Ask HN:  Can you code more than 40 hours/wk? - <AUTHOR> Greetings HN.  I have a problem, at least I think I do.  I want to code more because I'm really passionate about creating things.  That has meant many different things throughout my life, but it has meant writing software since I discovered my first BBS.  I have a full-time day job and, while I enjoy it, I want to create something on the side.  I've been working on a side-project since early August but I feel like it's developing extremely slowly.
I can code about 40 hours a week.  And I mean really code, not just being at work: heads-down, super-productive hacking.  All told, I spend about 32-34 hours a week at work coding so I usually end up spending about 10 hours a week on my side-project.  This comes out to around 6-8 hours coding and 2-4 hours designing, researching, etc.  Those numbers change quite a bit depending on overtime so I typically get in about 25 hours a month on my side-project.  The thing is that I want more, but I simply cannot bring myself to code more.
It's somewhat amorphous, but I know that sometime every week I'll hit a limit.  While I can keep pushing on, my productivity takes a dive.  If I persist, after a week or two of overdrive, my overall performance starts to dive.  I thought something was wrong with me so I took several steps to try to improve through life-hacking:  I began going to a gym 3 times a week, dramatically improved my diet, and have almost entirely kicked the smoking habit (down to 2 a day from a sadly higher number).  Nothing seems to work.  The fatigue from ultra-focused coding just leaves my mind incapable after 40 hours of further deep concentration.
I typically spend the rest of my free time learning new things, playing games, or being with my girlfriend.   I definitely enjoy these things and like to have some balance, but I feel like I'm missing that hardcore edge to really hunker down and produce a quality side-project once in a while.  I feel like the hacker version of a guy who needs steroids to take it to the next level.  Is this normal?  Are the 16 hour/day guys the exception?  Is it really that naive to try a side-project and keep the day job?  Am I demanding an unreasonable amount from myself?
Thanks in advance for any feedback you guys have. <comment><USER2> People will tell you things ...

This is a topic that:

a) people _really_ like to brag about,

b) it's hard to separate "hanging around" hours from really productive hours,

c) even if you can distinguish those, it's a major pain to accurately track them (do not trust what anybody says just from remembering).

Do not worry to much about raw hours numbers. Focus more on quality of these hours.

In my experience, the difference in productivity / results achieved between "good" and "bad" hours can be staggering. Well rested me can easily outcode several tired overworked stressed mes :).

Forcing yourself heroically to work more when you already can't can be _very_ counterproductive (game industry notorious for permanent crunch times sometimes does self-reflection [1][2]).

Working many forced hours can make sense when you have some external situation where additional benefits of getting something done by deadline outweigh loss of productivity. But even there, you are only borrowing it from your future self.

Yes, I had situations where hunkered down and produced magnificent amount of results working crazy hours every day, but at the end I got literally sick and was unable to do any intellectual work for quite some time afterwards.

[1] <http://archives.igda.org/articles/erobinson_crunch.php>

[2] [http://www.lostgarden.com/2008/09/rules-of-productivity- pres...](http://www.lostgarden.com/2008/09/rules-of-productivity- presentation.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> "Are the 16 hour/day guys the exception?"

I sincerely hope so, and I question the hygiene/health of anyone who spends 16 hours a day > 1 day a week in front of a computer. I certainly have done 16 hour stretches of coding, but I don't think anyone can sustain that for more than a day or two and still be sane. (I think you turn into rms, which can be seen as good or bad).

The message that I would like to give you is that of quality over quantity.

First off, you don't have to be at a computer to be solving your coding problems, keep a notebook, keep them in your head, write down answers as they come. Relaxing you think about a problem probably doesn't count against your concentration hours.

Secondly, if you are banging your head against a problem, it is probably time to take a break or get help with it... There are diminishing returns from struggling with a problem.

I don't doubt that you can spend more than 40 hours a week coding, but that seems like a shitty quality of life. Wouldn't you rather see the sun occasionally?

Wouldn't it be better for you to just work within the 40 hours, optimizing your use of them? Maybe find a way to get stuff done at work more efficiently, so you can spend more of your quota coding your side project?

It might also help to not try so hard when you are 'concentrating'. Let me explain:

I feel like if you are trying really hard, it takes more out of you mentally than if you are approaching it from a mentality of playing. Having more fun will definitely stretch your endurance for these things.

My mantra is to 'work' as little as possible to achieve my goals. So I like to turn 'work' things into puzzles/games. 'Work' is psychologically un-fun.

<comment><USER4> Interesting!

May I throw in my two cents?

For me personally, and because I am 22, and because I truly enjoy my job (game engine programmer), I tend to put in way more hours than I need to.

Way more hours.

On the order of 80-100hrs/wk. Of coding. (Which is to say, 80-100hrs/wk of _actual thinking + typing_. Not "time spent getting ready to program" or "time spent psyching myself up to begin working on the problem" etc.)

(Also, I love Vim. I'd likely be massively frustrated with all the programming I was trying to do, if not for ViEmu + Visual Assist.)

And damn, it's fun! The only strain I feel is from lack of sleep.

Also, I think the 'quality' argument is subjective. It's true that if you're physically exhausted, you can't work. But if I'm merely _pushing myself_ , the output of my work is of a similar quality as when I'm living a "balanced" week.

But the insidious thing is, I have a personality where if I try to "balance" myself, I wind up mentally not "getting in the zone" for any of my projects. And for me, it's a little depressing to be in that state, because I am only capable of bug fixes / minor tasks. Nothing architectural.

So, in conclusion, I am certainly not planning on keeping up this lifestyle forever --- I'm just enjoying the 80-100hr weeks while they last. It's a similar feeling to being a kid staying up all night at a friend's house. It's fun!

<comment><USER5> out of curiosity, how do you count 80-100 hours a week? Do you keep timesheets?

100 hours is 14 hours a day, every day.

<comment><USER4> Nah, no tracking. But maybe I should, that would be interesting.

The reason I make those claims is because I don't do much else at the moment except "work" (which for me equals fun). I don't play any video games anymore except the one I work on, and even then it's usually only once a week. I don't use facebook. Etc. Hacker News is my outlet, typically before bed (like now).

Think of it this way... there are 168 hours in a week. A "proper" amount of sleep is 8 hours a day, which is 1/3 of a day. So 168 * (2/3) = 112 waking hours. Throw in the fact that I often have trouble sleeping, or go without sleep, and... well, you get the idea.

I'm not claiming that I typically work 100 hours. This week in particular has been unique. I'm just saying, for me personally, when I'm passionate about a thing, I wind up _way, way_ more productive by obsessing over it and pushing myself than if I try to "balance" myself.

Also, when I'm in "hardcore work" mode, I can only focus on exactly one project. There is little or no room for any other projects, such as side projects. Even doing an unrelated small bugfix has the potential to completely destroy my enthusiasm / flow.

There are downsides, of course... one example that springs to mind is: my right wrist has been hurting me. Badly, actually. I've been ignoring it, but that's stupid obviously. I think it's possibly because of the shape of my mouse. (I've heard that I should get a "splint" to prevent horizontal / vertical wrist movement.)

Also I need to take care to ensure good nutrition, which I've been slacking on. Also, Vitamin D pills + B12 pills.

<comment><USER6> I got a sore right wrist during a Diablo 2 weekend, and it persisted for about 4 years.

In the end I had to get a chair of the right height, a desk of the right height and a wrist rest.

Take it seriously, the most important thing is an ergonomic work setup and some breaks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think I'm roughly on par with you. I spend 40 give or take at work and then come home and bang away on a side project. My girlfriend luckily has some crochet projects usually so all day Sunday I can work on my side project (6-8 hours) plus about 2 hours a night another 4 nights out of the week. So say maybe 15 hours a week on my side project not counting other research and such I do for it (researching hosting plans, new gems to make life easier, etc).

Given that there are only 24 hours in a day, pulling a 16 hour day frequently means you're not getting much sleep nor much of anything else ;)

Worry less about what other people can do. It's an ego-oriented goal and it can end up causing you to feel defeated as well as lose track of your real purpose. Instead focus on whether or not you feel like you could do more, and whether or not it's worth it.

You've got plenty of company no matter what you decide. :)

</comment><comment><USER8> First, I commend your self awareness. That right there is the biggest battle for me honestly. You should pay attention to your mind and body, and make sure you are letting yourself recharge. I'm reminded of a recent article on here about how Germans have the same productivity as Americans with fewer weekly hours and a lot more vacation. The American culture values putting in the hours more than it does productivity, and it's dreadfully easy to fall into the trap.

As to the answer to your question, I think it varies a great deal, but I don't think you'll ever get an honest answer based on any kind of data from silicon valley, statistical or otherwise. The problem is that productivity is too amorphous, and there's really no hope of getting an honest appraisal from actual engineers because they're just as likely to fooling themselves as to provide factual data. I know I've had some amazing 100 hour weeks where mountains were moved, but it's really hard to be sure that I wouldn't have gotten twice as much done in two 30 hour weeks...

Also apropos, I've currently been on a death march for the past three months. At this point I'm still pulling 80 hour weeks, but I'm so worn down now that I'm sure I'm not getting anything more done than I would in a normal 40-hour week. It's sort of a make or break moment for the company I've spent the last 3 years building, so it's worth it this time, but it's also the sort of experience that highlights the dangers of too much work. My body mind and body are down far beyond what I could achieve on a personal project, or some artificial scenario like you are given in college. It's definitely not a lifestyle that I plan to continue, and I would caution anyone against living this way. It's better not to burn yourself out, and always keep something in reserve for when you really need it.

</comment><comment><USER9> I think it depends on the project. I've spent the odd weekend starting on Friday night and finishing on Sunday morning (although that doesn't happen now with a wife).

Years back I started writing multi-format shellcode, which required me to learn 4 different OS and 3 different chip architectures to the point where I could get assembly running across all of them. That was an insane project that started out as get shellcode that worked on Linux and Freebsd/x86 and just ran and ran as I found more things to add in and tweak. Then I'd sleep through the whole of sunday and turn up for work on monday.

On the other hand I've worked on projects in my work time that are so mind numbingly dull that I've spent 4-6 hours a day actual programming, come home and collapsed in a heap.

It sounds to me like you're going past your wall and it's not flexible. You need to qualify and stick to your limits. The gym, diet and smoking side of things is a good idea, but not enough.

How's your sleep? I find that's the biggest factor in my day.

<comment><AUTHOR> I can identify with you on boring stuff, even a few hours of work can be draining there. Not all parts of coding are equally interesting.

I should probably work on my sleep schedule. I get about 5-6 hours a night on a weeknight and 10 on the weekend. I have a seriously difficult problem going to bed before 2am, but fortunately my job doesn't expect me in until 9 or so.

<comment><USER9> Interesting. How much caffeine do you get through in a day, and when is your last caffeinated drink?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Is it about your side-project? You really should only be doing a side-project for your enjoyment and the challenge. However, if you stress about your productivity you might lose sight of the reason you started a side-project. I am the person who can concentrate 16 hours a day, or even days on end without sleep or breaks (in fact, i'm well known for it). It doesn't mean my projects get done faster, the real result has been making those around, like my family, feel neglected. I say enjoy your time with your girlfriend, focus your productivity at work where it matters, and just enjoy your projects. --- There is probably a good argument about the mental health of those, like myself, who can concentrate for days on end, months at a time. Actually, I think its great that you can relax after 10 hours a week on your project. I can never shut my mind down long enough stop working on my projects, or even sleep.

<comment><USER11> Your last word worries me, because I've seen insomnia and it's a killer. Like you I often have trouble shutting off my mind, causing me to continue working on problems in my mind while I'm supposed to sleep. Sometimes productive, but you will crash in the end, especially as you get older. When it gets really bad I force myself to sit down & meditate. When I do that for a few days I know I can find a healthy rhythm again. Heartpain, headaches & stress-induced illness are not worth any perceived productivity gain. Learn to shut down your mind.

<comment><USER10> You are absolutely correct. I've never met anyone else with my level of concentration. So other than what I experience first hand, I've never seen anyone suffer from fatigue. But, while others can seem jealous about my small accomplishments, I actually get jealous that they have lives.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I managed to code about 20 hours a week for 6 months, while also working parttime. I blogged about it - [http://blog.gridspy.co.nz/2010/02/part-time- entrepreneur.htm...](http://blog.gridspy.co.nz/2010/02/part-time- entrepreneur.html) \- Great HN reaction here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1150061>

I found that trying to be a father, an employee and also a startup entrepreneur all-consuming. I really couldn't do anything else, all my time was tied up.

Also, I probably couldn't have done it at all if my fulltime job required my full talents. As it was, it was a pretty simple role requiring only lightweight UI work in C++, so it didn't drain my brain at all.

Don't beat yourself up about not sustaining a huge number of hours. The best solution is to be clever about how you use your time and to try to reduce the number of hours you work.

</comment><comment><USER12> I have been slammed with work for the last 6 mo, picked up two other guys and am still slammed. I literally code 12-16 hours a day and have a side project that has just been languishing on the back burner for months. It is definitely not a case of want to but I have too, I pulled a 116hr week one week of literally non-stop code. I freelance and not pulling those hours means that I loose the contracts that I have. It is a treadmill but one thing I have learned and the piece of advice I can give you is that once it becomes habit, it is actually easy to put in these kind of hours regularly if it is what you want to do. I now find that while I work long hours when I do work, I also tend to schedule longer amounts of time off to travel and recharge, it works for me, but I would like to have enough head room to get back to doing my own stuff as well.

<comment><USER13> A couple of years ago I made the mistake of committing to too many projects. (I'd just started free-lancing and put a few feelers out and they all came in at the same time! Typical!)

Think I was pulling 16 hours a day consistently for two or three months. Managed to meet all deadlines, but in hindsight I think I made a couple of poor design decisions - and I didn't question some of the things clients asked for (just cracked on and did them without offering much input).

Now I make a conscious effort to say no (which I don't like to do, but must) when I don't think I have the spare capacity.

Only problem with freelancing is how difficult it is to find time for your side-projects. Am also trying to sort out enough head room to be able to focus on my own stuff. Good luck with it!

<comment><USER12> Yeah, I have been doing this for a while, but something is going on as of late, they just don't stop coming, I double my rate and they still take it, double that the next time and they still take it. So I am on this treadmill where I can't say no and bringing people on, means having to stop to train. I am at that critical point where it is very hard to grow correctly but can't continue to handle it with the 3 people we have now, the other two where guys I worked with extensively so they where real easy to onboard, the next won't be so easy. Our time is so constrained that we don't even have time to build a company web site (pretty sure we are going to just sub that one out, but we still have to come up with the marketing messages). Not complaining though it is a good problem to have.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Don't worry, you're normal.

I've wondered the same thing a LOT. What I've discovered is that you can only push yourself so much (although it's more than many people believe), and that there are limits on how long you can spend focusing on one (type of) thing.

Also check this out: <http://dl.dropbox.com/u/242985/rules_of_productivity.pdf>

It's called "Laws of Producitivity: 8 Productivity Experiments You Don't Need to Repeat" and it's exactly what it says it is. Very interesting; I forget where I originally discovered it.

My advice is to keep pushing yourself, but don't sweat it if you don't improve over night.

</comment><comment><USER15> I usually code around 5 hours at work. About an hour is spent getting coffee/lunch or just stretching, another hour at scrums or the occassional meeting, another couple in discussions around desks.

At home, when I'm actually working on a project (ie. not work related) it usually goes from 2 hours to 4 or 5, if it's a weekend I might spend a whole evening on it, otherwise I save my nights for relaxing, playing a game, going out etc.

All in all, it's probably more than 40 hours a week; around 55, I'd say. I'm kind of trying to reduce it though, maybe hit the gym 3-4 times a week again, or just find a hobby. :-)

</comment><comment><USER16> Have a look at the Mylyn plug-in for eclipse and TaskTop Pro. Even if you don't use eclipse as your IDE, there is a standalone version and it connects to your bug-tracker / gmail and other task repositories, and let's not only very easily track your active time on tasks/tickets, but has some very cool tools for staying focused and organized.

And the reports really do help understand where your time goes.

They also help you see how your productivity is declining through the week, and the patterns that match when you can really burn through stuff.

</comment><comment><USER17> I seem to binge code often. Usually that means I'll go for 2-4 months with 2-3 hours of sleep, coding until the sun comes up. Now, I'm not super-human. It takes a toll certainly. During these binges I'll crash for a good 8 hrs every week or so to catch up.

I feel surprisingly okay during these periods, but it doesn't last forever. Eventually my day time performance starts to slow and then I go back to a normal routine where I still code almost non-stop except I sleep for 4-7 hrs depending. It isn't out of necessity, it's out of enjoyment, which is probably why I can get away with it.

(obviously, I eat, shower, and do take short breaks which usually means Wikipedia, blogs, and such)

This isn't for everyone. I'm sure its very unhealthy and I have no doubt I won't be able to continue this pattern when I'm older, but it's gotten me some incredibly productive work done. It's so much easier to stay focused FOR ME if I work on something in one sitting then to break it up. Some people are more productive sleeping 8hrs a day...but I'm not one of them. It's hard to sleep that long for me and I end up feeling like I slept all day.

It's so hard not to binge when there's always something to learn!

Lastly, like most on here I grew up from a very early age sitting at my computer. Thankfully for me that means I rarely get tired of it.

</comment><comment><USER18> In the 24 or 48hr competitions (rails rumble, node ko, tc disrupt,) the most frequent winners are those that still get sleep.

I think it is unreasonable to expect > 40hrs of pure programming productivity a week -- the body/mind needs time to recover.

You should still keep up the gym, diet and smoking improvements as they will continue to benefit you as you age (we all age, dont ignore it!)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, my lifestyle changes have definitely made me feel a ton better, especially in the mornings. Hopefully that will translate into more mental acuity over the coming months as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I find that while my 'dayjob' programming saps my willpower, the same activity for my sideprojects refills it right up.

I firmly believe that you need downtime though. Between my dayjob and my sideprojects I always take an hour or so to play, watch television, read or anything else that doesnt take much brainpower.

<comment><USER11> This phenomenon has everything to do with intrinsic motivation. When you can decide _yourself_ what to work on, you can be orders of magnitude more motivated & productive. Dan Pink's Drive is a good book to learn more about this stuff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> My two cents: * We need a Work-Life balance and it is easier said than it is done. * Periodical break and relaxation is essential. * You dont need to be at computer always to solve problems and design. How about a whiteboard/notebook?

<comment><USER21> I agree with you, I mostly solve really tricky problems when I'm not in front of a computer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I have been coding 14-16 hours a day for the past year for my startup. The only down time I have is to hang out with my girl friend to keep her happy. Originally it was my day job and the start-up and about 18 hours a day, but ended up quitting the day job because it was draining my energy because I did not enjoy it. I have to say it is not normal and very unhealthy and I personally can't wait to force myself to reduce my time (for which I have plans soon). That being said I don't find my productivity taking a dive and I do love doing it, it's just awkward not dedicating time to anything else.

</comment><comment><USER23> Is it possible the side projects are not interesting enough? If they feel like work, rather than fun, it may be hard to keep plugging away at them after a long day of coding.

<comment><AUTHOR> I have fun working on it but I think having a partner would really energize me after a day's work. Unfortunately, living in Alabama makes it hard to find a partner. I've made contacts over the net but they tend to fizzle out after a couple weeks. Being solo means isolation and that definitely kills some of the fun for me.

<comment><USER11> Having a partner is amazing. Whenever I feel down or just too tired to get things done, I go & talk to my partner to get myself fired up again. If you don't have a business partner, maybe you can find someone who works in the same field & just meet up for drinks & bullshitting from time to time?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Personally I can't code for more than 5 hours a day productively. Luckily I work from home so I'm not forced to sit in someones office and be judged not by what I accomplish but by how long I sit in my chair.

I actually get more done at home anyway since I have my perfect setup, good music and no interruptions. Anyway, count yourself lucky that you're actually very productive already.

</comment><comment><USER25> I'd kill for 40 hours a week to work on my project, but between the day job and family commitments (4 month old son!), I'm lucky if I can get 10 hours in!

Luckily, we're moving house next month and I'll finally have my own space where I can go, sit at a desk and code - even if it's in short bursts. Trying to work on the sofa while my wife watches TV just doesn't work for me.

</comment><comment><USER26> Sometimes it confuses me when people say they code this huge number of hours per week.

To me a large portion of coding (over 75%) is just sitting down and thinking about the problem. Most of coding these days is about researching libraries, designing, playing around rather than typing.

Try to be more effective in these bursts. Use tools that help you get ideas to code faster.

</comment><comment><USER27> Are you relatively young? Don't burn yourself out.

If I can manage 10 hours per week, I consider the week highly successful.

</comment><comment><USER28> I find learning new programming languages stimulating. Or re-learning old ones.

<comment><AUTHOR> Totally agree with you: even if I never end up using the language, learning new idioms and patterns has been immensely useful.

I still make time to learn new technologies, I just find the physical act of coding to have rapid mental diminishing returns after around 40 hours. That probably isn't a big deal if you were running a startup. Code for a while and then attend to the many other aspects of the venture. Having a day job can really throw that balance off, especially when working for a company that doesn't waste much time with meetings and busywork (which is a nice thing).

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I code 12 hours a day (3 4h sessions). But I dont have a traditional schedule because dont sleep. I only nap. If I did sleep there is no way I could do it.

</comment><comment><USER30> I tend to spend ~40 hours coding and rest designing/discussions and run to clear my mind. It just wouldn't work if I code all the time.

</comment><comment><USER31> I'm doing around 8 hours + side project. I'm still standing, fortunately!

</comment><comment><USER32> Can a surgeon do surgery for more than 40 hours/wk?

</comment><comment><USER33> Eh. I'm capable of it, but not at a sustained rate. I exceed that kind of rate in response to external pressures.

I'm most productive when I fiddle my thumbs and have bizarre bursts of genius or when I plug at it at a pretty normal number of hours per week.

I've been exceeding that on a regular basis lately mostly because I have a full-time job + side projects. It's not sustainable and I don't want to keep doing it, so I'm going to try to wrap up a few things pretty soon.

</comment><comment><USER34> I can't even do 40 anymore. When I was in my twenties I did about 4 years of 60 hours a week but those days are over.</comment>


Alphabet is in talks to spin out its molten-salt storage play - <AUTHOR> https://www.technologyreview.com/s/611503/alphabet-in-talks-to-spin-out-its-molten-salt-storage-play/ <comment><USER2> PDF[1] of a 16 page technical paper titled "Pumped Thermal Grid Storage with Heat Exchange" (Feb 5th, 2016) by Robert Laughlin, Dept of Physics, Stanford University, link to from the article.

It would be great if this system can be built and works well. Months of energy storage at pumped hydro efficiencies are predicted.

[1][http://www.w2agz.com/Library/Storage/rbl- storage-05feb16%20(...](http://www.w2agz.com/Library/Storage/rbl- storage-05feb16%20\(2\).pdf)</comment>


Ruby 2.0 Preview Available on Heroku - <AUTHOR> http://blog.heroku.com/archives/2012/11/5/ruby-2-preview-on-heroku/ <comment><USER2> Thanks for the heads-up. I'll be giving this a try on a development app a little later today.

It'll be interesting to see if Rails 3.2.x apps truly are 100% compatible.

<comment><USER3> Spin it up and give it a shot, you might want to install the preview locally too: <http://coderwall.com/p/tptocq>

<comment><USER4> Alternative incantation using Homebrew openssl: <https://gist.github.com/4007524></comment></comment></comment>


Ticketing App AXS Scrapes Everything It Can Get from Your Phone - <AUTHOR> https://theoutline.com/post/5628/how-a-concert-ticket-steals-your-personal-data?zd=3&zi=pjss3eov <comment><USER2> Likewise, the StubHub app sucks up all of your contacts, location details, and even personal calendar data.

It's so far, we have to carry an additional "blank" device for use with these mandatory app situations.

For a contrasting example, Moviepass leaves your contacts and calendar alone.

</comment><comment><USER3> I wish there were a way to give per-feature permissions to apps, instead of just a "yes or no" for the whole app. For instance, I could approve this app to access the internet, but not to get my contact list or calendar.</comment>


To Patent or Not to Patent your idea? - <AUTHOR> http://deskle.tumblr.com/post/16758012363/invent-patent

<comment><USER2> Patent It Yourself by - David Pressman gives a comprehensive overview of the Patent process. This article is a good intro, but I think "Can it make serious money" is no.1

<comment><AUTHOR> Completely agree on this. I think many just "know" they have to patent an idea 'cause they've heard about it. But few are aware if the whole process is truly worthwhile.</comment></comment>


Why is Groupon so important?  - <AUTHOR> http://measuringmeasures.com/blog/2010/12/23/why-is-groupon-so-important.html

<comment><USER2> [Groupon employee speaking]

Group buying is still relevant in new markets. In established markets almost every deal tips.

 _many merchants are not sophisticated enough to structure their deals properly such that it is economically beneficial to them_

One of the services that the margin on the deal pays for. G wants the merchants to have a good experience (95%+ report that they do) and continue to use G as opposed to other deal sites. Deal makers here structure the deal to maximize benefit to the business. That's why you'll get $20 for $10 to a sandwich place, $10 for $4 at an ice cream shop, and $50 for $25 at a steak house. This is with the insight of all the other deals made in your city.

 _Merchants must give blanket discounts, and have no ability to segment or run comprehensive campaigns. In particular, merchants can not do things like target existing customers with reward programs, and new customers with enticement programs_

This is true for the "Daily Deal" which gets the most exposure and are outsized deals. These are basically a marketing budget spend, but the money goes to G and the customers instead of advertising media.

New personalization and deal feed features (currently out in limited markets) let merchants put deals at will to previous and interested customers completely outside of the daily email.

Also, G's intention is to get customers _to the business_ , not to take over the business relationship. Businesses should have their own rewards programs, etc.

 _We have three problems to solve; 1) long term economic viability for merchants through assisted program creation, 2) segmentation and campaigning for merchants, 3) relevance for customers._

#1 is already something we do. #2,3 exist to a limited extent but we're working (a lot) on improving them)

 _What if we had a "personal fingerprint" for each consumer that is subscribing or consuming from a stream, as well as the attributes of merchants and their individual campaigns? If that fingerprint contained rich information about their interests, demographic information, and so on, then we could both assist the user in subscribing to only those promotions that meet their interests, and assist the merchant in very fine grained segmenting and targeting._

It's like you read our mind. But just as most small businesses aren't good at or interested in marketing, it's the same for segmenting and targeting. I think as a data-head, Bradford is overestimating how much merchants want to do that. They just want a stream of customers coming through the door and Groupon does that in a very hassle-free way.

<comment><USER3> _G wants the merchants to have a good experience (95%+ report that they do)_

How does that match with the rice university study where 42% wouldn't run a promotion again? It seems unlikely that half of your clients have a good experience they wouldn't repeat.

<comment><USER2> I don't know about the Rice study. 95%+ is the number we get told by the bosses, based on our followup surveys with them. I'm not sure what the real truth is but based on the wild inaccuracies in the public numbers about Groupon's business, I tend to trust the internal numbers. Pre and post-deal experience and handling is part of what the fat margins get spent on, to make sure that it is a good experience for the merchant.

EDIT: Found results in question - [http://www.screenwerk.com/2010/10/01/survey-42-of-groupon- sm...](http://www.screenwerk.com/2010/10/01/survey-42-of-groupon-smbs-would- not-do-it-again/)

Caveats about the study: 1) It was sent to 360 total businesses (Groupon deals with 10Ks of businesses) 2) 150 responded. 3) No mention of when these businesses ran their deals - 6 months earlier or later would make a huge difference in a company as young and fast-growing as Groupon.

Since people with a negative experience are much more likely to respond, this should be taken with a grain of salt. Also, 42% of 150 means that they found 63 businesses that would not repeat.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> There seem to be two definitions of why Groupon is important: the first is why the model works, and the second is why this particular company has a lock on that model. I can mostly agree with the arguments for the model, but don't see what particular advantage Groupon has as a company that would justify its proposed valuations.

As a merchant, I've been in contact with Groupon and have looked closely at their system. Everything makes sense to me about it other than the cost. To use them, I'd need to be selling something at a 70% discount (their take is half of the discounted price), which for me means selling for about 50% of my cost to produce. For some businesses, this is a justifiable marketing expense, but for me, I think there are better ways to benefit from giving away things for free.

While there is considerable consumer loyalty to Groupon, I don't see any such merchant loyalty. As soon as someone offers me a Groupon clone that offers to take only 10% of the sales, I'm there. Why doesn't Google put its $Billions into attracting merchants to a new site rather than buying an existing site that looks extremely vulnerable to future competition? Is there some lock in I'm not seeing?

<comment><USER2> The model works. No matter what Groupon does in the future, fat deals as customer acquisition are a fact of commerce now. Black Friday is another manifestation of this.

One reason Groupon hasn't had downward pressure on margins is that none of the competitors drive enough customers to businesses. As far as the two-sided market goes, no one else has the customers so merchants are still best served by going to Groupon (unless, as in your case, the cost to acquire those customers is too high).

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Groupon = online advertising for people who don't understand 'cost per user'.

The majority of small business owners fall into this category, and that's why Groupon prints money.

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm sure there's a market for what they're doing but don't forget: 1) it's a freaking coupon 2) it's ONE coupon, un-targeted, delivered to a wide audience

In an era where print publications are becoming extinct, of course there's going to be a growing market for ads that are delivered to a wide audience and presented in a "legit" manner (eg not spam). This is a new thing only insofar as it is now happening in electronic media rather than print.

<comment><USER7> One key difference is the retailer gets all the money up front rather than having to wait for you to actually buy something. In that sense it's more like a gift card than a coupon.

<comment><USER2> Not up front. Don't know if the terms are public but merchants do have to wait a little while to get the money Groupon collects.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Groupon, Facebook, eBay all build products that solve _big problems_ , felt by your _average joe_. No explanation of product necessary. People like gossip, people like stalking, people like a bargain. It is as simple as that.

</comment><comment><USER9> <i>Advertising has become quite spammy and irrelevant. We've gotten away from the core issue, which is not inherently spammy at all - merchants interacting with people to retain their existing customers and win new customers. There is noting evil about that, and the direction that advertising has taken for decades has been largely disrespectful, manipulative, misleading, and lacking in creativity. As a result, it has become quite boring.</i>

Advertising has always been misleading and disrespectful, at least going back to the Romans. I had never heard about Groupon until today, and find it mildly interesting, but the problem with it is that I have to pony up cash in advance for something sigh unseen (usually a service or a meal!) and I guess I am too cheap for that.

Rddle me this: how is Groupon different from one of those coupon books the local school kids sell?

<comment><USER4> The main difference from the merchants' point of view is that when they do an offer with Groupon they receive half of the proceeds from the 'coupon', whereas in for a 'discount book' they receive nothing. The Groupon offer is thus better viewed as a heavily discounted gift certificate. Otherwise there is little difference other than the scale.

As to whether you are too cheap to buy a coupon? Unlikely. More likely you are insufficiently cheap for the idea to hold appeal, as you are OK with buying the product you want when you want it, rather than jumping through all sorts of hoops and advance planning to save a few dollars. You are welcome and possibly correct to view this as 'wise'.

<comment><USER9> You might be right, in a sense. But on the other hand things like meals out and skydiving lessons hold little appeal to me. Half off veggies or vehicle repair could be more up my alley.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Hi Brad,

You are 100% correct in your analysis here. One of the biggest problems from the merchant's perspective is being able to be successful with these tools and actually benefitting in the long run. They need a way to be able to test these deals to see how they are working for their business and then measure if these deals are driving traffic and revenue and continually tweak them. For services based businesses, being able to fill last minute availabilities instead of selling vouchers that can be used at anytime are also extremely critical to sustainability. Without this, this advertising method won't be able to serve these local businesses. These are the very things we are focusing on at bTreated.

Thanks for the great food for thought!

Andrew Hersch COO bTreated

</comment><comment><USER11> I've thought that Groupon is important because it has created a new online sales niche. Creating new niches is extremely rare.

This seems almost too simple to be correct. However, Groupon has created a niche / vertical / category that enables local deals to be promoted to the masses in a new and interesting way online.

</comment><comment><USER12> Aren't AdWords limited to $20/click now?

EDIT: I cannot find a reference to this anywhere. I thought they were capped, maybe it is just $50, and I am not yet fully awake.

<comment><USER13> I sort of doubt it. From my experience at Overture/Yahoo there were certainly multiple classes of words where advertisers were willing to pay more than $20 (cars, jewelry, mortgages (at the height of the bubble), lawyer services (particularly malpractice and mesothelioma, which was the highest priced keyword for many years)).

OTOH, maybe Ad _Sense_ is limited to $20? Contextual advertising is a lot less valuable than search advertising.</comment></comment>


Sublime Text developer promises more updates in 2015 - <AUTHOR> http://www.sublimetext.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=17470 <comment><USER2> This is exactly why I don't blink at purchasing Sublime, and I won't think twice about it when I have to do it again. These are the types of projects we need to support!</comment>


Google AMP is still confusing, and it's not getting any better - <AUTHOR> https://www.androidpolice.com/2018/05/23/opinion-google-amp-still-confusing-not-getting-better/ <comment><USER2> I thought one of the aims of AMP was to curate advertising. A couple months ago I got (on my Android phone) one of those popovers that fills the entire screen and screams that my phone is infected and I need to "click here" to fix the infection. I couldn't even get away from it with the back button and had to return to the home screen and kill the browser. This came from a Bloomberg page (which was summarily blacklisted from my news feed.) I searched for some way to report this and found none.

I guess it's no surprise that AMP is not doing better with some of its other goals.

<comment><USER3> I really wish ads were forced to be in an iframe. Too bad every advertiser wants their own analytics.</comment></comment>


Class R (Revenue) Stock: A New Class of Investment? - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2009/06/18/class-r-revenue-stock-a-new-class-of-investment/ <comment><USER2> This is not a new idea, but a very old one. When companies first started to be funded by people unconnected with the management (railroads for example), they generally had classes of stock that offered some prespecified return.

</comment><comment><USER3> Funny, because if you read the Software Bill of Rights (<http://softwarebillofrights.org/license.html>), that's pretty much what we do: a cut of revenue share while the company is only making money, but convertible into equity if the company gets bought. The only dimension we don't have (because the SEC wouldn't like it) is the investment part. So currently, you can only earn those class "R" stock if yourself contribute sweat, not cash. I'd love to fix that hole though...

</comment><comment><USER4> Isn't this what a convertible note is? Admittedly that's restricted to qualified investors, and is not tradeable on the open market, but this doesn't sound too unusual.</comment>


Haskell to Elm, syntactic differences - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/eeue56/haskell-to-elm <comment><AUTHOR> Found this resource very useful when test driving Elm as someone with previous Haskell knowledge</comment>


Bret Victor on working at Apple. - <AUTHOR> http://worrydream.com/#!/Apple <comment><USER2> The title really should be changed to reflect the actual message (or lack of one). Nowhere in the post does he say that he __didn't __have a good time working at Apple. Nowhere does he advise not working there (like the title suggests).

From what I infer, anyway, his actual message is that he can't show what he worked on at Apple - not that it's a bad place to work.

<comment><USER3> That's what I also thought at first, but the second question of the FAQ on the site lends itself to the interpretation that working at Apple was a "mistake". But yeah, the title is somewhat editorializing...

<comment><USER4> Well, that, or it could also mean that the mistakes are the reasons none of his products are available on the market today, and therefore he can't show them off.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Looks like there are more to this story. The Departure one is really creative :)

<http://worrydream.com/#!/Freedom>

<http://worrydream.com/#!/Departure>

Great site, overall.

<comment><USER6> That departure one is excellent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The post is almost content-free, we all know apple is secretive.

But that website is a _work of art,_ although it does crawl in chrome on my current-gen mac mini.

If the guy doesn't like apple, I doubt he'd have much trouble finding work elsewhere.

EDIT: re-reading, I see that he has.

<comment><USER8> Just to provide a counter-point, from a usability point of view I found that article terrible.

On the 1920 pixels wide screen at work, more than half the horizontal width became buttons (previous and next). As soon as the mouse pointer was outside the white background for the linked-to article, a click lead to navigating away from the article.

It took me at least two or three times of wondering where the fsck the article I was reading went, before I realized what was going on. Apparantly randomly clicking on what looks like (and ought to be) passive whitespace is a bad habit, on today's web.

<comment><USER7> _> On the 1920 pixels wide screen at work, more than half the horizontal width became buttons (previous and next)_

I think my adoration may have been influenced by the fact that my monitors are in portrait orientation.

And I use a trackball. I'm a sucker for contrarianism. Maybe I should start using visual studio?

<comment><USER9> Please, a little consideration. I just finished breakfast, and it was tasty. I'd prefer to keep it down.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Man signs contract containing NDA _before starting work_ then seems to object to the fact that he's being held to an NDA.

If he made a mistake surely it reflects on him rather than Apple?

If you don't like the terms, don't sign the contract. If he's good enough to get a job at Apple I suspect it wasn't his only option.

<comment><USER11> I'd guess he expected a 99% failure rate in exchange for a few highly polished gems that might be featured in a MacWorld keynote, or at the very least make it into a shipping product he could show off to his family and or friends.

I think anyone should be allowed to feel disappointed at a 100% failure rate over three years, no matter how many NDAs they signed.

<comment><USER10> He was working in highly conceptual R&D, he could have worked there for decades and never had anything reach the public in any recognisable form, let alone make a MacWorld keynote.

If you want public recognition it's not a great area to work in regardless of the company.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Hate to say it: thats not even an Apple problem. Almost every corporate research division works like this. A lot of ideas go there to die.

<comment><USER13> True that. It's not like the web is full of prototypes and ideas from other high profile companies except Apple.

Haters are going to hate…

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> If only someone had warned him of their secretive culture before he started.

<comment><USER15> Is a warning even necessary? I am fairly certain every company works this way.

<comment><USER16> Umm.. no they don't

Many companies _encourage_ people to talk about their work. See, for example, Microsoft, Facebook, Google, Twitter etc.

Obviously they have some restrictions - but nothing like Apple.

<comment><USER17> Google certainly doesn't encourage people to talk about their work--it's one of the things that puts me off the thought of working there.

<comment> space-monkey <http://www.google.com/events/io/2011>

<comment><USER10> There are 25,000 Google employees, how many of them do you think are attending IO (total attendance 5000), let alone speaking there.

That's a stage managed corporate event announcing new products and initiatives, it's no more a display of openness than Steve Jobs' keynotes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm sure for someone in this position it could get pretty frustrating to work at a place like Apple. On the one hand, you could invent something that could end up being used on a device used by hundreds of millions of people. On the other hand, that bar, purposely, is insanely high, so the likelihood that will happen is low. Corporate security aside, that just seems like the nature of the game at a company that values (and delivers) on a world class user experience.

</comment><comment><USER19> This dude is a bit more than a designer: <http://worrydream.com/VisualizingEdgeWeights/>

</comment><comment><USER20> On the other hand, I can point to portions of Mac OS X and iOS that are shipping today and say: I made that.

Not only was the experience of working at Apple incredibly valuable from a technical standpoint, but from a business standpoint it's something instantly recognizable to others.

</comment><comment><USER21> The document linked below is easily the least important page on the whole site.

But without it, I would have never read the rest of it, so thank you. I think I just spend about 50 minutes getting schooled by Mr. Victor. Amazing concepts.

(everything I just typed feels trite after the sweeping visions imparted in the literature on that site. Seriously. I'm going to bed.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Exactly. I'm a huge fan. He's tackling complex problems and trying his best to do something about it. Working at Apple you'd think would be a good approach. But his work for Al Gore is likely a better starting point to evangelizing his points. Especially when he's unconstrained by NDAs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Honestly, it sounds like a pretty interesting job, but reminds me of the adage about choosing between doing something awesome and being to tell no one, and doing something (more) mainstream and telling everyone.

Sounds like he'd prefer the latter. And maybe he's right, at least from a portfolio perspective.

</comment><comment><USER23> This is just the nature of the business. I have nothing in my portfolio from 2007 until now. None of my work is as interesting or potentially valuable as anything I might have done at Apple - mostly UIs for games then UIs for banks. But all of it is under NDA.

</comment><comment><USER24> Somehow it comes as no surprise to me that he's been 'Inventing shit'. Carry on; get a job, create one for yourself. That apple stamp of approval on your resume helps and we know Apple is run like a death star.

<comment><USER25> I'll bite. Define the workings of the death star. Or rather, define how you see the workings of the death star in a way that helps me comprehend your definition of how Apple is run.

The things I've read all point to Apple being pretty much a great place to work, except that because of its secrecy not a lot (if anything in many projects) can be shared outside their walls. This is, if you think about it, one of the main reasons why they enter a market and lead it. One might disagree with their methods and the extreme secrecy, but it's also working out pretty darn well if we look at the numbers.

<comment><USER26> Hence, like the death star. It would have rocked the empire (market) if the rebels hadn't stolen the plans.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> How long are such NDAs legally enforceable? If I sign the NDA and work at Apple for month am I prohibited from ever discussing ideas developed under NDA during that month? Has there been any meaningful test of this in court? What if Apple releases a product that incorporates aspects of the ideas but not all of them? Is Bret still unable to speak of his work (even if he limits it to the aspects publicly disclosed by Apple)?

</comment><comment><USER28> I dont see the big deal. Apple is Apple. Hopefully he learned a ton and will take it with him to his next startup where he will be able to blog about it.

<comment><USER29> From the FAQ at the bottom of the article:

      Q - Oh, okay, I thought you had made some sort of mistake.
      A - Yes, exactly.

The ``yes, exactly [[i've made some sort of mistake]]'' doesn't refer to the empty box itself...

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Please change the title. No way does Bret state that you shouldn't work there. Just that he can't show you anything.

<comment><USER31> Q - But that box is empty! It's an empty box!

A - Yes, exactly.

Q - Oh, okay, I thought you had made some sort of mistake.

A - Yes, exactly.

<comment><USER32> I'm not sure how so many people are missing this. Not reading through or simply not getting it?

<comment><USER33> When something is left up to interpretation, no matter how obvious, many will simply not get it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> It would be awesome if Bret wasn't using so many CSS3 effects on his site, causing my iOS browser to crash repeatedly.

<comment><USER35> I don't get why you mentioned Bret at all, I think you must have meant that you wished your browser wasn't so crash-prone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> <http://worrydream.com/Apple/> for javascript impaired people.

</comment><comment><USER37> Didn't read due to crap web design.

<comment><USER38> Why, the beautiful all-black page I get loading it without js enabled is quite elegant. I might well not have _read_ the page, but I certainly _appreciated_ it.

<comment><USER39> It's just the hash-bang links that break with JavaScript disabled. If you visit the home page with JavaScript disabled (or IE-enabled, heh...), you're actually good to go: <http://worrydream.com/Apple/>

Personally, I think it's a gorgeous site; An amazing example of interactive front-end web development. It amazes me to think that just a few years ago, the only real option for this interactivity would have been Flash.

<comment><USER38> It's less broken, say, than Twitter, where many legacy non-#! links became redirects to #! links.

But the whole thing is like the thinking that "This site works best with IE 5.0" -and, naturally, is crippled for everyone else- is a reasonable approach to web design. And at least those sites warned us about what the pain they caused and why - this UI is more like visiting a Flash-only webpage in 1998.

Have these guys never heard of the noscript tag? No, wait: weirdly enough, Bret Victor actually uses the noscript tag to govern which CSS file is loaded. That is, no doubt, why the featureless black webpage I am presented with is so uniquely appealing a featureless black webpage.

Telling NotScripts to temporarily allow Javascript to look at the site shows a website with very nice graphic design and awful usability. Which is very much what I expected.

Javascript often offers the same usability experience as Flash. That's why I disable it by default.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ballmer says Microsoft intends to become industry leader in cloud computing - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/12/AR2010071205166.html

<comment><USER2> My favorite line here: "If you don't want to move to the cloud, we're not your folks"

Other gems from Ballmer:

"Google's not a real company. It's a house of cards."

"Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches."

My personal favorite: "Vista is faster than XP"

</comment><comment><USER3> Everyone is pretty quick to criticise Ballmer and Microsoft and while he does spout a lot of nonsense has anybody actually evaluated Microsoft's cloud platform....from the comments I would say no.

I have and I have to say it's an excellent platform, it has a good feature set, competitive pricing (matches EC2) and they're doing tonnes of work to it and throwing a lot of cash at it. It's not tied to the .Net framework(you can run php, Java, RoR etc etc on it).

Interestingly they also announced Windows Azure appliance yesterday at WPC10 which is the first proper effort to solve to private cloud problem and having spoken to businesses looking at our product this is definitely an issue for B2B SaaS applications.

I just don't understand the immediate disregard for anything Microsoft does, yes IE has been sh*t however it's foolish to write off every new MSFT offering as the "next IE" without understanding what it is offering.

<comment><USER4> You're right that they could actually make an impact.

Now with F# and clojure available as dev languages on .net (soon, if not now), maybe even the "cool kids" will find it fun. Cheering google over msft has been fun, but what we're really cheering for is _choice_. You don't want only one player in the cloud space.

Further, if they can offer DirectCompute in azure, that'll be a _huge_ differentiator that'll attract the processing intensive apps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> There was a time when FUD like that would scare people off. That time is long gone.

</comment><comment><USER6> Just like they are the leaders in operating systems, mobile devices, search engines, development environments and browsers _sigh_

<comment><USER7> they're leaders in leading

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Is there anything that big idiot doesn't say? Actually, I hope he is CEO of Microsoft until no one recognizes the name.

</comment><comment><USER9> the whole premise of microsoft cloud technologies is windows, windows virtualization, and .net. from what i understand things like lamp, ruby on rails, and so forth reign supreme in this industry. is ballmer on crack?

<comment><USER10> The issue is primarily licensing, .NET is not ASP. It's actually a very good platform for development. The problem however is cost. Ballmer is very much not on crack because the same guys who buy Visual Studio will be willing to pay MS's price for cloud computing.

Yes, RoR and LAMP reign supreme on the cloud right now because most of the cloud toolsets and tool chains are geared towards RoR and LAMP. The cloud is very inaccessible to .NET developers of which there are a lot and they are employed by companies with large budgets who can afford such things.

When Ballmer gets the "Deploy to Windows Azure" button working in Visual Studio he will be on a gold mine. Especially since a lot of the people who will be clicking that button write horribly inefficient code. Instead of knowing their code is crap because the application is god awfully slow it will instead just ring in lots of CPU and IO cycles which result in big bills. The result will be "thats just how much an applications costs" instead of "write better code"

<comment><USER9> good points. i think cloud is a broad set of technologies in which operating system, database, web server, apis, etc play a part. msft could make some inroads with these as services considering their past record for shrink wrap software. but for ballmer to say that they will dominate the cloud, that's a bit of a stretch imho.

i feel that msft is trying to play the incompatibility card again where if they make things easier to develop in their set of cloud languages and technologies, it'll pull more developers and (unfortunately) bring us back into the days of internet explorer hell once more. for me, if i'm trying to build up a highly scalable web application, if it takes less time to write in msft jargon then perhaps lamp/ror becomes less attractive, but i haven't seen the day yet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Is this effort based on same winning strategy as Kin?

<comment><USER12> "You can't build a reputation on what you are _going to_ do"

May be Ballmer should stop trying to act cool and confident. His PR appearances are not helping them in PR.

Microsoft may be too large to fail in many verticals, but mobile and web are definitely not their strong points.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Somewhere in their cloud computing strategy must be to attempt to sue SalesForce.com out of business for software patent infringement.

<comment><USER13> No?

Source: [http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/microsoft_sues_salesfor...](http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/microsoft_sues_salesforce_for_patent_infringement_1.php)

It's not even typical Microsoft behavior. From the article above:

 _Although the frequent target of such suits, the Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft itself has only filed patent infringement suits four times in its history._

That makes me think that Microsoft is taking cloud computing very seriously, as Ballmer alludes to, and I would include going out of their way to seek injunctions against one of the largest players in cloud computing.

<comment><USER14> They may have filled patent infringement suits only four times until now ... but they've threatened companies far more than that.

They aren't stupid ... patent infringement suits can get their patents overthrown. You can win much more by spreading FUD.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> 10 years too late

<comment><USER16> What motivates you to say that? The term "cloud" itself is not that old. I understand some of the tech underlying was already here 10 years ago, but the combination of these to what we call the cloud wasn't - it's even still being built.

<comment><USER14> I'm not the parent, but let me shed some light on that.

I've been using Amazon's services ... EC2, S3 and RDS, and now trying out the Elastic MapReduce.

These services simply rock my world, and the prices are competitive enough that third-parties started building and selling their own infrastructure on top of Amazon's services ... like Heroku, MongoHQ, AppCloud or Stax. And all of them have brainless deployment and competitive prices.

Short story ... Amazon's services are awesome, and both Google and Microsoft are late in the game. The only way they could beat it is through better prices, but other than giving away monthly freebies I'm not sure how they could do that.

<comment><USER17> One way to beat Amazon is to make cloud development easier. I think they will do that. IMHO, Microsoft does make good development environments. People will pay for ease of use.

Another way is for Microsoft to do a great job of selling the cloud to its enormous client and developer base. I think they can do that. I suspect, but don't know, that most corporations would be happier with Microsoft behind their cloud than Amazon. A lot of corporations will have 10+ year relationships with Microsoft and/or its resellers, certified developers, etc. Amazon to them is an online store.

I think Microsoft has a great chance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> yeah they'll just bundle a cloud with Windows and give it away for free. wait a minute...

</comment><comment><USER19> what's the size of the market that they are targeting?

</comment><comment><USER7> you're going to become the industry leader in xyz? ah, ok.

</comment><comment><USER20> lol.</comment>


Programming Trends on StackOverflow - <AUTHOR> http://www.dodgycoder.net/p/programming-trends.html

<comment><USER2> Interesting data. The founders (Joel Spolsky, Jeff Atwood) are strong proponents of Windows programming, and the initial popularity of .net and c# make a lot of sense in that context. As the site has become more and more popular, the audience now consists of many people who aren't even aware of who those founders are, let alone follow their work. As such, the language spread is much more representative.

As someone who never goes anywhere near Windows programming, I'm quite pleased about the direction this trend has taken.

<comment><USER3> Given StackOverflow's structure and operational methods, one would expect questions about products in the Microsoft stack to decline as searches return more relevant answers.

To put it another way, as the site matures, more questions about _x_ will tend to correlate to the inverse of _x_ 's formal repositories of knowledge.

A user who finds an answer to their ASP.NET question on StackOverflow, doesn't ask a new question.

<comment><USER4> This is a problem I run into. As a more junior developer, nearly all of my questions I haven't been able to answer with research have already been answered on stackoverflow. Employers want me to have tons of points, but I don't usually have to ask any questions.

<comment><USER5> Your employers actually track your StackOverflow karma??

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Same data as area chart, attempted to sort categories by age while keeping related technologies grouped:

[http://cl.ly/image/1U400y1l2t3r](http://cl.ly/image/1U400y1l2t3r)

<comment><USER7> This is probably something I should already know, but how do you read a chart like this?

<comment><USER6> Think of it as a number of streams[1] running in parallel. The wider the stream, the more important the associated tag. Since the actual values are scaled to add up to 100%, comparing between relative importance is all they're good for.

There's also aa absolute version of this, which is a simple stacked area chart. It's not so useful here, because the relative popularity of tags is much more interesting than the absolute numbers, which are largely a function of StackOverflow getting more users in total. See for yourself: [http://cl.ly/image/101e1y1q3i19](http://cl.ly/image/101e1y1q3i19)

[1] There's also a thing called a "stream graph", which is related but not the same: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streamgraph](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streamgraph)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I can't help but think this would be better visualised as a time series with time on the X-axis and a number of series drawn as lines.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes that's how I originally tried it, but it was hard to pick out the trends since a bunch of lines were grouped together. Admit that the way its been done here is fairly strange, hopefully its useful to someone.

<comment><USER9> Another option would be a stacked area graph like this (the one on the right)

[http://www.asymco.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Screen- Shot...](http://www.asymco.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Screen- Shot-2013-06-03-at-6-3-5.31.21-PM.png)

<comment><USER10> Wow. Stacked area charts are so bad at conveying information efficiently or honestly - this one would be a good parody if it wasn't presumably an honest attempt.

RE: dishonesty, see for example [http://www.leancrew.com/all- this/2011/11/i-hate-stacked-area...](http://www.leancrew.com/all- this/2011/11/i-hate-stacked-area-charts/)

RE: inefficiency, note how bad the trend lines become near the top as the noise accumulates from the curves below. e.g. the galaxy tab curve on the left. I am reduced to visually converting areas into numbers (something humans are quite bad at) and searching for the previous data point, etc.

The one major thing this chart has going for it, though, is that it makes me want to play some old school video games.

See also: [http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/books_vdqi](http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/books_vdqi)

<comment><USER9> "Here's a fictitious example to show what I'm talking about."

Yes, the author's fictitious example sucks.

The chart I linked shows the data points as discrete, so it's actually the _stacked column chart_ the author claims to prefer and eliminates the confusion between height and thickness (that said, I don't object violently to that specific issue since I know how to read the charts).

Why convert curves to numbers? If you just wanted numbers read tabular data.

Tufte uses the equivalent of stacked area charts in one of his most famous examples (Napoleon's attack on Russia). Is it the width or the height of the bar that connotes the strength of the army?

[http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://cartographia.file...](http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://cartographia.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/minard_napoleon.png&imgrefurl=http://cartographia.wordpress.com/2008/04/30/napoleons- invasion-of- russia/&h=955&w=2003&sz=671&tbnid=2anacREESI1bUM:&tbnh=57&tbnw=120&zoom=1&usg=__6WJcpBmkRd4nkyuw0QS8AuQRayA=&docid=S0uQtYuQ0nODHM&sa=X&ei=PfjWUZyNGcaJjAL7_4CIDw&ved=0CEEQ9QEwAg&dur=389)

Tufte's great. You can quote him on both sides of most arguments. Displaying information well requires judgment, not just a bunch of rules.

<comment><USER10> The graph you linked is discrete only by technicality (all data samples are discrete, after all.) Compare how yours is 19 time slices squished together into a width (normalized for aspect ratio) almost half the size of the one I linked, which is 6 data points with adequate white-space.

Please note that in the (excellent) Napoleon chart, cross sectional thickness is used to convey the size of the army. Not only is this intuitive, but it is masterfully hinted by the way the line shrinks. Stacked area charts (as detailed in the article I linked) however are unintuitive - a slowly increasing trend stacked on a faster increasing trend will appear to decrease - this is very undesirable.

The chart you linked seems to want to say "The PC(+tablet) market is increasing, but Window's user base is stagnant". Either unstack the data or throw away/combine the irrelevant data. If you want to compare the Galaxy Tab to other Android tablets (as this chart seems to want to do as well) you will need a better chart or a second chart. The top of left chart is visual noise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Add to the TIOBE data, and it doesn't look pretty for Microsoft.

[http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index....](http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html)

I suspect it's because of the failure of Microsoft in the mobile space.

<comment><USER12> I think it's an exaggeration to say "it doesn't look pretty for Microsoft" especially since the drop in C# can be explained in part by Microsoft actively encouraging C# devs to start writing TypeScript/JavaScript applications. Microsoft has decided the future is TypeScript. If you want C# on mobile your best bet is to look at Xamarin, which is run by Miguel de Icaza of Mono fame. I'm curious how much MS has invested in that company.

Reference: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-5nExkCvAY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-5nExkCvAY)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I am a little surprised how comfortably PHP has remained as one of the top ranked tag. It's not consistent with the trend here on HN.

<comment><USER14> I guess that most PHP developers 're busying with their coding, not viewing HN threads like most of Ruby developers ;)

<comment><USER15> With a language as unstable as PHP, of course you'll be spending more time on StackOverflow than on HN ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Does the data provide views by tag? I'm a frequent beneficiary of SO content, but rarely have to ask new questions myself. Measuring views could give a more accurate depiction of how many devs are working on each tag.

<comment><AUTHOR> It does provide that yes but I think it could be easy to skew that when a handful of questions get a huge number of views due to being linked somewhere like the stack exchange newsletters, or other places.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> So, are we seeing a fall of microsoft from the developers' point of view? Are windows phone and asp.net mvc not enough to try to get back the hackers in the platform?

<comment><USER18> No. SO was founded by two windows developers, and build on a windows stack. They had a podcast detailing the process of development prior to public release of the site, followed primarily by windows developers.

The initial audience of the site was, ergo, primarily windows developers. As popularity grew, more developers from the broader community showed up, driving the proportion of windows questions down.

<comment><USER19> Also as the knowledge base of questions for a tag grows, room for new questions become fewer. Duplicates will be asked but I wonder how many times a person has a problem, does a search, finds an answer and never has to ask their own question on the topic.

<comment><USER20> Unfortunately breakdown for the close votes is not available like for the flagged answers. But my experience with the review queue is that 1 in every 4-5 votes is due to a duplicate.

Considering there are 58.1k close votes to review at the moment... that's loads of dupes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> It seems to me that this graph represents newness not popularity (to the degree it represents anything at all). That is when tech is new or has a new release more questions are asked about it. Once those questions are answered, fewer and fewer questions remain.

However, the problem is there are lots of noise sources. Is the tech complicated/confusing so lots of clarifying questions are asked? Are there lots of updates and releases? It the tech a lot larger in scope, such that it takes more questions to cover it? Is it in very heavy use and people are typically well versed in it so there are fewer questions? etc.

All in all I'm afraid it is hard to draw any meaningful conclusions from this, and easy to be mislead.

</comment><comment><USER22> Lotta java haters yet it stays steady. I also remember 1-3 years ago HN was full of RoR fanboys but its been pretty slow since and SO trends aren't good. It's interesting how things change and what becomes more fad like. They're both good languages, I'm just saying this to say there are no magic silver bullets ;)

Personally i think that what happened is that RoR just didn't scale to bigger projects. Java isn't perfect by any means but right now there isn't anything that scales out as well. And by scales out I don't necessarily mean performance, I mean team size.

</comment><comment><USER23> As a happy Ruby/Rails dev I can't figure why Python has double the marketshare. I guess it's the Google backing and the history of Linux admin usage?

<comment><USER24> Python seems to be used in a lot of contexts, not limited to web development. While Ruby is a lovely language it appears to be used primarily with Rails in a web context.

<comment><USER15> That's right. Python is popular among sysops folks, and the scientific/mathematics people.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> This is pretty cool, the last frame is telling.

It would be interesting to see the tags compared to each other by their relative bucket. As in IOS/iPhone/Android or web frameworks Django/RoR/Play/etc compared.

Also I'd be interested in knowing how the java popularity is without android (postings without the android tag).

<comment><USER26> Agreed with buckets. The iPhone tag drops to next to nothing, but iOS rises. I suspect this is due to people programming more for the iPhone/iPad family rather than just the phone. I wish that they were all grouped.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Surprised to see Objective C dropping; I wonder why that is? It sure doesn't feel like iOS is getting more web view apps, and with the increased frequency and quality of apps on the App Store in lieu of iOS porting, you'd think it would go up.

<comment><AUTHOR> Its not really dropping in terms of total questions asked, (obj-C has been sort of constant for about 12 months) but the other tags are increasing. The chart shows a proportion of the top 25 tags.

<comment><USER27> Ah, fair enough.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> It would be interesting to see similar data for which tags are marked for ignore by users. That might be a more indicative of users moving on...

</comment><comment><USER29> 1) Just because something is down percent-wise, doesn't mean it's actually in a decline. It's possible the overall numbers grew a lot.

2) This visualization is bad.</comment>


They walk - <AUTHOR> https://englianos.wordpress.com/2017/01/19/they-walk/ <comment><USER2> >> the dirt road where you got laughed at (with literally knee-slapping) by an old shepherd when you told him how you got fleas,

OK, now I really want to hear _how_ they got those fleas the old guy was laughing about :)

Also, the background to the blog- that's such a nice reconstruction of the interior of a Minoan palace. Where is it from?

I remember the first time I saw such a reconstruction (of a Minoan palace, again- there's just something with how colourful those tend to be); it made me long for the ability to see the place as it was when it was still standing. I always thought a reconstruction in some 3d engine would hit the spot.

Perhaps that's a bit of a counterpoint to the OP's assertion that technology inches us away from the real life of people past. I think there's times where it legitimately helps us, by providing a crutch to our imagination. After all, drawing things by hand (like the blog background) and using a computer, is not so different. GIS is a whole other thing though, I'd guess.

<comment><USER3> Looks like the interior of a Megaron, google says it's the Palace of Nestor from the Mycenaeans.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_Nestor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_Nestor)</comment></comment>


How kanban2go fulfills Zawinski's Law - old-gregg http://blog.mailgun.net/post/43096949183/how-kanban2go-fulfills-zawinskis-law

<comment><AUTHOR> It's nice to hear these case studies, especially this one, since Zawinski's law was one of the quotes we put on our whiteboard in the early days of Mailgun. It's also one of the reasons we focused so much on effectively parsing inbound email early on vs. just SMTP relay and deliverability stuff.

</comment><comment><USER2> I was googling Zawinski's law because I was admittedly unsure of its exact origin and found this pretty good discussion [http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/150254/what-d...](http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/150254/what- does-jamie-zawinskis-law-mean)

</comment><comment><USER3> Post author here. I wrote up this simple tutorial because I was legitimately surprised how easy the basics are with Mailgun and wanted to show my appreciation.

I'm curious to hear how other people have tackled this problem and what gotchas they found along the way. The devil is in the details with this sort of thing.

<comment><USER4> @damoncali does the setup you describe work even if the user bcc's their special address? Will mailgun still give you the recipient as email@example.com ?

<comment><USER3> It does. You can BCC your special address and the 'recipient' param is set properly.

<comment><USER4> thanks damon. looks like we're switching to mailgun :D

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I love the analytics that Mailgun is able to provide. We integrated the analytics into Mixpanel where we track all kinds of funnel metrics. Adding email boxes to apps is a necessity and Mailgun turned out to be a great solution for us. founder, kanban2go</comment>


When you can't win - <AUTHOR> http://justinjackson.ca/when-you-cant-win/

<comment><USER2> Nice post. I especially like the advice to create something even when you have no more than 5 min to spare. From my experience when performed regularly these 5 min add up really fast.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yup: it also shows the advantage of starting small. Think about how much easier it is to "wake up 5 minutes earlier" than "wake up 2 hours earlier"</comment></comment>


Google+ Hangout with Vint Cerf – starts at 2PM EST - <AUTHOR> https://plus.google.com/events/c1ah7qch7j1h0e6613v1c94grbs

<comment><USER2> Just tuned in to see Leo crying. I guess it was some pretty profound stuff.

<comment><USER3> For those of us without an hour to spare, can you explain who Leo is and why he would be crying? Vint Cerf I know, but Leo is kind of ambiguous.

<comment><USER4> Leo Laporte - a tech radio/TV journalist, founder of the twit.tv network. Look him up on wikipedia for more.</comment></comment></comment>


Operation Vula - <AUTHOR> https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/12/operation_vula.html <comment><USER2> "Ronnie" would most likely be Ronnie Kasrils ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronnie_Kasrils](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronnie_Kasrils)).

<comment><USER3> False. It's Ronnie Press:

[https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/yclsa-eom- forum/QhQl...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/yclsa-eom- forum/QhQl0XBSOwE)

It's not too hard to google up more documents about Dr Press and this whole business - well worth reading. This is a long interview with Tim Jenkin, one of the ANC's other technical boffins in the UK:

[http://www.nelsonmandela.org/omalley/cis/omalley/OMalleyWeb/...](http://www.nelsonmandela.org/omalley/cis/omalley/OMalleyWeb/03lv00017/04lv00344/05lv01405/06lv01415.htm)

Which contains this striking passage:

> Our concern became how do you run and how do you operate an underground war > by remote control without any contact with your soldiers? It's like running > a war with no communications and no-one's ever won a war like that. The > prime weapon in any war is your communications. [...] so we bought into it > and started using computers from the early eighties. By today's standards > these were hardly computers but you could type things on them and you could > print them out and you could ultimately produce publications. It was a big > step forward and I was in it right from the beginning. The PC itself came on > the market in 1982 I think it was so right from that time when the first PCs > became available. In those days computers couldn't really do an awful lot. > You'd have a word processor and that's all it could do for that moment while > you were running the word processor. So if you wanted to do anything else > you had to learn how to programme it yourself.

> We got into that, learnt how to programme these things and immediately we > could see this application. Whereas before we'd done all this coding by > hand, adding numbers together and doing all kinds of strange things with > books and so on, why not get the computer to do this. You type in your > message and it's done and you press a button and it enciphers the thing and > produces a string of non-readable characters.

We're all used to the idea that there is a secret history of World War II fought by geeks in huts in Bletchley Park, Bawdsey Manor, etc. Somehow it still comes as a revelation to me that there was a similar technical strand in the struggle for liberation in South Africa. And it does make me laugh that it was fought from bases in Bristol Polytechnic and a flat in Camden. The compiler is mightier than the AK-47!

<comment><USER2> Thanks for the correction.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> First read that as "Operation _Vulva_ ". Oops.

</comment><comment><USER5> Read between the lines. Schneider's message is both hopeful and concerning.</comment>


Tell HN: Node.js koa-router package transferred to unknown user - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/nodejs/package-maintenance/issues/77#issuecomment-463356844 <comment><USER2> The npm package ownership process is flawed. Anecdotally, I received an email from npm support saying someone requested publish rights to a package that I manage. The default was that the access would be granted if I did not respond within 30 days.

It's very possible this went through npm support, they received no reply within the window, and the transfer was granted.

There are good practices around domain names to lock transfer, perhaps npm should consider adopting similar mechanisms.

\--edit-- for the curious, here is the redacted email chain. I don't want to call anyone out on this. These things are hard and handling edge cases are very difficult. I love npm, and host several packages there. I really appreciate everything they've done for node and javascript, and I think folks are harder on them than they should be due to some tricky decisions they've made. But I want things to improve for everyone, so consider this a disclosure for analysis on how things can get better. [https://pastebin.com/636v8YSP](https://pastebin.com/636v8YSP)

<comment><USER3> I've been on the other side of a similar conversation, that eventually got me the name I wanted after around 30 days. This was around five years ago, when there were still no scoped packages and the ecosystem was surging in popularity. I guess in the previous years people had been creating test packages and forgetting about them, and no doubt some were just squatting popular names. In my case the package with the name I wanted was empty and inactive, and there was a human check before it being handed over.

<comment><USER2> Yes I had guessed the policy is to prevent squatting. But it shouldn't apply to packages that actually have code sitting in them - anyone could have seen my package had a bunch of work gone into it, even if it hadn't been updated in a while. If it's a legit package, no matter how old it is, then the ownership should stick to the original author by default in perpetuity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Please stop harassing me. Let's set the record straight.

The Koa organization did not write, maintain, or ever help with this package. I wrote it. I maintained it, with help from people who reached out to me directly (and actually contributed code).

@ZijianHe offered to maintain it, and I agreed to let him maintain it. Our relationship is not anyone's business. I don't have a relationship to the koa organization. I don't know them. Furthermore, @niftylettuce has repeatedly in emails to npm asserted that ZijianHe is Chinese, despite this having nothing to do with anything, or even knowing whether ZijianHe lives in China. Chinese developers have contributed more to this repository than anyone from the Koa organization. This kind of racial scaremongering or guilt by association is not acceptable. Its offensive. Let's be very clear: Developers from any ethnicity and nationality are welcome to contribute to open source.

I'm not going to say anything more on this issue. This is beyond ridiculous.

<comment><USER5> > Let's set the record straight... @ZijianHe offered to maintain it, and I > agreed to let him maintain it. Our relationship is not anyone's business.

Why not be transparent about selling the package? Or attempting to do so?

> Chinese developers have contributed more to this repository than anyone from > the Koa organization. This kind of racial scaremongering or guilt by > association is not acceptable. Its offensive.

Nice rhetoric here. But you know the Country of origin of most cyber attacks is China right?

Source: [https://www.csis.org/programs/cybersecurity-and- governance/t...](https://www.csis.org/programs/cybersecurity-and- governance/technology-policy-program/other-projects-cybersecurity)

> I'm not going to say anything more on this issue. This is beyond ridiculous.

Suit yourself. But it really isn't. Sorry for all the harassment you're getting but, it's not exactly unwarranted...

<comment><USER6> If you pulled up crime statics on black people vs white people, you'd have similar damning statistics. Rather than prejudicing this "unknown Chinese" guy why not treat him as a person first and find out who he is, and what he has to say?

<comment><USER5> Fair point. Although one shouldn't discount statistics altogether. Security experts lean on skepticism to help minimize exposure and discover new things.

Race and nationality aside, the transfer of ownership to an entity that has zero open source contributions in the js space does look very suspicious. I'm just surprised that an open source author didn't provide that disclosure to users of his work.

<comment><USER6> In almost all cases, including this one, you will have better signals than to bucket a whole race or culture under a generalized stereotype.

For example i can see at least another Chinese contributor who is against this who works at Alibaba that commented.

The principle issue here is that the repo was put up for sale, and anyone paying for the opportunity to maintain a free library should be scrutinized. This would be true regardless of if they were Chinese, black, or a white guy from San Francisco.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Although nothing malicious has happened yet, that change in the readme ("this package name is for sale") is spammy and concerning. Kudos on niftylettuce (love your blog!) for raising awareness.

This is yet another example of a (by now fairly known) vulnerability in the npm package ownership transfer process. Just a few months ago, there was a big drama with malicious code found in a popular package `event-stream`, placed by a new unknown owner.

I like one of the ideas in the GitHub issue, that a change in package ownership should be considered a major semver bump. At least that might reduce the reach of a bad actor who would buy a popular package for exploitation.

<comment><USER8> Woof. I didn't even notice the "for sale" part at first. That's probably the biggest red flag. You should _never_ sell a backdoor into thousands of codebases to the highest bidder.

Of course, the real problem is thousands of codebases shouldn't be banking on the honor system for stuff like this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Hi all. I am the one who took over the repo. Thanks for some of you guys reaching out.

I haven't been contributing to open source projects before so I don't have too much public information on my Github account.

Thus I think it would be a good opportunity for me to join the open source community by maintaining the koa-router project.

I will start reviewing PRs and getting rid of issues after I finish going thru the code.

Any suggestions are welcome

</comment><comment><USER10> Tangential, but koa-router isn't even that great, been using koa-tree-router [0] instead. Fewer dependencies, no API oddities and long-standing bugs [1], faster. It's much younger (less battle-testing), and has no regex and multi- parameter routes, but is worth considering.

[0] [https://github.com/steambap/koa-tree- router](https://github.com/steambap/koa-tree-router)

[1] [https://github.com/ZijianHe/koa- router/issues?q=is%3Aissue+i...](https://github.com/ZijianHe/koa- router/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+sort%3Acomments-desc)

</comment><comment><USER11> koa-router was owned by @alexmingoia and not by @koajs. Still it is a central piece of the koa framework that compromises practically every koa setup. The only alternative I have found is this:

[https://github.com/koajs/trie-router](https://github.com/koajs/trie-router)

The transition from express to koa has been slow, and this doesn't help. It will undermine the confidence on the koa framework.

<comment><USER12> Now that you can trivially use async functions as express handlers, what are the major benefits of transitioning to Koa?

<comment><USER13> None to be honest. I migrated my projects back to express. Most of the packages for koa are either unmaintained or not very active.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Maybe transfer of ownership should be a mandatory major version bump with no option to release to lower major versions anymore.

<comment><USER3> Transfer of ownership can be done "unofficially" in many ways though, for instance adding a contributor to the organization which controls the package. Requiring a major bump could be problematic in many cases (I'm thinking, @microsoft adding a member to their team would require a major for all their packages). And one can always sell their entire npm account, and no-one would notice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The new owner just confirmed that he purchased the package: [https://github.com/ZijianHe/koa- router/issues/494#issuecomme...](https://github.com/ZijianHe/koa- router/issues/494#issuecomment-463474660)

(in case the comment gets deleted: [https://i.imgur.com/J5lOiMZ.png](https://i.imgur.com/J5lOiMZ.png))

</comment><comment><USER16> Not commenting about the transfer but the urge from some to move this to the koajs organization (which is silly request):

Great about koa is that it's not a monoculture like express. express has all batteries included and lacks a healthy ecosystem. Yes, there is a lot stuff out but everything in and around express feels broken. Yes, you can use it and it's ok but you not really happy.

This paired with the same maintainers who also are on connect, express- generator, etc. They do all together a great job maintaining express but you feel the lacking pace in all these project. express still lacks hhtp2 (not turn-key-ready), express-generator is full of strange edge-cases nobody needs (in the www file) polluting your code. express docs got better but still.

But we as a community need healthy competition and if koa-router moved to koajs you'd start the next monoculture and new contenders wouldn't have any chance to establish because there is a default router.

The key to be successful is to build a minimal/barebone product and let others create additions and not swallowing everything into a slow org.

And tbh, I like koa-router but simple stuff like a regex path matching is not included where I need my own middleware (I mean it's a few lines but still).

Everyone who don't like this move, fine, fork koa-router and make it better and we will see if koa-router's new maintainer is a real maintainer who will push the product. Or just write your own router, it's not that hard.

Forking and improving is open source not complaining in dozen threads and pressuring people to hand out a repo (this reminds me of office politics and blackmailing" 'give us the repo or we destroy your and the new maintainer's reputation online'). I think it's more about getting the SEO-relevant Github and npm name 'koa-router'.

So guys, just stop it, welcome the new guy and/or fork, I am happy to yarn add your fork.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> To anyone reading this, I'm building a tool to automate this nonsense, at least until Node/NPM do something about it. Email me at email@example.com if you want to get notified once it's up. It will be free and open-source.

<comment><USER17> >automate this nonsense

What exactly are you automating? A notification system for transferring of ownership?

<comment><AUTHOR> Everything related to this nonsense

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> thats actually a kind of cool attack vector.

</comment><comment><USER19> Is NPM at it again?

<comment><USER20> I don't think NPM themselves have done much here. The original owner of the module sold(!) the package name and transferred it to a new owner. It's not like this was somehow sneakily stolen.

<comment><USER21> I agree on them not doing much. As in not much at all to help. How about I just go ask for every package on NPM and see who's busy enough to deal with that or not?

I love Javascript but the ecosystem stinks.

<comment><USER22> Could you not do that on PyPi and rubygems as well?

<comment><USER23> Absolutely not. PyPi and Rubygems have much more strict and sane ownership policies to prevent unauthorized takeovers of packages. (Same with apt and every other major package repo.)

No package in any package manager, if it contains code, and greater than 0 downloads and dependencies, should ever be replaced. The cost of storing an old package is miniscule compared to a system where anyone can petition for a package name takeover and cause unlimited cost through the effects of takeover. 30 days is absurdly short in the lifetime of software and does nothing good for the community. Package squatting is not a real problem for anyone.

In this case, the owner wanted the ownership change so it's really a non- event.

<comment><USER24> > Rubygems have much more strict and sane ownership policies to prevent > unauthorized takeovers of packages

No we don't. Our process is just as secure as npm's. Please stop talking about things you don't actually know.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Chinese firm finally picks an IP battle with somebody willing to fight: Disney - <AUTHOR> http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/disney-vows-to-defend-rights-as-snow-white-appears-at-wanda-park/ar-BBtDpIQ?ocid=spartandhp <comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I can see the article cites the park's creator saying "these are independent contractors I'm not liable" but I don't believe that reasoning. It doesn't work in the US with coffee shops when they allow cover songs but don't pay the ASCAP dues. Those penalties are stiff. This is a battle I see Disney winning.</comment>


Most highlighted books of all time on amazon - <AUTHOR> https://kindle.amazon.com/most_popular/books_by_popular_highlights_all_time

<comment><AUTHOR> tim ferris has done well for himself.</comment>


Ask HN: What are you favorite learn by building tutorials? - <AUTHOR> I like tutorials that explain you how to build a thing like an language interpreter, terminal text editor, etc that you can follow and code at the same time.
I really liked the Let's Build A Simple Interpreter (https://ruslanspivak.com/lsbasi-part1/), followed it and build the Pascal interpreter in Swift instead of Python.
Now I am finishing up with Build Your Own Text Editor (https://viewsourcecode.org/snaptoken/kilo/) and learning a lot low level terminal stuff.
What are your favorite tutorials of this kind that you can recommend? <comment><USER2> Nand2tetris.

[https://www.nand2tetris.org/](https://www.nand2tetris.org/)</comment>


Safari on iPad doesn't work with IP address? - <AUTHOR>

Has anyone else noticed that Safari does not work with a dotted-decimal ip address? <comment><USER2> Not quite sure what you mean with "dotted-decimal", but accessing my local server at 192.168.etc works fine in Safari, both iPad and iPhone.

</comment><comment><USER3> Don't think so - can you provide an example?</comment>


The Crystal Language now compiles itself - Find out how - <AUTHOR> http://crystal-lang.org/2013/11/14/good-bye-ruby-thursday.html

<comment><USER2> Congratulations! To me Crystal looks like a perfect language. A balanced combination of D and Ruby. Looking forward to see how the macros will be integrated. Hope string-based macros will be replaced with some real AST homoiconicity in the future.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is really interesting! Crystal looks more promising each day.</comment>