Paul Krugman: How I work - <AUTHOR> http://www.princeton.edu/~pkrugman/howiwork.html?pagewanted=all <comment><USER2> I think his way of doing research is the way computer scientists do research. I.e. instead of taking a very complex programming model (like Java's or Haskell's), most CS researchers invent their own mini languages (that in a lot of cases are simple extensions of lambda calculus or turning machines), these mini languages makes it much easier to reason about specific things. An example: Java's generics were first presented in a paper that added them to a mini-language that only mimicked some properties of Java.

That said, his way of working also seems to be very "hackerish", i.e. instead of using "the normal ways", he hacks a model together that show some properties that the conventional and more complex models have a hard time showing. This is basically also how great hackers work, e.g. Paul Graham's Arc (it's very unconventional and simplified - but great at showing the essence of the hacker's ideas).

Anyway, great link!

</comment><comment><USER3> this is my favorite quote, from the "Be Silly" section: "If you want to publish a paper in economic theory, there is a safe approach: make a conceptually minor but mathematically difficult extension to some familiar model. Because the basic assumptions of the model are already familiar, people will not regard them as strange; because you have done something technically difficult, you will be respected for your demonstration of firepower. Unfortunately, you will not have added much to human knowledge."

be silly. do something completely different. the normal ideas that techcrunch spits out day after day are played out, do something revolutionary.

</comment><comment><USER4> _What seems terribly hard for many economists to accept is that all our models involve silly assumptions. Given what we know about cognitive psychology, utility maximization is a ludicrous concept; equilibrium pretty foolish outside of financial markets; perfect competition a howler for most industries. The reason for making these assumptions is not that they are reasonable but that they seem to help us produce models that are helpful metaphors for things that we think happen in the real world._

I don't get it - how helpful are "metaphors for things we think happen in the real world" if they aren't based in reality? Is that not like saying "let x be an odd number divisible by 2 [...] hence, taxes should go up!". Or am I misunderstanding the relationship between "proof" and "modeling".

Here's how it looks to me: economists believed that people are utility optimizers, and form a lot of conclusions based on the idea. When it is found untrue, economists modify what their theory is explaining (they say it's explaining "market psychology" or some nonsense) so that their conclusions still hold. It's not so obvious when the complicated workings of academics and their institutions behave this day, but if a single individual ever behaved like this, it would just seem stubborn.

<comment><USER5> _how helpful are "metaphors for things we think happen in the real world" if they aren't based in reality?_

Metaphors -- in this context I'd call them "rules of thumb" -- are computable by humans in real time. Reality generally isn't.

Technically, things don't fall down. When I hold a brick above your head and then let go, you shouldn't just _assume_ that you have to dodge. You should take note of all the massive objects in the vicinity and do a calculation using the law of gravitation. You might also do some energetic calculations to make sure that the brick won't just bounce harmlessly off of your head, or come to rest on it like a falling feather.

Or, you know, you can avoid thinking at all and just allow the circuits in your brain and spinal cord to get you out of the way fast so that you can live to argue another day. Those circuits embody a relatively crude theory of physics, and their design process didn't make use of a theory of physics at all, but they work to keep you alive.

What Krugman is saying is that, while economists would love to develop the economic equivalent of the law of gravitation (and some are even foolish enough to believe that they have) their first priority is to develop some rules of thumb that can tell us when to dodge, when to stand still, and when to wear a hard hat. And that can be used to explain, in simple terms, where the bump on our head came from. ("You stood under a metaphorical brick and failed to dodge in the Keynesian manner.")

<comment><USER4> Good points. However, the mathematical frameworks that economists use seem somehow inappropriate for this - I wonder if economics will come to fruition through a new mathematical system, as much of physics came to fruition through the development of calculus.

Your reflex/calculation analogy makes me wonder if new neural network designs ought to be tested against economic data...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I like the bit where he keeps on pointing out how essential the style of keeping the models simple and tractable was key to the vein of research.

this is a style that not enough folks actually focus on explicitly, at least from my range of experience

<comment><USER7> It's difficult to create something simple. And then people say "but that's simple". :|

High effort/low reward: not an attractive proposition. It doesn't attract many folks.

You need a way to demonstrate that it wasn't obvious; and (I think) you need to be a for-the-love-of-it kind of a guy: the _unreasonable man_ upon which all progress depends.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I love reading stuff like this. I wish more super intelligent people did it.

</comment><comment><USER9> _All in all, though, I've been very lucky. A lot of that luck has to do with the accidents that led me to stumble onto an intellectual style that has served me extremely well._

</comment><comment><USER10> R.I.P. Paul Krugman

[http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NmZmMzlmZjU4NDVlMmFlZWR...](http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NmZmMzlmZjU4NDVlMmFlZWRlZDM4YjZiYmRmYjc4NDQ=)

<comment><USER11> Seems like you're posting an informed and reasonable argument from a political site.

This argument has a contrary opinion to those expressed in this thread.

Burn the witch!

I wonder if I could make money selling pre-lit virtual torches for the angry mob that is about to descend upon you?

Seriously -- I'd like to see this discussed in a separate article. Very interesting stuff.

<comment><USER9> That's not just any "political site". It's far right, especially now. Shoot, Buckley's son just resigned his column there because he had the audacity to support Obama. What would they have done to the father since, as a reasonable conservative, I can't see him endorsing Palin?

The case against Krugman from those niches of the far right is almost entirely political. That link is a good example of the genre.

This is better and back when NR had something worthwhile to say:

[http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NmQ4MzY0NGVjODdmZmY2ZGQ...](http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NmQ4MzY0NGVjODdmZmY2ZGQzMDAwZThmNTYyYzYxYjQ=)

<comment><USER11> E-gad, it's the "let's be perfectly clear" meme. Wonder where you got that one?

I don't mind you characterization of the site as far right wing. I'd simply look at the facts, source if doubtful, and continue the discussion from there. Same as if it were far left wing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Oh, I love Prof. Krugman. Saw him at his press conference yesterday, and hoping to congratulate him today.

</comment><comment><USER13> Krugman is obviously smart, as well as arrogant and a liberal shill. But that's not the problem.

The issue is that he, and the economics establishment led by Helicopter Ben, never met a rate cut they did not like. Cheap money and credit are the fix for every problem. Today many recognize Greenspan held rates too low for too long. At the time, Krugman opposed rate increases from those low levels. He and his ilk fail to see any connection between destructive booms and the cheap credit they promote.

<comment><USER14> vtnext, in all the excitement of his Nobel, his actual economic views (as opposed to his politics, which I completely don't care about one way or another) about events in the real world have been forgotten.

In fall of 2004, as Greenspan started raising interest rates in baby steps (very belatedly - housing was already bubbling up), Krugman was very opposed to those rate hikes. His analogy for the tech-telecom bust was with the post- bubble doldrums in Japan - and it was no time to be risking a slide back by rising rates.

In the event, directly as a result of that easy credit policy, we got the mother of all bubbles in housing, which has almost taken the entire financial system down with it. Krugman did not anticipate the bigger bubble that was brewing even as he was advocating continuing 1% interest rates (well below the rate of inflation even then!).

Economists like Nouriel Roubini, Steven Roach (then Chief Economist at Morgan Stanley), eminent people like Paul Volcker (Fed Chairman between 79-87), investors like Warren Buffet & Marc Faber all warned about the 2004-7 bubble in housing several times, for many years. Krugman had a very public voice during that entire time, but saw no problems with the Greenspan/Bernanke Fed.

It is worth remembering this real world record, as the world fetes his Nobel prize.

<comment><USER15> Krugman in this op-ed from 2004 doesn't seem to be advocating lower interest rates, but simply stating that they are probably coming, and that many people are badly prepared for them.

[http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F05E6DD1E3BF...](http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F05E6DD1E3BF933A15757C0A9629C8B63) "A number of analysts have accused Mr. Greenspan of fostering a debt bubble in recent years, just as they accuse him of feeding the stock bubble during the 1990's. Just two months ago, Mr. Greenspan went out of his way to emphasize the financial benefits of adjustable-rate, as opposed to fixed-rate, mortgages. Let's hope that not too many families regarded that as useful advice."

One reason why he might have argued for lower interest rates, is that the employment growth during the "Bush Boom" was so dismal compared to earlier expansionary periods. (See: [http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/26/about-that- bush-...](http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/26/about-that-bush-boom/))

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> _The point is to realize that economic models are metaphors, not truth._

This seems like a big statement. What is the point of models, if they aren't true? Metaphor is important in political rhetoric, but not necessarily in science...

<comment><USER16> > What is the point of models, if they aren't true?

Because they can make testable predictions or approximations for the truth. This is not unique to Economics, even the "hard" sciences have to deal with this problem. Before relativity was conceptualized, Newton's models for gravity and inertia were considered "good enough" even though they were observed to break down at the cosmic observational level. Even today, many measurements have to account for uncertainty in unit size (even at the macro scale!) and have to be accounted for when crunching numbers in serial calculations. (Wikipedia's got several acceptable pages on several types of uncertainty, especially measurement uncertainty.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Krugman, and the Politicization of the Prize (Editorial)

[http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2008/10/krugman_and...](http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2008/10/krugman_and_the_politicization.html)

<comment><USER17> Give it up dude, nobody cares that you disagree with his politics.

He would not have been awarded the prize if his work wasn't important regardless of his politics.

<comment><USER11> It's not that nobody cares, it's that people are actively pissed off that I questioned the selection.

Sorry, I'm not giving up being able to make a simple observation the group may disagree with. I'm sick of the herd mentality, and you guys can vote me into the gutter and it's not going to stop me.

I could care less about Krugman.

<comment><USER18> Another thing for you to keep in mind: the same group handed out prizes at some point to Hayek and Friedman.

<comment><USER11> I've been reading around some. As I was the first to admit, I am ignorant. FWIW, glowing reviews are running about 70-30 with critical reviews of their award. There's a nice glowing review over at Forbes ([http://www.forbes.com/opinions/2008/10/13/krugman- economics-...](http://www.forbes.com/opinions/2008/10/13/krugman-economics- nobel-oped-cx_as_1013subramanian.html))

Even then, the author ends with:

"But these days, even while disavowing overtly protectionist positions, Krugman's columns do sometimes have a protectionist tenor. Not only purists, but developing country policymakers, worry that Krugman is part of the shifting intellectual climate in the United States that has become ambivalent about keeping markets for goods and services open. Now that he also has the imprimatur of the Nobel Committee, Paul Krugman has a special responsibility to retain his cosmopolitan and internationalist credentials. At this time of financial crisis, Krugman should be reminding us that shutting down markets for trade helped transform the depression of the 1930s into the Great Depression."

I'm open to discourse, just not impressed with the downmodding as a result of going against the herd over here. I've found economics a subject of some interest, but even with as much math as it takes, my _opinion_ is that it is far from a hard science like physics. So pointing out that politics and people's biases are involved shouldn't be such a freaking big deal, in my opinion. And that goes with Hayek, Friedman, and Krugman. My comment holds for all of them. That's the weird part about it.

<comment><USER18> > I'm open to discourse, just not impressed with the downmodding as a result > of going against the herd over here.

That sort of thing pretty much invariably happens with economics or politics on sites like this, whatever persuasion the 'herd' happens to be.

Which is why I think discussion of said topics should be ruthlessly hunted down and driven away.

<comment><USER11> Can I remind you that from where I sit, the title of the original post translated into something like "Famous left-leaning columnist awarded prize by committee slammed as being too political lately"?

So I _was_ hunting the articles down and driving them away. The problem is that it didn't look like that for the majority.

If you don't want to see dissent and downmod it, then how can minority opinions ever sway the majority that they are wrong? Sure, in this case I'm probably smoking crack, but there's something really bad here.

<comment><USER17> I've seen your handle in far too many threads lately, and for the most part I just scroll past; because life is too short. In this particular case I chose to comment because economics is an interest of mine as an entrepreneur. You do not appear to be contributing to the conversation about ideas, you seem to be mostly emoting and acting as though anything that does not conform to your rather straitened ideological views is a personal attack on your ego. And you've been doing this all day every day.

In this particular case it's clear that you did not RTFA since it's about Krugman's workflow, and says relatively little about the substance of his work and almost nothing about his politics other than that he regularly attempts to think and write about topical policy debates.

It looks rather as though you read the the name Krugman and reacted unthinkingly with an attack. That is not dissent, that is noise. If you want to make noise may I suggest that the politics reddit is the right place for you and that Hacker News is for people who want to focus on the ideas rather than the emotions.

<comment><USER11> Do you want a reply to this? I'm confused. If I'm trolling (which I'm trying not to) then why comment in this manner? As a way of appealing to other readers? I thought the thread system was set up in order to reply to individual comments. Seems more like a rebuke.

Nicely done -- especially liked the part about emoting. The neat thing is that it makes it impossible to reply in any fashion whatsoever. Which of course was the point.

<comment><USER17> I'm willing to grant you the benefit of the doubt when you say that you are not intentionally trolling, but I respectfully submit that that is what you come across as.

Starting highly charged political threads on topics that are only tangentially related to the linked article does not contribute value to the discussion.

I've noticed for myself that one of the signs that I am spending too much time in front of a computer is that I get into emotional arguments on internet message boards or IRC. It's easy to forget that a level of emotional involvement that would be normal and healthy IRL can make you seem like a raving lunatic online.

Take that as you will. I am through with this thread.

 __PLONK __

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Sadly, this didn't sound very intelligent to me. And I can't seem to understand what significant things he did.

<comment><USER19> All right, I read up a bit. Downmodders, I fucking dare you, read this piece by Krugman

<http://www.slate.com/id/9593>

and tell me again that he isn't a quack.

<comment><USER20> <http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/09/pundits-as-mole.html>

<comment><USER11> I read that link four times.

Are you saying that Krugman was a spy who actually published and worked his way up the right side of the political spectrum in order to make a stand for his true left-leaning views? Or the other way around?

I found the "Pundits as Moles" post murky. I'm not so sure it helps in overcoming bias as much as finding excuses for behavior we don't like. Pundits could be moles, they could just sway with the partisan wind. Or they could just be businesspeople looking at their daily ratings. A plug-and-play system for determining motivations is _not_ something that will help you overcome bias.

<comment><USER20> I wasn't saying that Krugman was a spy for one side left or right -- he worked his way up the academic spectrum of quantitative economics, in fact, all the way to the very top. Now he gets to write about politics and literary economics using the authority earned from his academic career. His current motivation is getting Barack Obama elected and generally advocating higher taxes and more government services.

I'm not reading into that "Pundits as Moles" post overly much -- I just thought it funny that it seemed to apply to Paul Krugman.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Still depressed that this statist shill, who can't go two sentences without contradicting human reason, won the "nobel" prize. For an example of a man who actually improved human welfare, see the first physics recipient,

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Conrad_R%C3%B6ntgen>

<comment><USER22> He was awarded the prize for his academic work, not his shilling for the Democratic Party.

<comment><USER11> It's a prize. A prize in the field of economics, which is hardly physics. Unless there is some empirical process for selection and award, it's just the result of a committee's opinions.

If we can agree on that, certainly you can see that the door is open for the members of the committee to be swayed by lots of things, including his political work/views. To act otherwise is to try to turn respected scientists into some sort of mechanistic non-humans. People are influenced by all sorts of things, at the conscious and unconscious levels.

I have no idea what part of my statement is controversial. Yet it seems to just drive some people nuts.

<comment><USER23> As far as I can tell from the Wikipedia page, there is no difference in the selection processes for the physics and economics prizes... _All_ prizes are just the result of a committee's (and nominators', and screeners') opinions. In this respect, they are all equally valid.

For what it's worth, though, the committee members are selected by Norwegian/Swedish institutions, which are perhaps less likely to be swayed by political actions in the U.S.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why Programming Isn't For Me - <AUTHOR> http://blog.goodlook.me/?p=1

<comment><USER3> Programming isn't even for _programmers_ if they're running companies.

At some point you're gonna realize you're better off doing the stuff only you can do, and delegating the rest, including your beloved coding.

\--

Update:

By the way, just looking at your site (<http://goodlook.me/index.html>) I could see at least 5 different job descriptions that might be needed to make this startup happen:

1) Backend developer, data wrangler, and statistician to do the ML stuff that classifies "styles" based on user "tastes" (this one is a toughie, assuming you're not cheating, even harder if you need to optimize both for user tastes and your own revenue; cube the pain if you want to add inventory to the mix!)

2) UI designer to make it _good_. Fashion is one place where you will need "taste". It's a trillion dollar industry that stands on one leg; hype.

3) Advertising sales manager to source new sponsors and vendors.

4) A communications manager to do media and PR, both old and new. Wearing multiple hats writing blogs, guest articles, scoring appearances and placements, dropping your media kit, etc.

5) Full time graphic editor and photoshop junkie. You can't just go from stock-photo CD to web. The vendors will give you their own images, which might not be good enough. The editor might wear several other hats as well, creating and editing banner ads, and maintaining the assets for your brand and image.

Then there is you, doing the budget and making sure each and everyone has enough to sustain a living. All while keeping an eye on the road ahead, doing quantitative measurement of where things are heading, how the business is changing, and constantly asking yourself whether you're dead yet or not. Making decisions that might force your entire team into violent rebellion and the undoing of months worth of work because circumstances have changed (or better yet, _foreseeing_ this before it happens.)

Not to discourage you, just to give you a heads up that you will need to really _polish_ your sales pitch and get all those people on board, for equity.

You can assemble this team either via contacts and recommendations, or tap into the hungry pool of recent grads and university students, but it will take some time to find the real gems, and you will need to completely understand your business inside out and bring out your own best, so others can see it.

</comment><comment><USER4> I think this sort of experience will actually make you a great business oriented founder. Having tried it yourself, you understand the difficulties behind implementing ideas that are clear in your mind.

Also, since you've done some real work yourself, you should be able to sniff- out people who truly don't know what they're talking about.

</comment><comment><USER5> Are there people who don't find programming strenuous? I certainly don't enjoy all aspects of programming.

Just wondering if this founder is giving up to easily. Of course just being the boss and telling other people what to do is more fun than doing actual work.

On the other hand, is "being a programmer" a bit like being a studio musician? I never understood why anybody would want to be a studio musician rather than writing their own songs, but I was told that some people prefer it that way. In the same vein, maybe "real programmers" just enjoy programming whatever they are being told to program? I don't want to diss "real programmers" - <USER2> just struggle to find my niche in the work force, and it appears being a real programmer is probably not it.

<comment><USER6> _Are there people who don't find programming strenuous? I certainly don't enjoy all aspects of programming._

I love programming, but I still find it to be incredibly strenuous. I have to work at the more difficult/novel problems for days, grinding through particularly boring implementation details while maintaining a high level of attention so that I don't miss anything important.

It's tiring, difficult, often mind-bending, and ultimately, very rewarding. It sometimes seems to require the same amount of will-power I had to invest when working long hours doing difficult manual labor.

 _Just wondering if this founder is giving up to easily. Of course just being the boss and telling other people what to do is more fun than doing actual work._

Yes. And yes. When it came time to do the actual work, he gave up.

 _On the other hand, is "being a programmer" a bit like being a studio musician? I never understood why anybody would want to be a studio musician rather than writing their own songs, but I was told that some people prefer it that way. In the same vein, maybe "real programmers" just enjoy programming whatever they are being told to program? I don't want to diss "real programmers" - I just struggle to find my niche in the work force, and it appears being a real programmer is probably not it._

What's a "real" programmer? Your niche in the work force is going to be whatever you can make for yourself. If you want to lead projects (or a company), then find a way to do so. If you don't want to take investment, you'll have to invest your savings -- so find a high paying programming job to help you meet your goal.

<comment><AUTHOR> Its unfortunate that the only thing that is considered "actual work" is programming. But I blame myself for not explaining more thoroughly in the article.

I invite you to look at the startup itself and the video demo. I know I'm asking a lot, but I think you should look more in to someones work before you say that they gave up without putting in any actual work. The video demonstrates a considerable part of the back-end being complete; I just need assistance because I understand that I cannot manage a project like this on my own.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> He recognizes it seems naieve now, good for him. Now how many of the rest of us are still saying "When I get to that point, I'll become a great marketeer/fundraiser/communicator by reading a couple of blogs"?

</comment><comment><USER8> The reverse is also true for people who are passionate about programming and want to turn that into a startup, assuming the marketing/business side of things is just a small part, a stepping stone to get to that goal.

</comment><comment><USER9> Programming isn't for the author because they're obviously a business person first and foremost. Suits and programmers are two different worlds, right down to temperament and interests. You can tell just by looking at the language in the article - how they wanted to "execute" on their idea, and how they "just need to build the backend" which of course "wouldn't take much." To me it sounds exactly like those shady craigslist "entrepeneurs," where the pitch is that they've "done the hard part" and now all they need is "someone to do a bit of coding for us." They even go so far as stating that they dream of making sales calls and doing marketing.

quote: "But hacking, programming, whatever you want to call it—it's not like that. Its something you have to invest real time in to, and you have to have a special drive to become good at it."

Gee, you think? Could that be why people go to college and get _degrees_ in computer science?

Programming isn't for this person because they're just not a programmer, period.

<comment><AUTHOR> I hate putting people in to boxes. Youre the "programmer guy", and I'm the "business guy". Thats the type of attitude that breeds "shady craigslist entrepreneurs that you speak of. People who believe they have no part in programming or designing, and are simply the "idea guys" and never dabble with code.

Was it wrong of me to attempt to learn something even though I was a "business guy" from the start? I tried programming, I wasn't successful at it, but I've gained a greater appreciation for it. I also attempted designing, and I loved it. I created a visually appealing website and actually learned a lot [by the way, people go to college for graphic design degrees too, doesn't mean I had a "special drive to become good at it"].

Theres nothing that will come out of dismissing someone as the "business-guy" or the "programmer", we all have the potential to do so many other things, and sometimes it works, but other times it doesnt. There's no harm in trying though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I wonder if this isn't a more common problem than some hackers realize. We don't all want to be CS and programming geniuses. We just want to know enough to get by and prove that our ideas can work.

A common sentiment among this group is that 'idea people' are worthless unless they can work hard at making that idea a reality. Unfortunately, not everyone wants to dedicate themselves to the technical end of that process.

<comment><USER11> Unfortunately, a large part of "idea" end of things is validating the concept technically and communicating it with sufficient fidelity to be implemented. That's much easier when you know what the construction entails, even if it isn't you that's doing the work.

<comment><USER12> Yes, I agree. It is like trying to write the Great American Novel, without knowing how to read or write English.

Now, you could get someone else to write it, and simply tell him the details and plot points you want, but without knowing how to read English, how would you know whether the story flowed right and was succinct?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I originally got into programming not for the exact same reasons, but for similar ones (reasons that were tangential to one of my primary interests). I guess I found that I loved it just as much and just never stopped, even though I never accomplished the original goal. These kinds of things can just as often lead to happy accidents, I guess.

</comment><comment><USER14> Am I the only one who didn't like the usage of the words 'programmer' and 'hacker' as synonyms?

<comment><USER15> No, you're not the only one. It does speak volumes about the programming skill of the author.

<comment><USER16> Or maybe the author has heard people like Thorvalds Linus and Eric Raymond refer to themselves as hackers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I wonder if this wasn't the real problem:

"Now I just needed to build the backend, which wouldn't take much because the idea I had was built off of existing technology"

<comment><AUTHOR> This was the problem. A naive approach to the scope of the work that goes into this all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> tl;dr version: if you're passionate about something, it's much easier to invest the time necessary to become good at it. Conversely, when you're not passionate about something, you'll probably never be as good as others.</comment>


Fresh take on PDA, I would buy it. Would you? - <AUTHOR> https://www.engadget.com/2018/01/09/former-psion-designers-return-with-a-fresh-take-on-the-pda/ <comment><USER2> All based on whether the size of the keyboard is sufficient.</comment>


Donald Knuth's 24th Annual Christmas Lecture: Dancing Links - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cR9zDlvP88 <comment><USER2> Can anyone attend these lectures? It's always been a dream to attend Knuth's Christmas lecture.

<comment><USER3> Yes, anyone can. There's one every year. Best get there some 20 min before as the hall tends to fill up.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Mimestream, a native macOS email client for Gmail - <AUTHOR> https://mimestream.com <comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN! In the past, I spent over 7 years working on Apple Mail, and today I am really excited to share a new email client I'm building: Mimestream, a native macOS email client for Gmail.

Mimestream is written in Swift, and uses AppKit+SwiftUI for a clean, stock appearance. It's designed to be fast, lightweight, and use a minimal amount of disk space. Mimestream's advantages over using the Gmail web interface includes features like multiple accounts, a unified inbox, system notifications, swipe actions, dark mode, (some) offline support, tracker prevention, multiple keyboard shortcut sets, and more.

Mimestream differs from other email clients because it uses the Gmail API rather than IMAP, so it supports more Gmail-specific features like categorized inboxes, Gmail's search operators, first-class labels support (apply multiple via ⌘L, set colors, etc), synced aliases, synced signatures, etc. I'm planning a lot more work in this area, including server-side filter configuration, Google Drive support, G Suite directory autocomplete, and more.

The app is a traditional email client that makes direct connections to Gmail and stores your data on your Mac. There are no intermediary servers with access to your account or copies of your messages. Mimestream is free for a limited time during the public beta, but will eventually be a paid app by the time it gets to the Mac App Store.

I hope you enjoy trying out the beta, and I look forward to hearing your feedback!

<comment><USER2> This is a great point: "There are no intermediary servers with access to your account or copies of your messages." A number of popular email clients use intermediary servers and that's a complete deal breaker for me. I'd argue that should be a deal breaker for almost anyone. I'm not a security expert, but as far as I can tell, for most people the single biggest security vulnerability is an attacker gaining access to their email. Using a mail client with an intermediary mail server essentially doubles the surface area attackers can exploit.

<comment><USER3> I never quite understood what the value add was for email-client developers to use intermediary servers. Is it to gather usage telemetry or something else?

<comment><USER4> Pessimistically for telemetry, but I suspect some of them are Javascript apps in a lightweight shell that have actual technical difficulties making a TCP IMAP connection.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I think difficulty making an IMAP connection is one reason. I think the biggest reason has been to decorate more features on top of the backing email service, like adding Snooze support to an arbitrary IMAP account (so the server can un-snooze a message at the scheduled time).

That being said, there are security/privacy implications to that model, and I wouldn't personally use an app that works this way. That's why Mimestream was built as a traditional client.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Interesting to see the Gmail API being used for a general purpose email client when Google has a very visible note on the overview page that says:

> Note: The Gmail API should not be used to replace IMAP for full-fledged > email client access. Instead, see IMAP and SMTP.

I'd be a little worried they will disable API access for the client due to this.

[https://developers.google.com/gmail/api/guides](https://developers.google.com/gmail/api/guides)

<comment><USER6> They did perform the audit in collaboration with the author[0], so chances are it's fine, but you never know when a new manager might come in and flip the script for what's acceptable use of the api.

0: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24426342](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24426342)

<comment><AUTHOR> This is something I asked about a few years ago when it was first introduced, and the vague answer I got is that the warning exists because the Gmail API is not as optimized as IMAP for some common email client tasks. (Indeed, for better performance, I would like to switch a few tasks to use IMAP instead of the Gmail API someday).

Google did vet Mimestream as a general-purpose email client before approving API access, and on the paperwork for that process "general purpose email client" was the app category that I selected, so I'm hoping all will be OK, or else I will be really scrambling to implement new protocols :P

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Nice to see a native app and not something Electron-based.

I wonder about native app viability these days though. Years ago I used native email apps like Outlook, KMail, and Thunderbird, but lately I just use the websites made by the service providers (Fastmail for personal, Gmail for work). As an open standards person I find my behavior kind of depressing, but the websites just tend to work better.

<comment><USER8> SwiftUI will make the native application development experience much easier for Apple platforms. It still has a little ways to go, but once it's the "de- facto standard" for new apps, you will certainly see an explosion in innovative native development.

Hoping other platforms follow suit. Preferably using SwiftUI...hey, I can dream right?

<comment><USER9> > Hoping other platforms follow suit. Preferably using SwiftUI...hey, I can > dream right?

This makes it seems like it's up to those other platforms, but it's really all about Apple's decision, right? (in which case I'll eat my metaphorical hat if this happens)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I've been using the beta for a while and I'm happy to see it land here on HN. The two things I love most about Mimestream are:

1\. It's wicked fast (seriously) 2\. It has Gmail style shortcuts

The only thing I wish it had was a generic IMAP support for some of my other accounts. Either way I've been liking it!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! IMAP account support is something I would really like to add (and Mimestream already uses IMAP for some specific operations where it is a better fit), but from past experience I know that it is complicated ;)

I'm also really keen on adding support for JMAP and Office 365 I the future.

<comment><USER11> Excited that you're considering JMAP! Hopefully it solves some of the pain- points of implementing IMAP and makes it easier to deliver a great UX. If e.g. Mimestream can deliver as good a UX with a Fastmail account (or Cyrus IMAP or Dovecot installation) as it does with a Gmail account, I think it will help the independent email ecosystem. (Though there is a big headwind, so I understand focusing on Gmail now.)

Edit: downloaded the beta. Will give it a shot with my work G Suite account.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am really excited about adding support for JMAP – I participated in the IETF WG for it, gave some feedback, and think it's a very well-designed protocol that should be really efficient at syncing email. It would probably be one of the most fun features for me to add to the app, but yeah, there's still a lot of work left for the Gmail account experience first.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Nice! More than once I've gotten my hopes up after seeing screenshots of a spiffy new macOS email client, only to learn that it was Electron-based. At the time, I was using the Gmail web app but searching for a native alternative. Since then, I've settled on Apple Mail for the time being, but better Gmail integration is an enticing feature and I'll definitely be trying Mimestream out.

</comment><comment><USER13> The simplicity reminds me of Sparrow for Mac [1]. One of the best email apps ever made!

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparrow_(email_client)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparrow_\(email_client\))

<comment><USER14> When I was still on Gmail in 2012 or so (?) I really really loved that app!

Actually, I'd easily pay $25 or even more for a similar app, for Fastmail.

<comment><USER15> Mailmate at [https://freron.com/](https://freron.com/) is fantastic. My only gripe is that it is Mac-only, so I can't use it on my work desktop. (linux)

<comment><USER16> what do you use on linux?

<comment><USER15> A mix of mutt for triage and reluctantly, the gmail web interface. I think I have tried every real client available and been disappointed in many different ways?

<comment><USER16> > I think I have tried every real client available and been disappointed in > many different ways?

same. Hoping there was some obscure winner.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Looks great. Missing 4 Gmail features that I dearly miss from the web UI:

\- Snooze

\- Scheduled Send

\- Undo send

\- Missing attachment warnings ("you said see attached but have no attachments, did you mean to attach something?")

<comment><AUTHOR> Undo Send is definitely planned! The missing attachment warning is a great idea, I just added this to the backlog.

Unfortunately, Gmail API support is lacking for Snooze: [https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/109952618](https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/109952618), but I will eventually add the ability to do a Mimestream-local snooze (which makes more sense once there is an iOS companion app)

Same for Scheduled Send, see [https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/140922183](https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/140922183) :(

<comment><USER17> Thanks for the prompt reply. Will Mimestream-local snooze necessitate introducing an intermediate server to track across platforms, or will you use something like iCloud sync to keep track?

<comment><AUTHOR> Definitely no intermediary server with access to your account. This idea would be to use iCloud to sync a set of snoozed server IDs, and only "hide" those messages from within the app, leaving those messages actually in the inbox on the server. No message data going into iCloud, either.

<comment><USER18> The way that other platforms have done it is by using custom labels - so the messages just get labeled as "snoozed until tomorrow", and at 9am the client simply grabs all those and moves them back to inbox and deletes the label. That's how Mailbox did it, for example.

Once Snooze is added, I'll happily buy this app for $20+ - I've been waiting for something like this since Inbox and Mailbox were killed off.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> It looks really interesting, immediately downloaded and would be glad to pay a subscription if it works for me.

I have two asks:

1\. Glad you're supporting Gmail shortcuts, but sad to say they aren't working in a second keyboard locale which I have (as basically any non-Anglo-American user would). Gmail provides two columns for keyboard shortcuts in settings so I went and manually adapted all keys. Or maybe Mimestream could support that automatically, for instance Superhuman has no issues with the language I'm using. Currently I just can't use any keyboard shortcuts unless I switch my input to English.

2\. I specifically dislike unified inbox, could there be a setting to revert the side bar, so instead of the top level Inbox with folders for my accounts it would be top-level accounts with folders for each?

Thank you for working on this!

<comment><AUTHOR> #1 - oops, I filed a bug to fix this up. Thanks for pointing it out.

#2 is something I'm hearing more about... I'll plan on offering this in the future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I've been looking for an initiative like this for so many years! Not even a month ago, I spent an afternoon looking all over the internet for somebody trying to build a native mail client for MacOs. Since DéjàVu from the lead dev of Sparrow, nobody it seems nobody has tried to do this. I haven't yet tested Mimestream but I already praise you for trying to do it! I will definitely give it a try and pay for it!

</comment><comment><USER21> I have been using the gmail web app exclusively for one reason: I use the following Chrome Plugin to convert Markdown to HTML emails: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/markdown- here/?hl=...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/markdown-here/?hl=en)

Did you ever consider adding a Markdown to HTML email option?

This is especially helpful when sending formatted code around!

<comment><USER22> This is doable via a shell script (+ pandoc):

      # 1. Put markdown on clipboard

      # 2. Convert to hex
      out=$(pbpaste | pandoc -f markdown -t html -s | hexdump -ve '1/1 "%.2x"')

      # 3. Convert to an applescript data class
      osascript -e "set the clipboard to «data HTML${out}»"

      # 4. Paste rich HTML

You can use something like Alfred or Keyboard Maestro to trigger that script with a keyboard shortcut.

<comment><AUTHOR> Very clever! Thanks for sharing!

As a programmer, having native markdown support in the app is something I wish for almost every day (especially for code blocks). It's something I plan to add.

<comment><USER23> That would for sure get me to pay for it tbh never even thought of that as a feature

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> This is really great. Way to go. I've always been a big fan of Mail.app, but it's Google integration always felt clunky and sometimes even buggy. Within a few minutes I can see how much snappier and more "native" this feels.

Kudos!

</comment><comment><USER25> Great app, looks really neat.

One criticism though, the swiping is incredibly annoying right now. You have to swipe an almost painful amount to archive emails without a click, it should require less than half the swipe-distance of what it does now. Look at how little swiping Chrome needs to go back to the previous page, and emulate that.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I've heard this a few times now. This is the standard AppKit NSTableView swipe action, but I agree it's not tuned very well – I'll look into improving this this.

One tip: by default, the Delete key is mapped to Archive (though you can change that in Preferences to be Trash if you prefer that). A little faster than swiping.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I use Superhuman. I can see myself switching over to Mimestream. One of my recent complaints is the lack of deep integration with GSuite. If you can match the speed & shortcuts AND integrate deeply with GSuite, I think you have something really compelling.

> The app is a traditional email client that makes direct connections to Gmail > and stores your data on your Mac. There are no intermediary servers with > access to your account or copies of your messages. Mimestream is free for a > limited time during the public beta, but will eventually be a paid app by > the time it gets to the Mac App Store.

I appreciate the thought behind this. However, it means you can't implement some other features (pixel tracking, scheduled send, snooze) unless GSuite opens up an API for them. Consider having a subscription which uses a 3rd party server. I would be happy to pay for it.

<comment><USER27> Reading the posted website, the app positions itself as privacy-first and blocks 50+ pixel trackers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> What are the advantages (for users) of using Gmail API over IMAP/JMAP?

It sounds like huge disadvantage when email client works with just one provider.

<comment><USER29> Since Gmail is monopoly-scale though, they have plenty of users to serve. Gmail has a lot of proprietary features that don't work through IMAP. Most of them could work with JMAP (like labels) but Gmail doesn't support that (yet, at least).

<comment><USER30> Except labels does work via IMAP: [https://developers.google.com/gmail/imap/imap- extensions#acc...](https://developers.google.com/gmail/imap/imap- extensions#access_to_gmail_labels_x-gm-labels)

<comment><USER19> That support is limited, Gmail API allows you to do much more with labels.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> "Advanced Protection prevented your Google Account from signing in. This security feature stops most non-Google apps and services from accessing your data to keep your account protected."

</comment><comment><USER32> Awesome. More native apps, please. Don't pretend you can't notice the difference. Thanks.

</comment><comment><USER33> I'm a Mailplane user as well and once (if) I move to Catalina I'd love to check it out. What would you say are the benefits to Mimestream over Mailplane?

<comment><USER34> I'm a second Mailplane user who would be interested in a native app, but I'm on High Sierra and can't use this one.

Benefits: this app likely doesn't use 1 GB of RAM. That's pretty much my only complaint about Mailplane (not blaming them; there's not much they could do about that). The native UI is likely nice, but not going to be the main factor causing me to switch.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Thanks for releasing this. I've been looking for a Mailplane alternative for a while, ever since Gmail started becoming a resource hog when they forced everyone onto their new interface.

Is there a chance you could recompile this to support 10.14?

I'll most likely not be upgrading from Mojave for the foreseeable future, until my 2013 MacBook Pro stops working and I'm forced to get something new.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sadly, no. Mimestream already uses SwiftUI for parts of the UI, and SwiftUI requires Catalina. I plan to release an iOS/iPadOS version in the future, so Mimestream will be investing even more heavily into SwiftUI. At some point later this year, Big Sur will become a requirement, too. I sympathize with those that remain on Mojave, especially those who need to run 32-bit apps, but as a 1-man project, it seemed like a necessary tradeoff to make.

<comment><USER36> This looks really promising and could be a good replacement for Mailplane.

One thing I don't like though is the Big Sur requirement as early as this year. I'm also still on Mojave and will probably upgrade to Catalina in the coming weeks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> What is the advantage of this over using the Gmail web ui? The Gmail web ui works great for me, has keyboard shortcuts, push notifications, works on all operating systems, supports multiple accounts with the /u/1/ subpath, etc. What does this offer that I'd be willing to pay for it and lock myself in to Mac OS exclusively?

<comment><USER38> It uses way less memory for me with a handful of accounts. Five tabs of Gmail probably used a couple gigs of memory when left open for weeks.

It's only been a day but 5 accounts in Mimestream is only using 350 megs of memory versus 1 tab of Gmail using 1.4 gigs of memory.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Will check this out. I had tried multiple email clients and settled on the default macOS Mail. I try to stay with the default Apps that comes with the OS, even if that meant learning the shortcuts and spending a little more time understanding their nuances, and making use of all available features or ignoring some.

As another comment pointed out, can we have the ability to do like Priority Inbox or allow us to just show Unread + Flag (like Mail)?

After using emails for 20+ years, I'm pretty immune to all the jazz that comes with emails, and can survive pretty well. The only thing that I need now it the ability to see "Unread + Flagged". Please refer to my screenshot for how my Mail typically looks like -- [https://public.oinam.com/photos- oinam/brajeshwar-apple-macos...](https://public.oinam.com/photos- oinam/brajeshwar-apple-macos-mail-2019nov.png)

</comment><comment><USER40> The only thing I want to ask, at least from a marketing perspective, why Mimestream. The name doesn't really tell what the app is, and if it wasn't mentioned in the title I would assume it is something that has to do with streaming. Just a minor gripe, otherwise looks great, keep it up.

</comment><comment><USER41> To the author : There are times where I would like my mail to be delivered at specific periods of time in the day rather than disturbing with any new email.

Or perhaps a snooze button for specific period of time. Do you have any intention of such features?

Besides, the application is great. Good work.

<comment><USER42> I would love to be able to send an email tomorrow. I like to respond to some emails to get them out of the way, but the more email I send, the more I get. I would therefore love to be able to slow down the exchanges. Gmail has only a limited-time undo, with delay that's too short and almost entirely useless. I'd be quite happy with a default, say, 5-minute delay and undo.

Similarly, it would be awesome to hide inbound email until I want to see it (while I am still able to use my mailbox to send email and respond to already- received messages.)

EDIT: Ah, it turns out Gmail can schedule email sending. Thanks @llarsson!

<comment><USER43> No, Gmail has scheduled send, too. Hit the downward arrow in the right part of the Send button and you can schedule sending the message.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Can we have a link based on the email, e.g: "View Pull Request" if it's PR email? This has been implemented in Canary Mail.

You can expand it further for JIRA, GitLab and others. Just a suggestion to create unique selling spoint for Mimestream

</comment><comment><USER45> Looks like exactly what I've been looking for. I tried a bunch of these - AirMail was good but buggy. Superhuman is good but expensive.

The only snag here is that I haven't updated to Catalina.

Will be trying this out when I finally upgrade (possibly directly To Big Sur).

</comment><comment><USER46> Hello! I downloaded and opened the app and it looks great! I saw I had 5k+ social and promotion messages so I right clicked and marked all as read. That however crashed the app and even if I open it again it crashes again.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh no! A few people reported this crash today, I'll be fixing it hopefully tomorrow!

You can reset your cache by running these this in Terminal: rm ~/Library/Containers/com.mimestream.Mimestream/Data/Library/Application\ Support/Mimestream/Mimestream*

rm -rf ~/Library/Containers/com.mimestream.Mimestream/Data/Library/Application\ Support/Mimestream/Attachments

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Would you please add the "Quote Select Text" on reply? It used to be a great Gmail Lab add-on.

Another feature request is to support the vertical split layout, it's more comfortable for tall screens.

</comment><comment><USER48> Downloaded and installed. First impressions, very positive. I like clean UIs and the GMail web interface has become cluttered over time.

Excellent work guys. I hope pricing is reasonable and perhaps there's a family package or something.

</comment><comment><USER49> This is great, I'm a heavy G Suite user (I have folders with tens of thousands of messages) and I'm enjoying the beta: it scrolls like butter!!!! (or has teh speedy, as greybeard Mac users would say)

I miss some things, like keyboard shortcuts for jumping to a specific label, superstars, search items suggestion (for specific GMail filters like has:attachment), but overall this is really good, and honoring the label colors is an excellent touch.

Some more advanced features that come to mind would be multiple tabs, deeper Calendar integration to display inline your schedule when receiving .ics attachment.

What will the pricing model be?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I will definitely be adding shortcuts for jumping to a label and search suggestions pretty soon. I plan to eventually add tabs and calendar integration, too.

Sadly, superstars aren't yet possible with the Gmail API, but please star this Gmail API issue to express your interested: [https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/166654165](https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/166654165)

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Great work! I look forward to using this.

Not sure if this has been mentioned in the comments yet (I came across this post 100+ comments later), but one thing I miss terribly after leaving AirMail was the ability to write markdown in email. I absolutely loved the split-pane window when writing an email, and see it update in real-time as I write my markdown'ed email.

I am on the web-client for Gmail for now, and although there are browser plugins for MD, they feel quite clunky to use. It would be great if you could consider MD support in composing emails!

<comment><AUTHOR> Markdown support has been a major theme from the feedback I've gotten today by email and here. In addition, I find myself personally wanting it all the time, at least so I can insert code blocks. I definitely plan to add this in the not-too-distant future!

<comment><USER51> Keep in mind your audience here. I don't want to discourage you from adding markdown support, but I suspect that the overwhelming majority of your users won't know what markdown is, let alone actively want it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> I don't know if this is the right place to ask this, but I'm looking to tech myself iOS app development, and I'm wondering what y'all think of SwiftUI. Generally, I am quite the fan of iOS's visual defaults and I have prior experience doing backend work, but I'm quite unfamiliar with UI design.

After watching WWDC2020 this spring, I'm pretty convinced that Apple has set itself up with what looks like one of the cleanest IDEs for building user- facing ML applications and I'd like to give it a try.

<comment><USER53> I'm have about ten years experience with macOS and iOS development. I have not yet taken the plunge to do SwiftUI development exclusively, but from what I've seen, it's the future of UI development on iOS and macOS. If you're interested in iOS development, definitely learn it.

It uses a declarative language to describe the UI, so I think it should be much easier to learn than the previous imperative paradigm.

For the most part, you can get away with the standard "visual defaults" as you call them on the platform. You can easily create a complete app without having to customize any UI, although it obviously adds to the look and feel if you do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> First of all, this app is awesome. I started to make some serious progress on clearing up my email backlog.

One suggestion: I really love the iOS gmail app feature to quickly switch between all mail and show unread mail only. I'd love a button or an option under the "go" menu to jump to unread mail. I know I can type "label:unread" in the search, but a one/two click method would be awesome!

</comment><comment><USER55> Very excited to try this, I've registered. I cannot run it at the moment as it requires 10.15 or later. I am running Mojave and not planning to upgrade before Big Sur.

</comment><comment><USER56> This looks really nice!

Does it support e-mails with winmail.dat? That's been my biggest annoyance with Airmail, I end up having to go to the gmail web interface to view any e-mails with winmail.dat

</comment><comment><USER57> I held off from updating to Catalina last year and hope to go directly to Big Sur this year, so I can't try this out yet but I just gave my email to your website, hoping I'd receive updates on the progress.

While we're on this topic, do you have any plans to add custom integrations with 3rd party services like Todoist and Bear? That's one reason I've switched to Spark and I'd be extremely happy to pay you for it.

</comment><comment><USER58> This looks great! Just a note that I signed up from my phone but couldn't go through with the direct download. When I tried again from my laptop I got an error[0].

Would have been useful to be able to reuse my email address from desktop but using a different email seemed to work fine.

[0] [https://static.ritza.co/uploads/mimestreamerror2.png](https://static.ritza.co/uploads/mimestreamerror2.png)

</comment><comment><USER59> Looks great. I'm currently using Canary mail because the Apple mail data loss bug still isn't fixed after almost a year! Canary mail doesn't feel as polished as Apple mail so I'm happy to see a potential replacement.

[https://mjtsai.com/blog/2019/10/11/mail-data-loss-in- macos-1...](https://mjtsai.com/blog/2019/10/11/mail-data-loss-in-macos-10-15/)

</comment><comment><USER60> For the love of god please don't make it subscription based, add the 'Important' category and you have yourself a customer.

<comment><USER60> Also if you need any design feedback don't hesitate to ask :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> When the app starts, it makes a HTTPS call to the ip address "126.96.36.199" which is owned by DigitalOcean.

@njhaveri can you please clarify?

<comment><AUTHOR> This is an HTTPS GET of [https://mimestream.com/appcast.xml](https://mimestream.com/appcast.xml) in order to check for the availability of beta software updates, using the Sparkle framework that is popular amongst Mac apps.

<comment><USER61> Thank you!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> Loving the app so far - I love how speedy it is. I'm glad to see some resurgence of Mac-assed Mac apps [1].

[1]: A term coined by Brent Simmons, creator of NetNewsWire, (in my opinion) the best Mac-assed RSS reader. [https://inessential.com/2020/03/19/proxyman](https://inessential.com/2020/03/19/proxyman)

</comment><comment><USER63> Trying this now, but I'm stuck on authentication. My default browser is Firefox, but I have Firefox specifically configured to block access to Gmail. It would be great if I could choose the browser to use for login, or at least be able to copy the URL so I can put into Chrome.

In the meantime I'll change my default browser for a moment and see how it goes.

Edit: It worked switching default browsers.

</comment><comment><USER8> This looks amazing. I am so glad that you kept it as close to the native Mail experience as possible.

My only question relates to payment. This is an app that I would gladly pay a solid price to own (in the ballpark of $50?). I would _much_ prefer that over a subscription model.

Because the site mentions eventual payment, but doesn't specify a pricing model, would you be willing to elaborate on your intentions?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! So, I don't know exactly what the pricing model will be yet, but I definitely hear your feedback on this topic, and I'm looking at pretty much every option :) My intention is to build a sustainable long-term business, and deliver a continuous/regular stream of updates (e.g. see the Release Notes at [https://mimestream.com/releases](https://mimestream.com/releases)), so the pricing model will need to support that goal.

<comment><USER64> IMHO, if you are looking for long-term business, you need to go the subscription-only route. Probably $19/year.

Don't offer permanent licenses, it will add complexity to purchase and support. You do not want a users with a product of yours with a vulnerability they are not entitled to update.

A subscription-only model will allow you to focus on only the last build which everyone will be entitled to download, greatly simplifying your support.

You will be able to add features at your pace and will avoid the bloating that results when you compete with yourself as is the case with a permanent license model and (increasingly stupid) upgrades.

You will focus on quality not on corner case features to justify upgrades or interface revamps for the sake of it, confusing your existing user base. If you keep your quality high and the product is stable and reliable, your users will stick.

We have been selling our desktop product (in our case B2B) as subscription- only for 8 years and we couldn't be happier about the decision.

<comment><USER65> I think they can do a pricing model similar to what Sketch uses, but given it is an email client, I am not entirely sure of that myself (though still worth exploring).

For those unfamiliar, with Sketch, you basically have a yearly subscription and you continue receiving regular updates while you are subbed. Once your subscription expires, you get to keep the version you paid for at the beginning of your subscription period, but you stop receiving future updates (aside from security ones and such, ofc).

With Sketch it makes sense, because each year they add a cumulative of lots of new features and such, so people are motivated to renew the sub every year to get those features. With an email client, however, there isn't much in terms of "new features coming every year with updates" that people would be excited to pay the sub for on regular.

However, I still think it is worth exploring and considering as a viable possible option. With that model of "yearly sub, but you get to keep the old version once the sub expires", you allow people (who don't wanna deal with subs and just wanna use the barebones product to pay for once and forget) to experience your product and give you money. And powerusers and those who just want to support the project would be happy to pay the annual sub on regular and receive new features as they come. With that in mind, I would think a yearly $50-60 sub is pretty reasonable, but I am not an expert on pricing things like that, so take it with a grain of salt.

<comment><USER66> This is very similar to Intellij's perpetual fallback license. When you unsub, you are frozen on that point release.

I spent a while with a professional version until the community edition had some features that convinced me to move over.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> I'd easily pay $100+ for a native macOS client for GMail that is not a poor IMAP substitute like Mail, Thunderbird, or Outlook. But I'll wait for v1 before I download anything outside of the app store ;)

</comment><comment><USER68> Thanks for this fantastic app. I love the native Gmail features with this level of polish, speed and OS integration.

I would love to see — and would definitely pay for — a similar approach to Google Calendar. Unfortunately CalDAV-based clients only offer a fraction of the web client functionality.

<comment><USER69> +100

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> Looks fantastic. I strongly urge you to reconsider building out an application that serves only Google though!

<comment><USER51> "Serves only Google" when talking about email is not as limiting as your language suggests.

As of October 2018, Gmail had 1.5 billion users.

<comment><USER70> I think you're missing the point I was trying to make. When Gmail decides to ship their own native client on MacOS, this platform will become abandonware.

<comment><USER54> Unless it's better or google disables the api. I say this because I use the paid Apollo app for reading reddit and it's far superior to Reddit's own free app. But I do agree that it's probably a niche user base compared to the OEM app promoted by the service itself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> Makes me wish I use Gmail. I want a natively designed email app for IMAP. There's one feature I desire: group by sender. Unibox does it, but the apps jump around when loading email contents and aren't that fancy other than that feature. The app I use must not use an intermediate server.

</comment><comment><USER72> Cool! I use MailPlane but would be happy to try this out. I'd need two things though: gmail-style keyboard shortcuts (or at least sufficient alternatives) and a way to link myself to an email (so I can put a link to an email into my task manager). Any chance those will be possible?

<comment><AUTHOR> Gmail shortcuts (and Apple Mail shortcuts) are available as an option in Preferences > General. Linking to a specific email in the app is something that's on the roadmap, and I've gotten several requests for it (all mostly for your use case of putting emails into a task manager app).

</comment></comment><comment><USER73> Loving this so far. I've always hated how Mail.app uses a gargantuan amount of disk space for my gmail account.

Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER74> Thanks for making this app! I'm super excited to use it as it's much faster than Spark. One thing I feel missing is ability to snooze the email and batch mark as read. Do you have plan to add it?

</comment><comment><USER75> How does this compare to using twobird[0], which was launched recently by the guys behind Notability? Anyone who's got experience with both clients?

[0]: [https://www.twobird.com/](https://www.twobird.com/)

</comment><comment><USER76> Just downloaded it and it looks very nice. One of my favorite features of Gmail is multiples inboxes which I use for a GTD-like set up with "To Do"/"To Read"/"Waiting For" etc. Any plans to add support for that?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, this is definitely a planned feature!

</comment></comment><comment><USER77> Could you compare to Superhuman?

</comment><comment><USER78> It's wonderful to see more native macOS apps popping up recently. Having a great Gmail client is certainly one of the nicest I've seen lately!

What's your stand on the latest changes announced at this year's WWDC for Mac development?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm very excited about the continued evolution of SwiftUI, as well as Apple Silicon! I think these are both great moves for the Mac, and while there are some aspects of the Big Sur UI I'm not totally sold on, I think these will be refined over the coming years. I'm hoping for way more new Mac apps with SwiftUI and Catalyst making it easier for iOS developers to write Mac apps!

</comment></comment><comment><USER79> Looks great! This question is entirely unrelated, but the picture of you that you have on your site looks uncannily like the ones that they do for badges, with the white background and all. Is it one of those?

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha... It's definitely in that style, but no, it's not my former badge photo :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER80> I was really hoping this was a very quiet video streaming service ... I'm not a MacOS user so I can't take it for a test-drive but I'd like to say congratulations on launching!

</comment><comment><USER81> This looks fantastic - any chance of an OSX 10.14 version though?

<comment><USER55> I commented on the same problem. I am very eager to upgrade to Big Sur but I absolutely do not intend to run Catalina yet, so I'll stick to Mojave (10.14) for now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER82> I love the simplicity; form follows function.

Is there a way to get rid of the badge counter on the dock icon? I somewhat feel anxious/FOMO when the counter is there.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! You can disable this in System Preferences > Notifications > Mimestream > Badge app icon

</comment></comment><comment><USER83> No shade being thrown as I recognize this is a beta, but I seem to be crashing with regularity. I submitted reports, but was wondering if I'm alone.

<comment><USER84> Ditto. Now opening for ~3s before crashing. Possibly coincidence but began after marking all messages in an inbox category as read (there were tens of thousands).

[edit] logs forwarded

</comment></comment><comment><USER85> Is the local cache encrypted on disk? Really nice app.

</comment><comment><USER86> Is there a plain text composing mode? Or is it by default plain text if I don't turn on the rich text toolbar?

<comment><AUTHOR> Right now, it's WYSIWYG HTML composing only. Got a ton of requests for plain text (and markdown) composing support, and I definitely plan on adding it, though it might take a few months at this point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER87> Hey it looks amazing. I'll try it out. Did you do your landing page by yourself? Or are you using a template/service?

</comment><comment><USER88> Looks great! Given how bad Gmail is on iPad Safari and how bad the Gmail iPad app is there is probably a market there if you port.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Porting to iOS/iPadOS is something I would really love to do, but I still have a lot of work left on the Mac client. I'm curious to hear more what your pain points are with Gmail on iPadOS – I've been using the Gmail iOS app on my phone lately, and aside from the nonstandard UI, my experience has been fairly positive.

<comment><USER88> The GMail app has no keyboard shortcuts- pretty important for iPad users.

<comment><USER89> > keyboard shortcuts- pretty important for iPad users

I admit I cannot see the logic of this statement. Explain?

<comment><USER90> A lot of iPad users use the iPad like the Surface these days. Touch + Keyboard.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER91> A similarly named technology offered by many email clients is S/MIME.

Does it support end to end encryption with PGP or smime?

<comment><AUTHOR> Mimestream doesn't support S/MIME or PGP yet, but this is something I'd love to add someday!

</comment></comment><comment><USER92> this looks amazing! pretty excited to try it. signed up for the newsletter and downloaded it. however...

> Read, compose, send, and permanently delete all your email from Gmail

anything you can say to make me feel better for allowing this level of power for a beta app from a random person on the web? i'd really like to try it out.

</comment><comment><USER93> really really amazing. Super snappy and minimalist. +1 for snooze and send later features.

</comment><comment><USER94> This looks really nice and runs great. Does the GMail API let you tap in to the "Important" tag?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, it does! Flagging messages as important/unimportant is already supported in the code, but the feature is currently disabled in the UI. I plan to enable it once I add sections support to the Inbox to match up to Gmail's Priority Inbox feature.

<comment><USER54> On this note, the notifications are popping off about every 10 minutes for me. It would nice if I could set notifications to only show for "important" emails.

PS - Thanks for the app, it's already an improvement in some ways over the gmail interface... looking forward to even more!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER95> Will Mimestream support Gmail Templates? They're essential for my workflow.

</comment><comment><USER96> Does it support sending from a custom domain connected to Gmail, like the web interface?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, Gmail aliases are supported and automatically synced (e.g. I have my old ISP email address set up as an alias). G Suite accounts on custom domains are also supported.

</comment></comment><comment><USER97> Sweet! I would switch to this right away, if I hadn't already discovered MailMate.

</comment><comment><USER98> I'd kill for it were I using gmail, but I am with fastmail and mail.app now ;)

Still, great job!

</comment><comment><USER99> Fantastic job. Works great.

</comment><comment><USER100> @njhaveri: It's seem the sign up button on top not working

<comment><AUTHOR> Try again? I've been having serious trouble with my email list service (Mailjet).

<comment><USER100> The bottom button still work

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER101> Any plans to add a menu bar toggle/counter?

<comment><AUTHOR> I've heard this requested a lot in the last 24h, will add this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER102> Any chance sorting can be supported?

</comment><comment><USER103> Does this have the Snooze feature?

<comment><USER104> In a different comment the developer mentioned that the Gmail API doesn't support snooze, so he'll have to implement it manually later.

</comment></comment><comment><USER105> +1 for outlook 365

</comment><comment><USER106> I rely a several add-ons for Gmail. As such, can't use this.

<comment><USER107> The author is on the thread, and has been very responsive to input.

This comment isn't useful to me, or him, without specifics.

</comment></comment><comment><USER108> The application itself looks absolutely amazing, and the authors should be commended for it.

That said, the FAQ mentions that the for-profit model is designed to avoid ads in the client and to "take a strong stance on privacy", which is a little bit disingenuous given that the client exclusively relies on an email service provided by the world's largest advertiser and email data miner.

Yes, Mimestream itself isn't using my data, but there's a bit of induced cognitive dissonance in taking a strong privacy stance for a Google-specific product.

<comment><USER109> > In order to build a sustainable business that can continue to innovate and > improve our products, Mimestream will eventually transition to being a paid > app.

Come on, they're explicitly saying that they're charging for the service. It's pretty clear that when they're talking about privacy the caveat is that they won't suck your data into another sink (them) _other than google itself_, being the provider of gmail and all.

I'm all for privacy and informing the user but they're hardly playing word games here.

<comment><USER108> > I'm all for privacy and informing the user but they're hardly playing word > games here.

I'm not saying they're playing word games. I'm saying the strong ethical stance on privacy is diluted by the underlying service they built their product on.

If I built a new automobile refueling station that dispensed diesel and gasoline, but used the fact that the pumps themselves ran on solar energy to claim "I strongly believe in 100% renewable energy", well yes, in one way you're living up to your ideals, but in another larger way, you're really not.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER110> Uh, where's the source code? If I'm trusting you with my mail, you should be trusting me with the source code.

<comment><USER79> This looks macOS-only, which is largely closed-source. Are you sure you're complaint is directed the right way?

</comment></comment><comment><USER111> > Instead of using the IMAP protocol, Mimestream utilizes the Gmail API

That's sadly a step in the wrong direction. JMAP ([https://jmap.io/](https://jmap.io/)) has been around for a while and it is a shame google refuses to adopt it.

<comment><USER19> So Gmail doesn't support it and yet it wrong for this developer to go this route?

Being snobby about protocols isn't useful and comments like that should be sent to Google instead.

<comment><USER111> Wasn't supposed to come across like that. The sad part is that Google has enough grip on e-mail to halt adoption of any standard; GMail has been around for 16 years, you'd expect _some_ kind of standard to come out of it to support modern e-mail features. Developers not having a choice doesn't make it less wrong.

JMAP has been around for 5+ years, and specs published last year by the IETF: [https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc8620](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc8620) and [https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc8621](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc8621)</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Technical cost of a web startup? - <AUTHOR>

I am working on a social networking concept and I'd like to make a prototype. I've got most of the know-how, but my problem is, I'm not sure how much capital to allocate to running my test.<p>Setting aside certain logistics (assume I pay myself nothing and I pay nothing for marketing/advertising) how much would you estimate it costs to maintain servers (using AWS for example) and scale to a reasonable level (200 users, 1k users, 5k users) per month? How quickly will that change? <comment><USER2> There is probably close to zero technical cost or risk associated with your social network. I have no idea what stage your concept is at, but from my brief flirtation with building a social networking concept, I would urge you to consider the following if you haven't already:

What problem does this solve? Who are your first 100 customers? You'll be surprised at how little time even your best friends will spend humoring your service. Who are your first 10,000 customers? Why would any of them spend their precious time on your service? How do you solve the chicken and egg problem? Most social networks won't be interesting until they have millions of users. How do you keep people engaged before then? How do you make money? If you have a general audience, unless you have hundreds of millions of unique visitors per month, don't say advertising.

</comment><comment><USER3> Back of the envelope calculation -

A passenger instance for a typical small app takes 30-40 MB. You will be able to run 4-5 passenger instances on a small 512 MB slice.

Assuming that the slowest request in your app takes 100 ms, one passenger instance can handle 10 requests/sec. 5 instances can handle 50 requests/sec.

Tweak the numbers according to your app and get a rough idea of the hardware requirements.

A 512 MB VPS on Linode costs 20 dollars.

<comment><USER4> +1 to the VPS for small (early) web apps. These VMs can handle more than one normally assumes. Especially if the load does not come in bursts.

Running my app (<https://addresspush.com>) now since 9 months and the smallest slice with Apache and 2 balanced nodes works perfectly. 1 unnoticed down-time for a few hours. I bet that happens with cloud services as well (hi AWS!).

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Depending on how you are going about it, Google App Engine may suit you the best..uses java, python, or go

One huge advantage - its free till 5,000,000 hits or some given # of cpu cycles

That said, you would need to carefully evaluate your requirements first. App engine uses Big Table for database, and they recommend it for apps that have a lot more reads than writes. Google it!

</comment><comment><USER6> For the level of users you mention the costs would be very low assuming you're not talking about storing huge quantities of data per user.

AWS offers a free instance when you register an account - it sounds like it would cover your initial needs. You would probably want to bind a larger volume to it (perhaps 20GB or so?) which would cost $2 per month.

</comment><comment><USER7> AWS, think 1 small instance (80$/m) for, say, 1000 users. Depending of course.</comment>


Move Over, Bitcoin. Ether Is the Digital Currency of the Moment - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/19/business/dealbook/ethereum-bitcoin-digital-currency.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Ftechnology&action=click&contentCollection=technology&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront <comment><USER2> *the digital currency for speculation.

It seems just as unsuitable for every day use like Bitcoin or tulips.</comment>


Gmail eventual consistency - <AUTHOR> I created a new secondary account for some reason, and tried to send ping-pong emails from both accounts.
1. secondary to primary works!
2. replying to secondary's mail from primary works!
3. create new email -> primary to secondary fails spectacularly with following error.
Address not found Your message wasn't delivered to <email address> because the address couldn't be found. Check for typos or unnecessary spaces and try again. LEARN MORE
eventual consistency much? <comment><AUTHOR> 4\. create new email -> primary to secondary email -> delete some existing email.. success! (my secondary email actually received from primary)

5\. retry: create new email -> primary to secondary email. Fail!</comment>


2600 back issue prices reduced by 60% - <AUTHOR> http://www.2600.com/news/view/article/12052

<comment><USER2> A waterfall of nostalgia just washed over me. Thanks, just subscribed (I know this was for back issues, I decided on some new content).

2600 is great. Anyone else remember the knockoff Blacklisted 411? Or the definitely not knockoff, Phrack? Man, I'm 15 again. :)

<comment><USER3> Yep, I remember Blacklisted 411. I received a couple issues for free by result of being involved in a local BBS that had some connection to Zac. After that, most issues were bought (with cash, befitting the paranoia surrounding those types of magazines at the time) from the only seller in town with them: Barnes and Noble. The local indy bookseller wouldn't carry them because, in his words, "I don't want to be raided by the feds."

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm guessing it's because they're going to offer their back issues in electronic format for around the same price and want to get rid of their stock on hand. At any rate, I'd love some 2600 sweetness on my iPad. :)</comment>


The neoliberal era is ending. What comes next? - <AUTHOR> https://thecorrespondent.com/466/the-neoliberal-era-is-ending-what-comes-next/61655148676-a00ee89a <comment><USER2> A very loaded, low quality article.

</comment><comment><USER3> Post-neoliberalism?

</comment><comment><USER4> If it really is, then we should brace ourselves for less growth, more instability, and more poverty. I live in a country that has tried all these hacks the progressives are pushing so hard to adopt, and have already lived a hyperinflation, at least three massive recessions, a "terminal crisis", two defaults, 6 years of stagflation, and have seen poverty grow from less than 10% to more than 40% in my lifetime. It would be unfortunate for the world to follow this path.

<comment><USER5> What country is that? It would be nice if we could read more about what you are talking about.

<comment><USER4> The country is Argentina. Once we had one of the highest GDPs per capita on Earth. But we have slowed growth so much, and created so much volatily with government overspending and by having a huge public sector, that we have become poorer and poorer.

You should read about it. We have applied all the brilliant ideas from the left: universal healthcare (which even provides free in vitro fertilization), ubi, high taxes on the rich (and the middle class tbh), free college, a massive public sector that employs millions upon millions of people, a state run pensions system, millions of regulations .. it's Bernie's wet dream. But it just doesn't work. It's so prohibitedly expensive to run those programs that taxes are super high, and the government still runs into huge deficits they pay for with debt (when we are not defaulting on previous debt), or printing money. Needless to say our inflation is above 50%yoy, salaries get lower every month, and there is simply no way we are going to recover, because every time there is a crisis (which is quite often) the likes or Krugman praise our government, they double down on these lousy policies, and things get worse.

<comment><USER6> I was just reading the wikipedia article on Argentina [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Argentina](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Argentina) and it doesn't really add up with what you're saying. It seems that there are other factors that influenced your countries issues which you've omitted.

<comment><USER2> Because Wikipedia is more accurate about something than real life. It's like the joke with 2 guys in cubicles, the one next to the windows tells the other it is snowing, the other asks for a link as proof.

<comment><USER7> Wikipedia has citations, someone claiming to be Argentian and making vague unsubstantiated claims that a US Senator's political ideas ruined his country smells more like astroturfing than "real life".

<comment><USER4> Do you want a picture of my passport? I can easily provide it. I didn't say that it was Bernie's ideas what ruined my country, just that the kind of policies he preaches have been applied here for decades. Don't take my word for it, just look for any of Cristina Kirchner's speeches, and you will see.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Systematic fraud by the world's carmaker threatens to engulf the entire industry - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21667918-systematic-fraud-worlds-biggest-carmaker-threatens-engulf-entire-industry-and?fsrc=scn/tw/te/pe/ed/amuckybusiness <comment><USER2> This is alarming:

"According to Transport & Environment (T&E), a green pressure group, the gulf between stated fuel-economy figures (and by extension carbon-dioxide emissions) and those achieved by an average driver has grown to 40% in recent years [in the European Union] (see chart 4)"

So on average the fuel economy of cars is 40% worse than what the EU testing finds. Bending rules and optimising to unrealistic tests.

"The cars that are tested have generally been modified to be as frugal as possible. Things that add weight, such as sound systems, are left out. Drag is reduced by removing wing mirrors and taping up cracks between panels. Special lubricants make the engines run more smoothly. Low-resistance tyres are overinflated with special mixtures of gas. Alternators are disconnected, which gives more power to the wheels but guarantees a flat battery in the end. The cars may be run in too high a gear, and conducting tests at the highest allowed ambient temperature—another efficiency booster—is commonplace."

Also: "The NOx emissions from new diesel cars in Europe are on average five times higher on the road than in tests; some cars run at ten times the limit"</comment>


Ask HN: Entry-level salary and skillset for a software engineer specializing in ML - <AUTHOR> What would be the entry-level salary and skillset for a machine learning software engineer?
I'm asking in the context of reconverting from 5+ years of professional mobile development to a role that would involve implementing end-to-end machine learning algorithms (i.e. not ML researcher).
I'm currently inplementing TensorFlow algorithms while trying to make them production ready using TensorFlow Serving, and I find it really fun.
So some of my concerns would be whether I'd have to take a significant salary cut (or whether the average salary for such ML role is generally higher than that of mobile devs, in which case such a cut wouldn't be needed), and whether such role would require a lot more than implementing end-to-end ML algorithms (e.g. an extensive background in statistics)
Thank you! <comment><USER2> I am applying for machine learning engineering roles in the Washington DC area, and my goal is to get 90-100k. I will be getting my massters degree from an prestigious school, so I think that will help with my goal.

<comment><AUTHOR> Would that be your first ML job? That's a pretty high number, good luck!

<comment><USER3> A family of 3 in the DC area needs about 108,000 to live a lower-middle-class lifestyle.

<comment><AUTHOR> Most recent grad/entry-level people generally don't have a family of 3 yet, or do they?

<comment><USER3> Most don't, but some do.

However, (and I think this is pretty obvious) the point is that shooting for 90k to start in an incredibly high-cost area, for a difficult specialization in a field that's in super-high demand and that has historically been considered to pay a lot of money isn't going to be as great as it sounds.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Salaries depend on location. No one can give you an accurate measure without knowing location. Look at jobs you'd want to apply to in your area, some will disclose salary ranges.

<comment><AUTHOR> London, Copenhagen? How about compared to a mobile dev?

But it's true I can probably find good info by looking at job postings, thanks!

<comment><USER5> The UK dev salaries are shitty compared to their counter parts in the US, even though living in London is far from cheap.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> You are worth what someone will pay you

<comment><USER7> And what is the typical salary range on what someone will pay me?</comment></comment>


Learn How to Contribute to the Linux Kernel: Take the Eudyptula Challenge - <AUTHOR> http://www.linux.com/news/featured-blogs/200-libby-clark/770112-learn-how-to-contribute-to-the-linux-kernel-take-the-eudyptula-challenge <comment><USER2> The main reason in my experience is the complete and utter lack of documentation. It's a bunch of text files that alternatively tell you intricate details about some architecture that died 20 years ago or boast their genius.

Linus likes his C code groomed a particular way, but he doesn't mind if you omit the documentation for that subsystem rewrite. That's why they call it kernel _hacking_.

<comment><USER3> The BSDs are far more approachable, and I recommend starting there for anyone interested in kernel development.

There are books, such as The Design and Implementation of the FreeBSD Operating System (by McKusick): [http://www.amazon.com/Design-Implementation- FreeBSD-Operatin...](http://www.amazon.com/Design-Implementation-FreeBSD- Operating-System/dp/0201702452)

There are papers, such as Jonathan Lemon's "Kqueue: A generic and scalable event notification facility" presented at Usenix 2001: [http://people.freebsd.org/~jlemon/papers/kqueue.pdf](http://people.freebsd.org/~jlemon/papers/kqueue.pdf)

There are kernel interface man pages:

[http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=SYSCALL_MODULE&sekt...](http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=SYSCALL_MODULE&sektion=9&apropos=0&manpath=FreeBSD+10.0-RELEASE)

[http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=hhook&apropos=0&sek...](http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=hhook&apropos=0&sektion=9&manpath=FreeBSD+10.0-RELEASE&arch=default&format=html)

There are examples referenced by the man pages:

[http://svnweb.freebsd.org/base/head/share/examples/](http://svnweb.freebsd.org/base/head/share/examples/)

<comment><USER4> Thanks for the references!

I actually started to look into FreeBSD kernel code recently. I've found that FreeBSD's ath driver code is cleaner and more straightforward compared to the ath/ath*k drivers in Linux. Not sure if this is coincidence or due to different philosophy between FreeBSD and Linux communities.

<comment><USER3> I've found similar across the board; I think it boils down to different philosophies/development cultures.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've been wanting to do something like this for ages. I haven't had a reply back to my sign up email yet, but soon I assume.

What might be really good is if other projects in Linux ran similar courses. The larger projects are inspiring to take part in, but have learning cliffs more than learning curves.

<comment><USER6> Did you by chance send the email as HTML? The FAQ says they reject those outright.

<comment><USER7> It will tell you if it has not accepted your email and why.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Ubuntu offers a guide to fetching the appropriate software dependencies for a build environment, kernel source and configs:

[https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/BuildYourOwnKernel](https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/BuildYourOwnKernel)

<comment><USER9> This link is for _contributing_ to the Linux kernel project, not _compiling_ a kernel.

<comment><USER8> Consider it a step 0!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I finished this, but I still have no idea where I can actually help (aside from janitorial code cleanups and some vague notion of improving the documentation).

<comment><USER11> I'm curious to know more too. I am a little over halfway done and want to see where the challenges end up. Can you give me some more detail?

<comment><USER10> You end up adding a minor feature to the FAT filesystem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> In the book "Systems Performance" by Brendan Gregg, there is a section on Kernels--in this case comparing Linux to Solaris--where the author shows a table of Kernel Versions with Documented Syscall Counts.

He states: '...there is a pattern over time: Linux has been adding system calls. Solaris has been removing them...'

Just as a matter of personal opinion, I would personally never jump into Linux Kernel Development simply because I feel there are already 'too many cooks in the kitchen' and it feels as if there is simply not as much clarity when compared to other *nix distributions.

Do I work with Linux? Yes, because this is what is used in my workplace. Would I hack on the Linux Kernel or Network Stack for work purposes? Sure, because it would likely be a group effort to address some problem for instance.

Now would I go home and hack on the Linux Kernel for fun and understanding? Absolutely not.

</comment><comment><USER13> From the blog post:

> You need a strong knowledge of C in order to participate

From the website:

> A basic understanding of the C programming language is required

</comment><comment><USER14> A good step taken by the Linux Foundation. I think I'll join the project, it a nice way to rank myself...</comment>