Future of Firefox DevTools - <AUTHOR> http://paulrouget.com/e/devtoolsnext/ <comment><USER2> The right-hand-side docking looks absolutely amazing (<http://i.imgur.com/duQOXq7.png>).

I have another bit of feedback. The web console has three positions available: Above, Below, and Window. With Firebug, I like to have the console open in another monitor and give the browser viewport maximum screen real estate in front of me. Firefox's web console doesn't let me do this because in "Window" mode it doesn't quite act the same as a fully-fledged window. For example, I can't maximise it and it doesn't have the full complement of normal controls in its window bar. <http://i.imgur.com/V7eWC1m.png>

<comment><USER3> While right-side docking is great, especially for widescreen monitors, separate window for devtools would be much better improvement. In this case anyone can 'dock' them any way they like it. More important, you can have dev tools on one screen and page view on another.

<comment><AUTHOR> > separate window for devtools would be much better improvement

Fixed in Firefox 20

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> A wire-protocol for debugging/live reload/etc. would be awesome, but _especially if it's cross-browser_! As an IDE developer, I shouldn't have to do one thing for Chrome, and one thing for FF, just to support the same operations (like set debug point, step in, step out, etc.).

Obviously, yes, they'll be a different set of features at first, but for the overlapping ones, the wire protocol should be the same.

Just look at how painful things were for Selenium/Webdriver; which I now see is moving into the W3C. Hopefully that makes their lives (and our lives as developers) easier if the browsers share a protocol.

(Cross-posted on the blog...how degenerate...)

</comment><comment><USER5> At the moment, I really like Chrome because I just find the behavior of the Omnibar superior to Firefox's Awesomebar.

But hot damn, you're making me question loyalties on my dev machine.

<comment><USER6> Haha, I just switched from Chrome to Firefox because I hate how Chrome prioritizes Google Search over my previous history. It's idiotic.

Here, let me show you a clear example.

<http://i.imgur.com/uNsh7Yv.png>

Firefox clearly has the superior bar.

<comment><USER5> I've personally internalized the downdown for going to things I've gone to before.

However, I do brand new searches _constantly_. Often 20+ a day, that often look similar to older searches, but aren't quite.

Now, whether I've developed that behavior because of Chrome, or because it works well for me, is a question for itself.

Also, since I'm here- anyone get frequent fuckups lately in the Chrome omnibar, not searching what you put in, to instead search something you HAVE searched before?

For example, before, I've searched "javascript array"

But this time, I am wanting to search "javascript string concatenation". I type that into Chrome, hit enter...

...up pops the search results for "javascript array". It started about a month ago, and is really annoying.

<comment><USER7> (this is on a Mac)

In Firefox, the hotkey "cmd-K" will put focus into the search bar at the top.

In Chrome they don't have a keybind set to this by default (though on Windows they seem to). But if you open mac System Preferences, go to Keyboard, then Keyboard Shortcuts, and add an Application Shortcut for Chrome, you set the menu item name to "Search the Web..." and the keybind to whatever you want (I used "cmd-K").

So that way regardless if I'm in Firefox or chrome, pressing cmd-K will put me in a place I can search.

<comment><USER8> also, cmd-l (go to the awesomebar) and start with a ? to always search.

you can also have different engines

        ?cat

will search your default engine for cat

i have one for ddg so

        ddg cat

searches duck duck go for cat etc. its fantastic

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> How about opening up a browser-based API for existing in-browser IDE-like environments to leverage the debugging tools that are already present?

What I am talking about is instead of recreating jsFiddle in the dev tools, how about letting jsFiddle (with appropriate user confirmation) control the dev tools?

As the creator of Plunker (<http://beta.plnkr.co/edit/e5iLyQ?p=preview>), I would love to be able to leverage the environment that has already been created to allow adding breakpoints and inspecting of running code. Since Plunker already has live-previewing and a working multi-file editing interface, it would be really amazing to be able to take it to the next level.

Shameless plug: If you've never heard of Plunker, check it out. For free you get live-reload of previews, transparent compilation (and sourcemapping) of stuff like Coffee-Script, Typescript, Stylus, etc.., real-time collaboration on the same code, live js/css linting and much more! Also, it is open-source (<http://github.com/filearts/>).

<comment><AUTHOR> Isn't the first paragraph exactly about that?

<comment><USER9> Hi Paul,

What I understood from your article is that you're mostly exploring 1) the possibility of opening up the dev tools to locally-installed applications like SublimeText2; and 2) the integration of jsFiddle-like apps within DevTools.

Please correct me if I misunderstood.

What I'm asking about is creating an in-browser API for a website to interact with the dev tools. Obviously, this would require a very thorough review of the risks of having such an API from a security perspective (and how users can opt-in in a transparent and well-controlled manner). That being said, I am still hoping!

If this is already in the books, then Hooray! I can't wait to start experimenting.

I hope I didn't come across poorly, because I really appreciate all the work you've been doing!

<comment><USER9> Paul, very cool indeed.

Stretch goal: How about having an in-browser API that could create such a websocket?

That would open some interesting possibilities in terms of remote debugging by piping socket traffic over another socket/WebRTC datachannel as well as allowing websites to interact with the debugger.

<comment><USER10> Allowing websites to interact with the Debugger API is something we would like to do, but, as you note, the security implications require much more thought to get it right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> One small thing that I haven't seen yet (in FF or Chrome) is a feature where I could get the IP address that was used to retrieve a given resource in the network tab. This would be hugely helpful when dealing with sites that are backed by more than one server. Also, ability to reset DNS cache (BTW, DNS cache seems to be shared between private and regular browsing modes).

<edit>The ability to lock onto a specific IP for a given domain would be pretty kick-ass too. Not a replacement for /etc/hosts, but just choosing one of the 2 IP's for example.com, etc.</edit>

Another nice feature would be to get the network tab to ignore resources loaded from external domains, only show external resources, or show both. Maybe even more fine grained with/without subdomains.

<comment><USER12> In Firebug this is shown in the 'Remote IP' column under the 'Net' tab. I don't use FF or Chrome dev tools often enough to know if/where they have it.

<comment><USER11> Ah, you are right. Such a useful feature!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Really nice you are listening and responding to the community this well, that said the progress made during hack week is impressive but we'll have to see how fast and stable these suggestions leak through to nightlies and stable release.

Keep up the stellar work, firefox is gaining momentum again, make good use of it :)

<comment><AUTHOR> You're right. That's the next challenge: delivering. It will take time.

<comment><USER14> Right on, you and your teams' attitudes are encouraging!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> What a stellar response to feedback. Thank you Mozilla. I'm currently a big Chrome Dev Tools fan, but I, er, am currently thinking of that beautiful girl I ditched again, if you know what I mean...

</comment><comment><USER16> I still don't get it way mozilla made it's own devtools, instead of integrating and extending on firebug. Had the devs of mozilla and the one of firebug diffs, which couldn't be solved?

<comment><USER17> At the time, yes.

In particular, there were somewhat irreconcilable differences in goals and priorities...

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> The #1 thing the Firefox DevTools group should be doing is integrating Firebug into Firefox. Right now they have the same team maintaining two codebases. That seems like a significant waste of time.

<comment><USER19> I kind of disagree, I would rather see Firefox DevTools not be Firebug. Firebug is not that great (compared to Chrome's debug tools) due to its UI. It looks like Firefox DevTools is at least going for a much better UI, so being constrained by Firebug would be a loss.

<comment><USER20> I still prefer Firebug, instead of Chrome dev tools. What are the reasons which make you think, it is not great?

<comment><USER19> Firebug:

-is slower

-has more glitches (things doing plain weird or not working sometimes)

-requires "activation" of each panel and reloading of the page

-sometimes suddenly opens for no reason when you visit a webpage without the intention to debug it

-is impossible to use if you want to debug a project with hundreds of js files (e.g. uncompiled JS of a large project) because it has a bad type of dropdown for selecting the JS file

-generally just requires more clicks and more frustration to get things done

The one in Chrome:

-is faster

-has a better console (easier to type commands, inspect variables, etc...)

-works immediately as soon as you open it (no "this panel was inactive during page load")

-has more features

Note that I was talking about Firebug here. Firefox also has its own dev tools, at least an "Inspect Element", with even a 3D view of a page allowing to see divs outside of it and so on, and that one is awesome!

I'm curious from your side (maybe also to learn a thing or two about Firebug): How would you compare it to Chrome? What features make Firebug stand out?

Thanks.

EDIT: Why do I need to add multiple newlines between the "-" to make Hacker News post them as newlines?

<comment><USER21> This is unfortunately true, and that's why it's exciting to see Mozilla do something about it. As it stands right now, Chrome is the better tool, and if you prefer Firebug to it chances are you haven't tried Chrome for long enough.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Previous thread: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5325445>.

</comment><comment><USER21> Very, very nice. I'll happily end up switching back to Firefox again if you can keep up the pace. Keep us posted mozilla.

</comment><comment><USER23> This is great, thank you Mozilla for your hard work.

I am looking forward to ditching firebug and use the native tools.

</comment><comment><USER24> I've recently changed back over to Mozilla, this just proves that it was the correct decision.

<comment> SG- I'm not quite sure if a mockup proves anything, unless you mean the part about them asking the community.

<comment><USER24> I think it is proof of quite a few things.

It proves that they are developing functionality that I've been looking for and some I didn't even know I wanted.

It is evidence that they want to be a great tool for developers and that they recognize their tool needs work.

It proves that I made the right decision (completely subjective which is the nature of a comment like the one I made) in moving away from Google for a more user centered and open-source browser.

And yes it proves that they listen to their users.

All of that is assuming they weren't lying or creating fake mockups (which I feel is a safe bet). Sure that's not a lot of proof for a scientific theory, but for a decision on which browser I want to use and which company I want to support I think it's proof enough :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Excellent, the network timeline is one of the features that has kept me on Firebug. The editor integration looks quite intriguing as well. Wonderfully rapid response, Paul! I may no longer have an excuse not to use the built-in dev tools. :)

</comment><comment><USER26> While the number 1 suggestion sounds great on paper, isn't anyone else concerned about the security implications?

The ability for the browser to modify files directly on my workstation outside of caching folders sounds like a recipe for disaster.

<comment><USER27> He had to click accept connection before it allowed him to edit the CSS.

<comment><USER26> Which, as we know, is a rock-solid protection mechanism against these types of exploits. Everyone reads modal messages.

<comment><USER10> In order to get to that modal message, you first have to go and enable remote debugging, which is not something normal people would do. And in general, even though we can (and already have) come up with even more mitigations for the potential threat, the sad truth is that security and usability are fundamentally a tradeoff, so you have to strike a balance at some point.

<comment><USER26> And, I understand that. But, the drawbacks of the security implications of your development/developer browsers being thus weakened is, IMO, a decision heavily weighted in favour _against_ this feature.

Personally, I would love it. It would make my life easier to have a full IDE within a browser. However, I would never be comfortable with the security tradeoff and would never enable it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> This is looking fantastic.

Some suggestions:

\- Allow to use a dark theme on all panels. I remember that for a short time, aurora had the dark themes on the html, css panels. It was great, but then it was reverted to the white background. It would be cool if there were a setting to choose the dark color theme. I loved it.

\- Add something like firepath. A firebug extension, that adds a panel to test CSS/sizzle (jquery) selectors, and highlights the selected nodes. This is an extremely useful extension for me. If enough people agree, it would be good to have it integrated in the developer tools by default.

<comment><AUTHOR> > \- Allow to use a dark theme on all panels.

I'm working on that. Screenshot: [https://bug836233.bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi?id=719...](https://bug836233.bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi?id=719063)

<comment><USER29> Brilliant. A friend and I were just talking about how cumbersome it's to work on a dark themed website using Firebug due to the default burn-your-eyes bright contrast bleeding into the site.

Keep it up, can't wait to ditch Firebug.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I was impressed by their question, and now even more so by incredibly quick results! I switched back to Firefox a few days ago (from Chrome) and this really solidifies my decision.

</comment><comment><USER6> Thank you for opening up to this community. For better or worse, I feel the HN crowd has it's head together and will always give good feedback on products.

</comment><comment><USER31> Excellent, please don't forget about Windows users :) Apple's OS is not the only one with web developers (ie. Sublime as an example) !

<comment><USER32> Sublime is available on Windows, Linux, and Mac...

<comment><USER33> Why is the above comment downvoted? Totally relevant in addressing what the comment above it said.

<comment><USER34> Because the OP was pointing to Sublime as an example of a tool that is available, and popular, cross-platform.

<comment><USER35> If that were the case, then the OP would have no argument because that's the only external tool being shown right now.

<comment><USER33> On re-reading, I've now realized polskibus was referring to sublime as a tool which IS available cross platform.

Like the downvoted comment I too initially read it as that he thought it WAS NOT cross platform based on thee here he postitioned his example near his Apple comment and hence why the 'sublime is available cross platform' comment made good sense to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Are there any plans to implement an instrumenting profiler in addition to the existing one? Not having call count is a huge minus for me. Devtools has a sampling profiler like Chrome (which also doesnt provide call counts). So the only instrumenting profilers remaining for JS on Windows are Firebug and an outdated, abandoned version of Safari :(

<comment><USER10> The profiler has a stackwalking mode that provides more accurate info:

[https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Performance/Profili...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Performance/Profiling_with_the_Built- in_Profiler#Stackwalking_vs._pseudostack)

You would need to use a nightly release to get that though, and only on the platforms that are currently supported.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Wow. I haven't had a chance to read the article yet, but the video where they are editing live in sublime text is awesome. Does this have to open in a new file or can it override an existing file?

It'd be really cool to be able to do the latter. I usually make changes in chrome dev tools and then copy the results into the relevant CSS file.

<comment><AUTHOR> It opens a new buffer, than can be saved as an existing file.

<comment><USER38> Give me this now.

(ps - awesome work and communication!)

<comment><USER39> You might be interested in checking out Brackets (<http://brackets.io/>) which has some live development capabilities for CSS at least right now. I believe it only works with Chrome though, currently.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Very excited to see the network panel, as that is what makes me go back to Chrome or Firebug most often.

In the network panel, being able to sorting/filter requests by content-type, request verb, and response code makes it much more usable for me. I didn't see that in the video-- do you plan to include it?

<comment><USER10> Sorting and filtering are planned, yes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> "Coding/authoring in the browser" - this is EXACTLY the idea of LIVEditor, my code editor project which was started before Bret Victor's talk, the announcing of Light Table and Brackets.

But it's not out yet, because it's only me working on it...

URL: <http://liveditor.com>

</comment><comment><USER42> Damn! i am impressed. Good job, Mozilla!

</comment><comment><USER43> Making Firebug into an extension that works inside the Firefox dev tools (the same way Firebug plugins can add tabs) sounds like the best way to move forward both Firefox and Firebug.

<comment><USER44> Why? I say leave Firebug alone, or just kill it already? We don't need two inspectors.

<comment><USER10> Mozilla can't kill Firebug, even if they wanted, since it's a separate open source project and community. And the only people with two inspectors would be those that elected to have them both, by installing Firebug and using both tools.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> I was one of those that requested a way to profile repaints. Thank you for adding the aggregate repaint view. The video showing the margin-left vs. transform repaints is exactly the kind of thing developers can take advantage of.

Question: does the aggregate repaint view indicate what caused the repaint? Determining that isn't always as easy or obvious as the margin-left vs. transform example in the video, so it'd be a huge benefit if that was included.

Thank you for listening!

</comment><comment><USER46> It's amazing how much I respect Mozilla as an organization.

First, they revolutionized browsers when none of the big players wanted to. Then they promoted open standards. And as of lately they have been championing developers with tools to succeed.

This post confirms that they are actively engaging and working with their community to build a better product. What if we all did that? Lets replace "brainstorming" with "brainsourcing".

<comment><USER47> Mozilla does encourage community to give their ideas. There a zillion projects going on at Mozilla that would die for some constructive thinking help, although not all get the same attention.

That's also while I like organizations. No matter how people go at Mozilla saying they don't listen.. it's not quite true. Decisions will never satisfy absolutely everybody, but they listen and ask for tips quite a lot.

<comment><USER48> Of course you never know which one will become the next Firefox. (In the sense of headline product.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> The jsfiddle style looks good, but how does that work with multiple files on the page? Do you select the files you want to work with?

Not sure if it's possible, but I think it'd be cool to highlight which lines have been live edited.

One bit of feedback about editing CSS: it'd be great if, when editing a property, using the arrow keys cycled through the default properties. I.e. border-style goes through solid, dotted, none, etc.

Looking great!

</comment><comment><USER50> I would like to see more standardized keyboard shortcuts. F12 is generally used to open the dev tools in most browsers (including opening FireBug). Another shortcut I'd like to see is Ctr+G to goto line in the scripts debugger.

I'd also like to see an improvement of the default source in the debugger pane. Guessing the proper script on the page that needs debugging can be a huge time saver.

</comment><comment><USER51> The timeline needs to show protocol. Btw this already exists in Firebug. Why duplicate effort? I'm sure this hass been asked before. But why have devtools instead of improving firebug? (Performance?) What will happen to firebug in the long run ?

Edit:

* In inspect view, can we have a search HTML function like firebug?

* Also in inspect view, a way to disable the display of PATH.

* Increase the font size of html/css rules etc

<comment><USER10> The inspector has a search box in Firefox 21 and above.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Adding nothing to this conversation but this is awesome. What an amazing response.

Humblebrag: Psyched to see two out of three of my main points addressed. I'm impressed. Meat Loaf* would be, too.

* - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Out_of_Three_Aint_Bad>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the initial feedback :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Poking around the wiki I noticed that work is beginning on GCLI, a gui command line. I'm not sure how it's going to get integrated into FF yet (I saw mention of an mdn command, though).

I love the demo: <https://people.mozilla.com/~jwalker/gcli/>

<comment><USER54> Shift-F2

<comment><USER55> Yeah, get thee to a recent release or pre-release and tell us what you think.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> The main problem for me is the narrow format of the dev tools. I can't see the web page well and I can't see the debugger well.

Docking to the right side is also bad, because it reduces my width and makes the page display badly.

I fondly remember the debugger I used to have in Borland Pascal 7 under MSDOS. Concise and efficient.

<comment><USER10> You can detach the developer tools window and put it anywhere you like.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Sublime Web Inspector already got that first one figured out for javascript: <http://sokolovstas.github.com/SublimeWebInspector/>

</comment><comment><USER57> And one more for the Chrome "Resources" tab. I am now trying to develop FFOS app with IndexedDB and not being able to see the content of the database makes me run to Chrome all the time.

</comment><comment><USER27> I'm loving all of this. With these improvements, I have only one complaint. The tab bar is beautiful on Windows and OS X, but it's awful on Linux. Tabs should be the same on each OS.

<comment><USER27> I can't edit my post, but I just saw <http://paulrouget.com/e/australis-ux/>. I'm beyond excited for this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> +1 for sourcemap support.

</comment><comment><USER59> This is awesome. Was thinking the last few days that I wanted to switch back to FF from Chrome but that the dev tools were the only thing keeping me around. Nice work!

</comment><comment><USER60> Not that i hate these tools, but how much would this bloat up the browser? ( I am guessing they are less then a few MBs on installation size or download size? )

</comment><comment><USER61> All I want is a build-in user-agent over-ride option in the web or dev console. Let me specify pre-bundled popular UA's in drop-drown or custom UA string.

<comment><USER62> You mean like [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/user-agent- sw...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/user-agent-switcher/) ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> ship this and I'll bury Chrome! (Well, Chromium)

<comment><USER30> Was this a reference to RA2's taunt _"We will bury them!"_?

<comment><USER64> Which itself must be a reference to Nikita Khrushchev's famous outburst[1].

1: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_will_bury_you>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> Firefox with firebug was my first tool for web development. Now this makes me considering switching back to FF now.

</comment><comment><USER66> "Control browser from Editor" > "Edit in the Browser".

Think about it - everyone prefers a different editor.

<comment><USER67> That is why the decision has not been made yet, they are discussing. Every user has different preferences, and maybe you will get to have both the options :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> I am excited to see that visualizing event bindings is on the list. That would be awesome!

</comment><comment><USER69> Welcome back to my heart Firefox.

</comment><comment><USER70> As someone who's loving TypeScript, is it a possibility we will see that supported too?

</comment><comment><USER71> What I want to see is the ability to inspect websocket traffic like Chrome has.

</comment><comment><USER72> This does seem brilliant. Well done Foxers!

</comment><comment><USER73> Nice one

</comment><comment><USER74> paulrouget FTW!

</comment><comment><USER75> How many devs actually use Firefox's dev tools? I see all of that praise "looks awesome, looks amazing, etc" But do people really use those amazing things? I just find the Chrome dev tools orders of magnitude more usable than Firefox's. It's mostly a large amount of what you could call details but it makes all the difference. It all flows better, reduces the amount of thinking you have to do as well as the number of clicks and keypresses. I think Mozilla should start by fixing all of these little problems before jumping into huge stuff like they seem to like to do with the cli, python library etc.

<comment><USER75> why I am getting downvoted? because I'm not agreeing with the flock? I provided constructive feedback

<comment><USER76> I'm not sure. On topic, could you enumerate some of the specific areas where the Chrome tools "flow" better? I've pretty exclusively been a Fx dev. tool user for the past few months, so I'm personally not sure how things are on that side these days.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER77> I find the responses here really strange, has anyone here actually used the devtools in pratice? The firefox devtools seem to me just a awful waste of time from the beginning, they are years behind the competition and the development progress is so slow that I've given up on them. I'm using firefox as my main browser but for web development (dom/css inspection, javascript debugging) there is currently nothing that beats the chrome devtools.

<comment><USER78> Can you explain why nothing beats the chrome dev tools?

<comment><USER75> It's hard to pinpoint one thing. They're just much more usable and don't make you fight against it. It just gets out of your way. That's great UX design right there. Just measure the amount of key strokes, clicks, time and overall actions needed to do one thing in Chrome and the same in Firefox. You'll be amazed.

<comment><USER79> Pretty subjective statements. Maybe you're just more familiar with the Chrome tools UI?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


What you get for the high price of "humanely raised" meat - <AUTHOR> http://www.marketwatch.com/story/what-you-really-get-for-the-high-price-of-humanely-raised-meat-2015-11-19 <comment><USER2> _The labeling mess is "preventing consumers from showing how deeply they care about this issue by voting with their dollars,"_

That's one of the reasons I'm just plain vegetarian: yes, there are humane options, but I don't feel like navigating the maze and having my goodwill possibly taken advantage of. In the end I _do_ get to vote with my dollars, but instead of getting some of my money, the industry gets none.

<comment><USER3> OOH, I have been slowly moving towards vegetarianism for similar reasons (I don't like conscious beings being raised in poor conditions).

OTOH, plants may feel pain [1] so picking what I eat to minimize pain feels like a race to the bottom.

[1] [http://www.pri.org/stories/2014-01-09/new-research-plant- int...](http://www.pri.org/stories/2014-01-09/new-research-plant-intelligence- may-forever-change-how-you-think-about-plants)

<comment><USER4> That's straight up conflationary bollocks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> site pushes a download of a PDF file. >:\

<comment><USER6> Not sure if they changed it or not, but I'm not seeing that when I go there.

<comment><USER7> Still there:

</comment></comment></comment>


GameSalad: Free HTML5/iOS game creator for Mac - <AUTHOR> http://gamesalad.com/products <comment><USER2> "No coding. Ever."

That's supposed to be a feature? It just means I am limited to whatever functionality is built in.

No thanks.

<comment><USER3> While I understand this reaction, I must say that the range of games being shown is pretty impressive. I think it depends on what are the actual limitations (the limitations that a poet accepts can lead to greater creativity, for example).

<comment><USER4> It's not just about the limitations present in this solution, it's about developing reusable skills. Incidentally teach a standard scripting language to somebody and they have a powerful tool they can reuse outside of this platform.

<comment><USER5> Gamesalad is probably aimed at turning game ideas into profit in the app store. I don't see a problem with this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Offering embeddable, shareable HTML versions of games in the browser that are available in the App Store seems like a great way to boost iOS sales.

Has anyone used their Creator app for Mac? How does it compare to building 2D apps with cocos2d/Xcode?

<comment><USER7> It doesn't compare at all. We tried it out as a way of prototyping iPhone game ideas, but it didn't even have the concept of arrays, which made anything beyond the absolute most simple game state impossible.

You can't build serious games without a powerful programming language.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Is there anything like this for android? Other than Google's own app inventor, which frankly is still a bit rough IMHO.

<comment><USER9> Game Maker is currently implementing Game Maker Studio that will allow iPhone, Android, HTML5, and Win/Mac executables. It's meant to be finished this year and allows you to make games without coding. However, there is a scripting language built in (GML) which can be used with the non-programming functionality or replaces it completely.

We've also got the App Game Kit coming soon <http://www.appgamekit.com/>

<comment><USER10> Game Maker is the software that introduced me to programming. Assuming it has kept its roots as a learning tool (it's been 5 major releases since I last used it), I can't recommend it enough.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Congrats to Michael and Tan on all the recent success. They've been building Gendai for a long time starting in Austin. Lots of sweat, blood, and tears went into this product. Great team, dedicated and innovative.

</comment><comment><USER12> <http://www.monkeycoder.co.nz/>

This thing offers cross platform game development with code, and comes with full source.

<comment><USER13> ... in Basic

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Bad name.</comment>


KeyV2: A Parametric Mechanical Keycap Library - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/rsheldiii/KeyV2 <comment><USER2> This is cool. Those who find it interesting might also enjoy Matt Adereth's Dactyl [0] project. Similar idea, it's a parameterised geometry 3d printable ergodox/kinesis style ortho board on steroids. I imagine the two would play quite nicely together.

[0] [https://github.com/adereth/dactyl- keyboard](https://github.com/adereth/dactyl-keyboard)

</comment><comment><USER3> Very cool although I don't think this will be more usable than normal ortholinear keyboards. Key problem is that we don't precisely know where our hands are relative to the keyboard so sculpting keycap surfaces to be close to finger tip will create more confusion than help.

<comment><USER4> I think the point of the sample image is to display many possible sculpts, not to say that this image is a good keyboard to use.

i.e. pick your favorite sculpt and use it on an entire keyboard or an entire row.

Maybe I'm wrong though!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Sucks that it's openscad that doesn't support real CAD files like step. It only can output mesh data. If you haven't seen it yet I find cadquery[1] superior in every way.

[1] [https://github.com/CadQuery/cadquery](https://github.com/CadQuery/cadquery)

</comment><comment><USER6> Very cool. Is it realistic to make a whole keyboard with this? What would be the price point for a complete 60%, let's say?

<comment><USER7> That depends on the material and the type of printing. The lowest cost would probably be FDM PLA. MFJ nylon or SLA resin will result in a more usable surface. A resin cast version seems to be the best quality at the DIY level.

<comment><USER6> For the lowest cost alternative what is a reasonable estimate? Are we talking about USD 1 per key or maybe USD 5 or more? I guess I could find out if I tried to place an order at one of the mentioned services but it wasn't obvious to me how to do that without first signing up, actually customizing a set of keycaps and starting the order process.

<comment><USER8> Resin is in the order of magnitude of $30 per kg, so I'd assume the materials cost would be < $10 if you already have a printer.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Gowalla Adds Real-time Feeds and Activity Streams - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/gowalla_adds_real-time_feeds_and_activity_streams.php

<comment><USER2> um, "Gowalla now supports PubSubHubbub" would probably make a better title

<comment><USER3> Yep. I was wondering how a protocol acquired a startup until I read the article.</comment></comment>


Mety: how the database for web apps should work (video 3 minutes) - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQ7p_5QWRHg

<comment><AUTHOR> Director's cut (15 minutes): unknown episodes (downloading, chat authorization), alternative ending (follow feature)

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoPTESeNBsE></comment>


Bananas Are Berries, Strawberries Aren't - <AUTHOR> https://recipes.howstuffworks.com/bananas-are-berries.htm <comment><USER2> Because this is Hacker News, the discussion would be incomplete without a link to the Supreme Court case Nix v. Hedden[1].

After the Tariff Act of 1883 taxed vegetables (but not fruits), produce seller John Nix — no relation to the package manager — sued to get tomatoes classified as a fruit.

The court held that the "common meaning" mattered more than the botanical one:

"Botanically speaking, tomatoes are the fruit of a vine, just as are cucumbers, squashes, beans, and peas. But in the common language of the people, whether sellers or consumers of provisions, all these are vegetables which are grown in kitchen gardens, and which, whether eaten cooked or raw, are, like potatoes, carrots, parsnips, turnips, beets, cauliflower, cabbage, celery, and lettuce, usually served at dinner in, with, or after the soup, fish, or meats which constitute the principal part of the repast, and not, like fruits generally, as dessert."

If you're in New York, you can celebrate Nix's memory by eating at a fancy vegetarian restaurant[2], or, of course, you can just use the package manager or operating system.

[1] [https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/149/304/](https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/149/304/) , or see the wikipedia page [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nix_v._Hedden](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nix_v._Hedden) [2] [http://www.nixny.com/](http://www.nixny.com/)

<comment><USER3> I eat tomatoes like apples (with salt, I'm not a monster). No kink-shaming please.

<comment><USER4> Yes !! Tomate à la croque au sel as we call'em !! First time I ate a tomato like that in the US, my american friends made so much fun of me "yo, no way brooo ! he's eating a tomato like an apple, da'fu !! Weird frenchman !!".

I still eat my tomatoes like that every so often, it's so good ! Although I think I end up eating quite a bit of salt when I do that which isn't so good...

<comment><USER5> In my head the biggest problem with this is that tomatoes are very liquidy and that seems like a very messy proposition.

Obviously, sliced tomatoes with salt is a relatively common breakfast side item, so the idea of just eating tomato with salt isn't that uncommon in the U.S.

<comment><USER6> fyi

Waffle House, one of the larger chains of grill made food offer sliced tomatoes as a side in place of hash browns. I have no found that offering elsewhere. So it makes me wonder how it made to the menu

<comment><USER5> Interesting, I've found it to be a pretty common side item at breakfast places and delis.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I find the article pleasant in its writting and humour. For me this goes to show that thin clickbait articles can be interesting, it's just that most people who can write don't usually do clickbait. Excerpt:

> The technical definition of a berry is "a fleshy fruit produced from a > single ovary." If you're not too familiar with botany, this definition > probably isn't helpful at all. But once you learn that oranges and tomatoes > fit that definition to a T and could therefore be considered berries, you > may start to question reality.

> Go a step further and find out that strawberries — yes, those delicious red > fruits with "berries" literally in the name — aren't officially berries > either. They're "accessory fruits," meaning the flesh that surrounds the > seed doesn't actually come from the plant's ovaries but from the ovaries' > receptacle. Didn't think we'd be talking so much about ovaries in this > article, did you? By the way, raspberries aren't really berries either. I'll > let you take a minute to collect yourself.

<comment><USER8> And of course the technical definition supersedes the use of the word "berry" in the English language...

<comment><USER9> I'm curious how the botanical definition came about. I believe "berry" comes from a word that means "grape" (which are berries in the botanical sense).

In Middle English, everything that wasn't a berry was an "apple". A banana was an _appel of paradis_ , apple of paradise.

<comment><USER10> This still lives on; in Swedish for instance, orange is _apelsin_ , which comes from "apple from China". Pomegranate comes from "pomme", French for apple, and "granatum" meaning it has many seeds (grenade actually comes from the fruit, because it looks like one).

Potatoes are "pommes du terre" in French, meaning "earth apples", and French fries are "pommes frites", fried apples.

Or just freedom fries.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> There's a very good video on this [1] by Innuendo Studios on why this discussion is more or subjective, since it matters in what context you say it and what you mean by it.

He does this with the example of a tomato, which by botanical defintion is a fruit. But in culinary terms, it is a vegetable. So when someone says "haha, did you know that a tomato is actually a fruit", it's subjective and can almost have no added value in a discussion. Botanists know it's a fruit. Cooks know the taste of the tomato and will use it accordingly. Hence, nothing is gained. Except confusion and unnecessary discussion.

[1][https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmxIK9p0SNM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmxIK9p0SNM)

<comment><USER12> There is one thing to gain: an easy lesson in how things can be subjective. I believe the world suffers because many people profoundly reject this.

<comment><USER13> People who write code for robot compilers (aka programmers) often make this mistake. People who write code for human compilers (aka writers) embrace the subjectivity/variability of those human compilers

<comment><USER14> You forget one subcategory of writers: _lawyers_ (and their subcategory _legislators_ ). They _definitely reject_ variability of interpretation as much as they can, or at least try their hardest to.

<comment><USER15> I think lawyers fundamentally _premise_ their work on the variability of interpretation. They make arguments in favor of certain interpretations, and take pains in the texts they write to preempt any undesirable interpretations.

Legislators may or may not think like writers/lawyers, but even if they do they're constrained by those who don't, the need for compromise, and the incentive to have gotten something done even if it's not perfect. So they sometimes end up doing a bad job of legal writing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I remember hearing some super cliched but kinda funny saying one time:

"Knowledge is knowing that tomatoes are a fruit. Wisdom is knowing that you shouldn't put it in a fruit salad."

<comment> w-m That makes me wonder how tomato in a fruit salad would actually taste.

<comment><USER17> Not bad actually. But if you mix grapes and little tomatoes that look like grapes it can be fun not knowing what you'll taste on each bite.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Is anything actually gained from rigid definitions like this? People clearly use berry in a different way than botanists do.

<comment><USER19> It's just wordplay, a basic pun, because the same word, "berry", appears in two different contexts. In everyday usage, a strawberry is a berry, but in botany it's not.

If you're doing botany, you should probably use the latin term _Fragaria_ instead of strawberry.

Edit: If you like this, you'll also find interesting that many nuts (hazlenuts, walnuts, Brazil nuts, pecans, almonds) are not nuts but seeds. One of the few actual nuts is a chestnut.

<comment><USER20> Also, coffee beans are not beans, but the pit (that usually comes in two parts) of the coffee fruit. It's the same with cocoa beans, but with 30-50 seeds per fruit.

<comment><USER21> The coffee fruit is a berry. We just don't ordinarily consume the skin and fleshy part.

<comment><USER22> > We just don't ordinarily consume the skin and fleshy part.\

Do you mean they're edible?

<comment><USER23> That depends on what you mean by "edible". Coffee cherries aren't particularly pleasant, at least not for human tastes, but they're strictly edible. Palm civets seem to like 'em, but not enough to make kopi luak cheap.

<comment><USER24> The cheapness is mostly because the civets are kept in cages and only fed coffee cherries [https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2016/04/160429-kopi-...](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2016/04/160429-kopi- luwak-captive-civet-coffee-Indonesia/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> That strawberries are not true berries becomes fairly obvious once you learn that tomatoes are berries. All berries seem to have fairly watery flesh surrounded by a thin but tough skin. Tomatoes have both, strawberries have neither. Raspberries superficially look like a collection of tiny berries from this perspective. Bananas have a skin, but it's not thin, and their flesh is not watery.

That's just my layman's analysis, though. It's suited me well for many years, but if now eggplants and peppers are also berries, I'm starting to wonder whether the word berry even means anything.

<comment><USER26> >All berries seem to have fairly watery flesh surrounded by a thin but tough skin.

The point of the article was that bananas are berries though, and your definition doesn't really describe bananas (maybe kiwis).

<comment><USER25> I know. I'm just sharing my definition, which is completely subjective and holds no authorative value. It works for me, though.

Kiwis are a bit hairy to be berries, but they feel closer to berries to be than bananas.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Yeah and cucumbers are fruit, birds are dinosaurs, ladybugs are not bugs, peanuts are not nuts, etc.

Sometimes I think that scientists should just stick to taxonomic categories or other words that don't conflict with their "common usage" meanings.

(and while we all seem to agree that whales aren't fish, they are certainly within the "bony fish" clade [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteichthyes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteichthyes) and are a lot closer relatives to a goldfish than are sharks :) )

<comment><USER28> .... whales certainly aren't bony fish. They're in class Mammalia, which is not within the superclass Osteichthyes. I.e. they're mammals, not fish.

<comment><USER27> Mammals are tetrapods, which are indeed under Osteichthyes (unless you consider Ostreichtyes to be paraphyletic).

If you look at the cladogram on the wikipedia page I linked, you see a picture of a salamander near the top representing the category Tetrapodomorpha. We (and whales) are also on that branch. Sharks are outside of that whole cladogram, as they are cartilaginous fish. ( * )

In other words, any clade which includes all bony fish also includes mammals.

[*] which means that the most recent common ancestor of sharks and goldfish lived longer ago than the most recent common ancestor of whales and goldfish

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Similarly, the botanical definition of "nut" excludes basically everything we think of nuts. Pedants seemed to have learned that peanuts are "not nuts" but have yet to pick up on that almonds, pistachios, walnuts and pecans are also "not nuts."

<comment><USER30> Because most people who like to throw around such pedantic facts only want to appear informed and by extension intelligent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Read the article and the botanical classifications of some of these fruits feels like a weirdly broken and clearly unacceptable "it-works-as-intended" bug. The classifications should in many ways align with the every-day use of the same words. That is, unless the language changes so much that most of the same words end up meaning an opposite of what they historically meant, or something completely different from the same. In that case, the botanical classification could be kept.

</comment><comment><USER32> Looks like no-one has posted this yet:

[https://www.mrlovenstein.com/comic/643](https://www.mrlovenstein.com/comic/643)

</comment><comment> d--b The scientific name is bad, it confuses everyone. Why not change that instead of telling people that berries aren't berries?

<comment><USER33> Then you'd have to redefine what a berry is. Do we just have a list of things that are berries? If so, who get to define that list? What if you forget one? Would that thing then not a berry anymore?

You'd could also try to make so criteria that defines berries, but that's what we already have, even though it tells us that strawberries aren't berries. We could make new ones, but how do we ensure that bananas becomes fruit, strawberries should be a berry and peas and corn should definitively not become berries?

For daily usage it fine that we don't see bananas as berries and that tomatoes certainly shouldn't go into a fruit salad, even if it's technically a fruit.

<comment><USER34> > Then you'd have to redefine what a berry is.

Why? I don't see pressing need for a waterproof definition. I'd think for general use "I know it when I see it" definition suffices, and for where exactitude matters having explicit list is better anyways

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Potato plant produces a berry too, but the actual fruit is toxic. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potato_fruit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potato_fruit)

<comment><USER36> if I remember correctly, the potato itself is toxic raw

<comment><USER37> No. Cooking doesn't reduce the amount of toxin in potatoes very much. Potatoes are toxic when _green_ , although this varies massively among the varieties. But a general rule to follow for potatoes is if they are green then don't eat them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Not really a great article because it mostly perpetuates the confusion rather than clears it up.

Context determines whether a strawberry is a berry or not. In common usage it is. Using a scientific horticultural definition it is not. Context usually determines which definition of berry applies implicitly, though if you're communicating in a context where you think it's reasonably ambiguous, you can be explicitly about which definition you're using.

</comment><comment><USER39> And Tomatoes, by ruling of a Massachusetts court, "are a vegetable for tax purposes"

<comment><USER40> And Congress ruled that tomato pizza sauce is a vegetable for nutritional purposes. Don't you feel well legislated ?

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/post/did- congr...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/post/did-congress- declare-pizza-as-a-vegetable- notexactly/2016/04/01/95bbbe3a-13f6-11e1-9048-1f5352187eed_blog.html)

<comment><USER41> Wow did you even read the title of the article you posted? Here it is:

>No, Congress did not declare pizza a vegetable

Congress decided that 1/8th of a cup of tomato puree counts as a SERVING of vegetables. Not A vegetable. You're just intentionally saying something stupid in order to attempt to project that stupidity on someone else.

<comment><USER39> Actually ovi256 explicitly did refer to the sauce.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> In french, we have the word "Baie", which means berry, but is not widely used for fruits, and we also have another expression which is much more used, "Fruits rouges", literally "red fruits". I think it covers more accurately fruits like raspberries, strawberries, and others. I don't know if "red fruits" is also used in english.

<comment><USER43> Yp, we have that as well but it's very informal, you won't usually see it on product packaging but at home I'll ask one of my kids for a glass of 'red juice'. 'Forest Fruits' is a common generic name for a mix of red berry juices or fruits.

<comment><USER42> I see. Here, it is usually on the packaging (and we never see berry). We say 'Forest fruits' as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> And strawberries are also not straws. It's all a lie.

</comment><comment><USER45> The distinction between different domain terminologies is prescient for software development.

[https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/a/359604](https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/a/359604)

Especially when there is conflict between domain terminology and coding concepts.

For example my company at large refers to Booleans (meaning search expressions that are vaguely Boolean in nature in our sense, that job boards enable for CV searching).

Ultimately mutual understanding trumps being correct in my view.

That said, when I have to weigh vegetables in supermarket I still pause before selecting the vegetable category to weigh tomatoes.

</comment><comment><USER46> I wish this article went a bit deeper. I still don't feel like I have a primary grip on WHY the non-berry items ended up with berry names to begin with. Bananas, okay, late-period adoption, but the rest?

</comment><comment><USER47> 2010: EU subsidizes fisheries. France wanted in on the action. European Commission has officially categorized snails as "inland fish" in order to allow French snail farmers to receive subsidies.

2002: Fruit jams are subsidized in EU. Portugal makes carrot jams. Guess what, carrot is a fruit in EU. Let me cite that for you:

'tomatoes, the edible parts of rhubarb stalks, carrots, sweet potatoes, cucumbers, pumpkins, melons and water-melons are considered to be fruit'

</comment><comment><USER48> One of the many questions the article leaves open is what (if any) fruit called "berries" are actually berries? I did some quick research, and apparently cranberries, blueberries, lingonberries and huckleberries are also "botanical berries" ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berry#Botanical_definition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berry#Botanical_definition))...

</comment><comment><USER49> any reason why rasberries and strawberries have the words berries in them then?

<comment><USER50> The word "berry" goes back to proto-Germanic. Outside the context of botany, it means "small fruit". (And even in the 9th century, it meant "small fruit", though at the time it was more strongly associated with grapes than it is now.)

Carl Linnaeus lived in the 18th century. The botanical sense of "berry" developed from the ordinary sense -- almost certainly because someone was investigating "what do all these berries have in common?", and picked a trait that identified the largest number of small fruit.

You can see the same thing happening with "fish". Starfish and jellyfish are not "fish" in a taxonomic sense, but they are things that live in the water. In Chinese, octopuses and crocodiles are also "fish". (章鱼 and 鳄鱼, where 鱼 by itself is "fish".)

<comment><USER25> In Dutch, whales ("walvis") are fish. But jellyfish and starfish aren't. Squids ("inktvis") are.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> Digit-Al An example of why creating classification systems is such a PITA.

</comment><comment><USER51> The classic: Strange Times for the Berry Club: [https://meme.xyz/meme/21615](https://meme.xyz/meme/21615)

</comment><comment><USER52> I'm surprised this is news to anyone. Context always matters. Is the conventional wisdom that there is Not two dichotomies for produce: culinary and botanical?

</comment><comment><USER53> I read up on these things some time ago, and what amused me the most is that while almost every vegetable is a fruit, the Juniper berry is, in fact, a cone.

<comment><USER54> > almost every vegetable is a fruit.

I think you'll need to clarify that a bit - most vegetables are roots, leaves, flowers or stalks.

<comment><USER53> Fair point - almost every vegetable plant _has_ a fruit, but not every vegetable is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> I'd like a line drawn between "wants to be eaten" and not :)

Than strawberry would be a fruit, cucumber would be, roots salaa etc not.

</comment><comment><USER56> A banana is a sandwich. Change my mind.

</comment><comment><USER57> Btw, you know that spiders are not insects?

<comment><USER58> Is it because they taste different?

<comment><USER57> No, all insects have 6 legs [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insect). Spiders have 8. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider)</comment></comment></comment>


Gogs/gogs: Gogs is a painless self-hosted Git service - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/gogs/gogs <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18422931](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18422931)

</comment><comment><USER3> I personally like Gitea.

<comment><USER4> Is there an equivalent Gitea player in the Continuous Integration/Test Runner space?

Single binary, SQLite backed, low resource consumption, simple to run, simple to use.

<comment><USER5> [https://drone.io/](https://drone.io/) is probably the closest to that, although not exactly that. It can even be integrated with Gitea.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I find it somewhat ironic that a GitHub competitor is using GitHub as it's Git service. I recognize they probably want the community benefits of it... but that likely explains to their potential users why they might also rather use GitHub.

<comment><USER7> We're fortunate these DVCS systems, like git, allow us to easily use GitHub and Gogs together; more than "allow", encourage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Is it just me, or do all of these services end up looking like GitHub? Like, I get offering similar functionality, but these are so similar in how they look that I'm surprised that GitHub isn't at least mildly annoyed…

<comment><USER9> They're all trying to present the same information. Just as every video site looks like Youtube with video thumbnails, titles, search, comments, etc, it's just the best way we have to display some styles of information. Github seems to be doing just fine, self-hosted software rarely takes much market share from the giants.

<comment><USER10> From the screenshots at [https://gogs.io](https://gogs.io) , it looks like the UI was directly taken from GitHub. See [https://gogs.io/img/screenshots/2.png](https://gogs.io/img/screenshots/2.png) in particular. The watch/star/fork UI is exactly the same, the branch picker, the choice of HTTPS vs SSH to the top right of the file list, the book with a bookmark icon. This definitely looks like a GitHub clone, not a git host that happens have a similar UI because it's solving the same problem.</comment></comment></comment>


How this Martian moon became the 'Death Star' - <AUTHOR> http://sciencebulletin.org/archives/6280.html <comment><USER2> I thought Saturn's moon Tethys was the "Death Star" of the solar system: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tethys_(moon)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tethys_\(moon\))</comment>


How long would the Mailbox app line be in real-life? - <AUTHOR> http://waxy.org/2013/02/how_long_is_the_mailbox_line/

<comment><USER2> Can someone clue me in on this - people are now standing in line for software? The only logical two reasons I can think of:

1) Their backend doesn't scale well enough

2) Artifical scarcity to make people think they are missing out on something

<comment><USER3> and 3) it's displayed 4th in the itunes store when you search for mail, and is the first generic mail app displayed in the results. Look at these results:

1) Gmail 2) mail.com 3) Yahoo mail 4) mailbox 5) Windows Live Hotmail 6) Voice Changer Plus 7) Emoji and Unicode Icons 8) Dragon Dictation 9) Ink Cards Personalized 10) A+ Emotion Icons ... Continues with more completely- unrelated-to-mail results.

If I was searching for a mail client, then mailbox would be it apparently.

<comment><USER4> > If I was searching for a mail client, then mailbox would be it apparently.

FWIW, the reviews on the AU App Store are very mixed - 82 5-star, 20 4-star, 11 3-star, 2 2-star and 58 1-star.

Many of the 1-star reviews are complaining about how this (free) app has a waiting line.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've been waiting for two weeks, and I've finally broken 50,000. I don't know if I even want to use this app anymore.

Their rationale makes sense - it is better to make people wait than everyone have a crappy experience, but given how easy infrastructure is to come by these days and how quickly one can provision it, I'm worried they're taking too long and people will forget or uninstall the app. That said, when it finally lets me in, this could change my life and I may not even know it. But at this rate, I definitely won't.

<comment><USER6> It's sort of a strange thing. An app like this should have the easiest horizontally scalable backend ever. Each user has no overlap whatsoever with other users (unlike more complex sharded instances like ebay, facebook, and every other social app).

So it must be more of a business decision about whether it's worth the cost of firing up all those new servers for a currently free app.

Makes me think they should have just charged for it out of the gate, then they'd have the financial incentive to actually fire up all those servers. Or a "subscribe now" to get to the front of the line.

<comment><USER7> It might not be quite that simple. There could be limitations on whatever database they are using and the way they set it up as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Remember when email used to be a standard? Yeah, those were the days. All you had to do to get your email on any device was download a client, give it your credentials and bam! All your emails. Nowadays we have email clients that only work with specific hosts, email clients that require you share your credentials with their servers so they can poll that one specific host, because apparently it's not possible to write an email client on some OSes. Oh the times.

</comment><comment><USER9> I'm curious as to whether or not this kind of thing will spring up more and more in other apps.

</comment><comment><USER10> They'll might have worked out a way of making money with the app by the time the author gets to see his inbox. I won't hold my breath though.

</comment><comment><USER11> If you're impatient you can skip the line with proxy shenanigans.

<comment><USER12> what?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The author of that blog post linearly extrapolated his wait time. Instead of whining, perhaps they should read what's actually happening here: [http://www.mailboxapp.com/reservations/?p=1#how-were- rolling...](http://www.mailboxapp.com/reservations/?p=1#how-were-rolling-out- mailbox)

<comment><USER13> Oh, and that app they're waiting for? Yeah, it's free.

<comment><USER14> Free*

* business plan to be revealed later.</comment></comment></comment>


Hyperink (YC W11) just launched - help pick our next book - <AUTHOR>

Hi guys, we recently published a book with Mixergy about PG, and we got a ton of great feedback from this community. We've been working hard to fix all of the mentioned issues, in particular that it was unclear exactly what was in the book, the formatting issues on Kindle, and so forth
We'd like to make it up to you guys and let you decide what our next book will be - leave a comment with any topic(s) that you would love to read a book on, and we'll find a great author and publish the book that receives the most comments.
Also, we'll offer the whole book for free to download here when its published
Thanks! <comment><USER2> A Taschen style coffee table book of various tech founders at pivotal moments/stages in their careers. Glossy pages, big pictures, timelines etc.

It would make an excellent gift for entrepreneurs in our lives, plus I'd buy it for my younger brother to inspire him to study CS.

Make it an opportunity for indulgence, not a necessity.

</comment><comment><USER3> Partner up with epi0Bauqu on his idea for a book about getting traction: <http://tractionbook.com/>

He hasn't done it himself after a very long time, so seems likely he'd be willing.

<comment><USER4> Works for me -- I don't really have time to work on it much though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'd be interested in seeing case studies on different startups that have applied the Lean Startup approach. Not so much explaining the theories it embodies ... just a "preaching to the choir"/examples book. I'd _especially_ be interested in seeing cases where — even when applying his approaches — companies failed for some reason. It's not that I'm against Eric Ries's methodology or theories (I'm actually a big fan) ... I just would be interested in seeing examples where it didn't work for some reason, and to hear why those companies felt it didn't work.

</comment><comment><USER6> My vote goes for, "The Best Production Stack for your Startup" which would include red flags on tools to avoid/that you must use, comments on redundancy, hosting services, web servers, language comparisons, and some code to get you started.

<comment><USER7> I'd buy that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Would love to see a book that talks about various startups in their first 90 days (before getting into YC, 500 startups, Techstars, etc.). What were their strategies to win over advocates and kickstart their dreams.</comment>


I can write programs but can't solve problems. What is going on? - <AUTHOR> Here's the deal: I've been programming off and on for most of my life (currently in my 40s). While I've created a few basic web sites for money, it has mainly been a hobby for me, and one I greatly enjoy. I've written simple 2D video games (C++), simple chatbots (Python), quiz-generating systems(JS-PHP-MySQL), etc., so I'm not totally clueless about this stuff. However, there seems to be a very real, and quite frankly disappointing limit to what my brain is able to do. For example, I have recently joined HackerRank, and have been working on several of the problems. I don't know what it is, but for some reason even some of the problems marked easy are incredibly hard for me to figure out. While I've successfully answered the majority of the problems I've attempted there, there are some that, based on the number of successful submissions and the rank of easy MUST be simple and yet I've spent sometimes 2 hours on those and cannot produce a program that passes all the tests. That's very discouraging because I want to become a better programmer but I feel I may have reached the limit of what my brain can do. Has anyone experienced anything like this? If so, were you able to figure it out and improve your problem-solving skill set? Thanks for any advice you could offer! <comment><USER2> Perhaps try to categorize the types of problems that are giving you trouble and really narrow down the core concepts that are the issue; you either might have never learned the appropriate prerequisites, or simply just learned it from a different angle, if you will.

That said, some peoples brains are just wired differently. You might find other difficult things easy, that others who completed the easy ones struggle on.

</comment><comment><USER3> Read either CTCI or Elements of Programming Interviews. The key is knowing that the problems you'll be presented with aren't as novel or random as they might seem. The same general topics and problem classes come up over and over, and once you can recognize them you can learn to solve them. It's really hard, but it's a matter of effort, not intellect (or at least not solely intellect).

</comment><comment><USER4> Many programming puzzles are simply formulations of classic problems that have well-understood solutions, which students in any Computer Science degree program are taught.

I'm guessing you do not have a CS degree?

I don't think you need to get a CS degree, but you should get a bunch of syllabi from various CS programs, and get all of the material and study it.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think this is basically the whole story. I think the fact that I have learned several programming languages (not expert level, but certainly to the point I can use them to make projects that benefit my life and the lives of others) has fooled me into thinking I should know a lot more about programming than I do. But if I'm honest, what I have essentially done is taken a bunch of 100 level programming courses, just in a variety of languages. I need to spend time studying the more difficult concepts that can be applied to all languages. Thanks for the advice! :)

<comment><USER4> Language mastery is only a small part of the overall process.

You can be fluent in Spanish, but until you've read a lot of Spanish literature and written a lot of questionable quality Spanish prose yourself, you won't be writing any great literary works. Studying the writing of others --particularly the great masters--is one short path to developing that.

How much code do you read on a daily basis? A lot of programmers spend time writing a lot of code, but not many spend time reading code: especially really well-written code, or code that solves a problem really elegantly.

But, yeah, I think you get the idea...</comment></comment></comment>


Use OSX Finder Quicklook (Spacebar) to preview all plain text files - <AUTHOR> http://coderwall.com/p/dlithw

<comment><USER2> More QuickLook plugins:

<http://www.qlplugins.com>

<http://www.quicklookplugins.com>

This one is my favorite: <http://macitbetter.com/BetterZip-Quick-Look- Generator/>

<comment><USER3> For iOS developers, this one reveals a lot of useful information about provisioning profiles:

[http://www.macmation.com/blog/2011/10/quicklook-plugin- for-m...](http://www.macmation.com/blog/2011/10/quicklook-plugin-for-mobile- provision-files/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Code syntex highlight <http://code.google.com/p/qlcolorcode/>

<comment><USER5> Now that is just awesome. Thank you!

<comment><AUTHOR> beware though. might not work after latest XCode installation

<comment><USER5> I don't have XCode installed as of yet. I'm on Mountain Lion and I'm waiting for both the official release of ML and XCode on the App Store. Will XCode for ML still interfere with this plugin or is there any other plugin with similar functionality?

<comment><AUTHOR> well, i don't really know.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Thanks so much for this. For the longest time I've found it irritating that I couldn't preview plaintext .nfo files with Quicklook.

I didn't realise Quicklook plugins were a thing...

<comment><AUTHOR> well, so did i. Irritation is the root of all hacks :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Somehow off topic but this is a very neat trick: You can preview the selected item directly in the Spotlight menu by pressing the left arrow key.

Source: [http://www.macstories.net/mac/all-you-need-to-know-about- qui...](http://www.macstories.net/mac/all-you-need-to-know-about-quick-look- in-lion-plus-some-handy-tips-and-tricks/)

<comment><USER8> IMO the preview appears automatically after ~2 seconds without having to press any key. Useful feature indeed.

<comment><USER7> I guess you're right. Though I never recognized this before and since I'm using Alfred, I don't touch Spotlight that often.

<comment><USER9> On mobile device right now, but earlier today Alfred prompted for a beta update which included some Spotlight features. Not sure about the details or if it's only part of the paid Powerpack

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Nice plugin!

Pro tip: Instead of restarting finder run `qlmanage -r`

<comment><AUTHOR> Sweet !

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Suspicious Package <http://www.mothersruin.com/software/SuspiciousPackage/> is another neat QuickLook plugin that displays detailed information about Installer Packages (.pkg files).

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, it's pretty sweet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'll take the opportunity to ask: Is there a way to make Spotlight index files in the Library folders? There are sometimes some obscure preference or cache- files that I need to find.

<comment><USER2> This is 100% off-topic, but since this submission has 100+ upvotes and many might view the comment thread, and you mentioned Library/ folder, I think it's good to point out that you can easily make Library/ folder visible again in Lion.

Just type:

        chflags nohidden ~/Library

in the Terminal.

<comment><USER12> You can also access hidden directories from Finder with Cmd-Shift-G and manually typing their path.

Personally, I infrequently access my ~/Library and I know it's there and what it contains and I can hop over to it quickly if needed that I prefer it hidden for visual simplicity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Is there something like this for Chrome? Really annoying having code downloaded instead of displayed.

<comment><USER14> No. It has to be sent as text/plain for Chrome to view the file if it is on a remote server. The MIME types that are opened in the browser instead of downloaded are hardcoded within the Chrome source.

Numerous feature requests have been submitted[1] to update this functionality and to provide a preferences pane for users to decide how they want different file types handled, but they have been ignored as this behavior is a design decision.

[1] [http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=118204...](http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=118204&thanks=118204&ts=1331749873)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> On a related note, is there any way to get Spotlight to index _all_ text files?

<comment><AUTHOR> I wouldn't know why you'd want to do so(slowing down the search), but it seems possible (or close enough).

Scroll at the way to "Make Spotlight index source code" here. [http://www.macosxtips.co.uk/index_files/terminal-commands- fo...](http://www.macosxtips.co.uk/index_files/terminal-commands-for- improving-spotlight.php)

<comment><USER16> That assumes you care about the speed more than the results. Quicksilver or Alfred completely replace Spotlight for anything frequent; I'd be happy if it took 5 _minutes_ , if it could _always_ find what I was looking for.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Would it be possible to make the text inside the Quicklook window selectable? I often just want to quickly copy something from a file, and Quicklook would be the fastest way to do so.

<comment><USER5> Yes there is a way. Open up terminal and type this in:

defaults write com.apple.finder QLEnableTextSelection -bool true

Then restart the Finder by typing in this into the Terminal:

killall Finder

<comment><USER16> Why isn't this the default...? Many thanks :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> File this under things that should have worked in the first place.

</comment><comment><USER19> This is fantastic. Always wondered why quick look wasn't set up to parse plain text files just because they had a different extension. Especially Markdown.

</comment><comment><USER20> Anyone know how to control what the Open with button offers? E.g. it's offering "Open with Sublime Text 2" and I'd rather have an Open with MacVim.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's pretty simple and managed by OSX.

\- Select a filetype you'd want to change the default application for and open the File Info (Cmd+I) \- In the "Open with" section, select the app you want to be the default app for the filetype \- To persist the default app along the whole filetype, also click the "Change All" button right below it.

<comment><USER5> You can also hold down the open button and a list of alternate applications that can be used to open the document drops down. Pretty handy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> You can also add a QuickLook directory to your own ~/Library if you are into keeping stuff separated.

</comment><comment><USER22> Is there any way to change the font or its size in Quicklook?

</comment><comment><USER23> As always... simple hacks, the best hacks!

<comment><AUTHOR> :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Is there such thing as plain text?

<comment><AUTHOR> well... :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> This is so good

<comment><AUTHOR> isn't it ? made me a happy person :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> .org files =)

</comment><comment><USER27> So now opening a text file is "cutting edge?" [1]

[1] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4226539>

PS, just like clicking "More" on HN front page after reading a few articles results in a "cutting edge" error.</comment>


GAGA-1: The Flight - <AUTHOR> http://blog.jgc.org/2011/04/gaga-1-flight.html <comment><USER2> Thanks for posting that. For people who just want to see the pictures here's the link to flickr: [http://www.flickr.com/photos/53617036@N00/sets/7215762648076...](http://www.flickr.com/photos/53617036@N00/sets/72157626480761750/)

</comment><comment><USER3> If you are wondering what this GAGA is: "a helium-filled balloon [launched] into the stratosphere in attempt to photograph and film the curvature of the Earth with the blackness of space visible." (<http://blog.jgc.org/2010/07/gaga-1.html>) This post contains the resulting photos.</comment>