONS of needs that Docker just can't cover whereas VMware kills it (desktop virtualization ie: Windows, legacy systems, etc).

<comment><USER3> Wait until Windows containerization gets in full swing. Between WSL, Docker for Windows and Windows Core they're inching every closer to having real embedded Windows in a container. They will do that, I think they have to. Right now to run docker they literally have Linux in a VM, and the same for WSL2. Even the new Microsoft can't handle doing that forever.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What scientific/technical bounties with social impact would you support? - <AUTHOR> For a long while, I've been thinking of crowdfunding bounties for solving socially valuable science and engineering problems.
I've always been inspired by examples of this through history including:
- Longitude Rewards (17th century): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longitude_rewards
- Orteig Prize for Trans-Atlantic Flight (1920s): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orteig_Prize
- Fermat's Last Theorem (1800s/1908): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermat%27s_Last_Theorem#Monetary_prizes
- Ansari X Prize (1996): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansari_X_Prize
- DARPA Grand Challenge (2000s): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Grand_Challenge
What specific problems would you want to donate a few dollars to see solved and that will work with prize amounts in the range $1k-$500k? What referees would you recommend to determine if the problem is "solved"? <comment><USER2> I'm interested in "off the grid" living, so I'd like to see some technologies to support that. For example, some good solution to the Internet without depending on expensive telecom companies (e.g. some kind of meshnet, or perhaps land-line based grid that relies on personally-owned routers). Also, can we make home electricity generation cheap and simple enough so that non- experts can figure it out? How about home production of auto fuel, such as ethanol or biodiesel, based on something you can grow in your backyard?

I'd be focused on cheapness, ease of setup, and ease of use with these challenges. Making a windmill more efficient than oil, or ethanol more efficient than gasoline, is not realistic and not necessary to the value proposition of personal independence off the grid.

The vision I have is: being able to have electricity and water, Internet and telephone, without having any monthly bills from utility companies.

I don't know how you'd set the parameters for a contest, or how you'd measure when you've arrived. This kind of lifestyle may be (mostly) possible today, but you'd have to have engineering skills and a lot of free time to make it work.

</comment><comment><USER3> better medical drugs especially antibiotics

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Which drugs are you thinking about? What goal do you think one could achieve for a few hundred thousand in incentives?

<comment><USER3> You may have seen something like this [http://shanghaiist.com/2016/01/23/colistin_resistant_bacteri...](http://shanghaiist.com/2016/01/23/colistin_resistant_bacteria_nrc-1.php) a few weeks back. Imagine if you can't have basic surgery because of that. Nightmare scenario of course but still a major issue.</comment></comment></comment>


EtherPad out of private beta - <AUTHOR> http://etherpad.com/

<comment><USER2> I had the chance to use EtherPad as part of a job interview while it was in private beta. It was supposed to use Skype and EtherPad to get the full effect. Skype broke, but EtherPad worked great. The ease of getting code to the interviewer, and (I imagine) the ability to see the way I wrote the code were really helpful.

If you're doing a phone screen interview in the future, I highly recommend using EtherPad.

<comment><USER3> Wow, great use case. I wonder if EtherPad can focus on such a niche and charge for it (with other relevant features).

<comment><USER2> They actually know about the use case: it's one of their 5 suggested use cases: <http://etherpad.com/ep/about/product#uses5>

But you're right, marketing specifically to software shops could be a good way to make a profit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Nifty. Pity there aren't more syntax options (just JS)

Here's a test URL to toy with: <http://etherpad.com/qtUr4Iw3mr>

<comment><USER5> It just sits there saying "connecting..." So does that mean no other user online, or my Javascript is broken, or my net connections is down, or they are slashdotted, or what?

<comment><USER6> This probably means there's an incompatibility with your browser/ISP/firewall combination. If you click the "reconnect" button, it will submit diagnostic info to help us debug, or you can mail support @ etherpad.com for help.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Ah, so it is a web-version of something like SubEthaEdit? (<http://www.codingmonkeys.de/subethaedit/>)

I think the private, for-pay service in your FaQ sounds like an interesting potential replacement.

</comment><comment><USER8> For those of you interested there is a great interview with Etherpad by Phill Windly at IT-Conversations <http://itc.conversationsnetwork.org/shows/detail3985.html>

</comment><comment><USER9> Ow! My eyes!

Seriously, hire a designer to smooth out your site, it's well worth it.

<comment><USER10> Ow! My eyes!

Please design a new favicon. The current one looks like an ode to mid-nineties shareware sites.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The volume on the screencast is way too low.

</comment><comment><USER12> It'd be interesting to know what changed from last time, if I remember right it was something to do with database overload?

Don't mean to pry, but it'd be cool to know what the original issue was...

</comment><comment><USER13> Looks pretty neat. I'm still trying to find the Emacs keybinding option...More seriously, some basic formatting options may be nice, for actual document production vs., as some others mentioned, a fancy chat system.

My first thought was that a version control repository and editing system could be built on top of this that would actually allow two people to see each others' edits simultaneously but compile only their own revisions until a commit occurred.

</comment><comment><USER14> there's subethaedit as others mentioned, and there's also gobby:

<http://gobby.0x539.de/trac/>

</comment><comment><USER15> It seems to response quite quickly at this point - as quickly as the demo shows in the etherpad.com demo video. Those of you who tried pclark's test/toy link: try signing up and selecting a color for your editing. Pretty slick!

I'm wondering what their business model is? No ads yet. Will this just showcase their hacking abilities?

<comment><USER5> Corporate versions with security and active directory authentication. Rich text, images, spreadsheets in a paid-for version. Branded versions to include in your own site.

Since it generally requires at least two people who need to communicate then at least one of them is likely to be prepared to pay.It's not just an eyeballs=advert web2.0 thing.

<comment><USER6> Yes, exactly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> There is an alternative here : <http://collabedit.com/>

(seen in a slashdot comment on this page : <http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/21/1626208> )

</comment><comment><USER17> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonedit>

However, their site is currently down. And yes, that was an offline app, so etherpad is much better.

</comment><comment><USER18> Is this like chat reimagined or am i just crazy?

<comment><USER19> When you want to test out Etherpad and don't already have text you want to edit, you tend to use it like chat. But even then you can do things you can't do with chat, because you can see what the other person is typing and start responding before they finish (like in a real conversation). I've suggested to the Appjets that they might want to make a variant of Etherpad aimed at chat.

<comment><USER20> Like in the old unix talk :-)

I used to prefer this mode, but some of my friends hated it.

<comment><USER12> Does it scale well past 2 people talking? Seems like that could get difficult to show on screen.

It's certainly quite fun, but not sure if it's more useful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Is EtherPad out of beta functionally equivalent to EtherPad in beta?

<comment><USER22> Yes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I can't believe it's Javascript !!!

Seriuosly - Excelent job!

</comment><comment><USER24> Anyone know when AppJet with Comet support be released?

<comment><USER22> Strictly speaking, AppJet already supports Comet, but the full support that's used in EtherPad is part of the next major version of the AppJet platform. From the sound of the ITConversations interview linked above, the new platform won't be out until a bit after Enterprise EtherPad.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> The simplicity argument kills the discussion for me. It can't be right that to achieve columness, one has to wade through cascades of ever more esoteric articles explaining how to hack CSS.

</comment><comment><USER26> FANTASTIC!</comment>