Ask HN: New attempt at mobile markup – keep or bail? - <AUTHOR> We just deployed a new attempt to make HN work better on mobile. Should we keep it? Feedback, please. <comment><USER2> This looks (and more importantly, works) much better than before.

For those not on mobile, here is what the new layout looks like on an iPhone 6s on iOS 9.0.1. ==> [http://imgur.com/5LgB1xB.jpg](http://imgur.com/5LgB1xB.jpg)

Here is what the comment page looks like ==> [http://i.imgur.com/ugOASR5.png](http://i.imgur.com/ugOASR5.png)

This is the viewport bug when you try to enter a comment ==> [http://i.imgur.com/i0Ekiod.png](http://i.imgur.com/i0Ekiod.png) and [http://i.imgur.com/T0NDIFc.png](http://i.imgur.com/T0NDIFc.png)

<comment><USER3> But why does horizontal mode (my standard casual reading mode) look so blown out? ==> [http://imgur.com/5Z6q6wI](http://imgur.com/5Z6q6wI)

(iOS 9, iPhone 5, Safari)

<comment><USER4> Looks like they need to use -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%

<comment><USER5> If they can fix this, then I'm all for the new layout!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Thank you for making this. My one suggestion would be to make the upvote/downvote arrows larger and farther apart. I'd say around 5% of my votes on mobile are incorrect. Often I'm lazy about zooming in to make sure I hit the correct arrow.

Actually, I'd like that change on larger devices as well. I've often misvoted on my Surface. As large touchscreens become more popular (iPad Pro, the Surface line, etc), I could see this becoming a problem for more users.

Edit: I see white margins on my iPhone 5, but not on my iPhone 6. It looks like you need to tweak the media query in the following css:

        @media only screen
        and (min-device-width : 375px)
        and (max-device-width : 667px) {
        ...

The iPhone 5's device width is 320px. Changing that 375 to something lower should fix the issue.

<comment><USER7> Alternately, how about being able to undo a vote, like reddit?

<comment><USER8> I remember we discussed that. I think once-for-all votes were an attempt at social engineering to shape the site.

<comment><USER9> I'm really curious what it was trying to social-engineer. I've seen dozens of sites with vote buttons and all of them except HN allow you to change your vote, because why wouldn't you? It's easy to engineer and obviously superior.

<comment><USER10> "think thrice before using your votes". I remember this being also used as the justification for not having clearly separated up/down buttons.

I totally disagree with it, fwiw.

<comment><USER11> I personally think "having an interface that makes it nigh impossible to downvote when you meant to upvote" should be a prerequisite for the "think thrice before using your votes" goal...

Well at least they're doing something to address it now.

In any case, I still disagree with the lack of a reverse vote option, especially when upvoting also serves as an archival mechanism, and downvoting removes the opportunity to use that functionality permanently.

<comment><USER12>
        > especially when upvoting also serves as an archival mechanism

Right - it's not even about _changing_ votes. Just an hour or so ago I accidentally upvoted the wrong submission (on mobile), so now that's stored in my "saved stories"; nothing I can do about it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Please please keep it. It's not perfect (comment text still small, buttons & links are small, etc), but it's much better than before.

There are surely hundreds of web designers who'd be more than happy to submit their proposals for fixing the mobile markup for free. It's disappointing to see that the website that I spend the most time on on my phone still didn't have a mobile markup till today. Thank you for doing this. Now, please let's move forward, not backward.

<comment><USER14> This 1000x. As a frontend dev I'd be happy to volunteer to invest the time to make sure this works on the current range of viewports.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Awesome! Yes, keep it, and please press on. Here's some feedback:

\- The tap targets for the menu at the top (new, threads, etc) is too small. You can make it bigger, and put the more little-used items into a "more" button.

\- The tap target to get to the comments and flagging are way too small. Flagging isn't common, so that could be more hidden. Comments could be a right arrow button to the right of the title link. Comments are really important in HN, so it should be easy to get to.

\- Upvote target is way too small.

\- Body text for comments are too small.

In essence, I recommend restarting from scratch with a new template for mobile. Just making some css tweaks is a good first step, but maintaining a separate template that optimizes for mobile will be worth it.

<comment><USER16> These are good suggestions, and probably easy things to tweak.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Keep.

It's not a huge improvement, but it's slightly better.

I'd actually sent HN a long review of mobile experience on a 10" tablet acouple of days ago and received a response from dang earlier tonight tipping me off to this. I'm not sure I'd have noticed without that.

In vertical orientation, viewport width is better, and an annoying glitch where font size changed apparently randomly on some nested comments is gone.

Overall UI/UX of links and controlls needs improvement. Especially voting arrows. I'm told an undo is in the works.

My view is that HN's basic page layout needs a full revamp at least internally, to give better styling control via CSS. This doesn't mean huge theme changes, though that's also possible.

Building the page around a sane line length would be a really good start.

What issues are the result of braindead mobile browsers (lack of ctrl-+ font zoom, click registration errors, left/right click distinction, click vs select, etc.) I don't know, though I suspect that's part of it.

<comment><USER17> Revisiting this in landscape mode: the main body text is too small and too wide.

Again: for virtually all content, max width of ~35-45em, with a slight margin (I _really_ don't like text flush with screen edge except on the very narrowest of displays, 1-4em margin responsive across a set of displays from >30em to ~70 would be about right).

Zoomable font size _holding page to fit within viewport_ would be a big gain.

Screenshot: [https://m.imgur.com/5rCdRdI](https://m.imgur.com/5rCdRdI)

Mind that's a 10" display. Fonts are small for my eyes. Context-zooming on main content helps somewhat, but only marginally.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> The design looks actually worse on Windows Phone[1,2]. The text is (or feels) a bit smaller now on portrait mode, so I'd have to switch to landscape. And the top menu is out of alignment. (Edit: The text is definitely smaller. I think it used to reflow nicely with bigger text but now it doesn't, forcing me to zoom out all the way)

Since we are talking about mobile, I'd focus on improving the arrows - I've downvoted way too many comments due to that.

[1] [http://i.imgur.com/akAyUxP.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/akAyUxP.jpg) [2] [http://i.imgur.com/NWVSHMW.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/NWVSHMW.jpg)

<comment><USER19> > The design looks actually worse on Windows Phone[1]

Looks almost identical on WP 10 (Edge).

> I've downvoted way too many comments due to that.

I don't vote on my phone due to this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It's an improvement, keep pressing on.

One thing I'd do is find a way to minimize the detail line below the headline. It doesn't need to be as large - it tends to wrap into a second line (at least on my iOS 9.1 iPhone 5s).

The detail line also doesn't need to be as verbose, IMO...

e.g.:

        200 points by foobar 8 hours ago | flag | 192 comments

could be simplified to

        200 pts by foobar 8h ago | flag | 192c

<comment><USER20> Although I would recommend keeping the "192 comments" link at least as large as it currently is. That's probably the 2nd-most tapped-on link (after the link to the source itself), and it's fairly difficult to aim correctly on mobile. Making it even smaller will make it harder to tap.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitts%27s_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitts%27s_law)

<comment><USER21> Off-topic, but I really wouldn't be surprised if it was clicked _more_ often than the link to the source.

<comment><USER22> I _always_ go to comments before clicking on the article link. While I'm reading, post can go away from current HN page and it is hard to locate it again.

Ps. iPhone4 is not compatible with new layout at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> The attempt to improve the mobile layout for this site seems to be underway but, like the previous aborted attempt, it doesn't seem to have started well.

In the images [1] and [2] below are the screenshots (taken on an iPhone 5 with the latest iOS) of HN homepage (where the changes seems to have been published) and article page (where it seems to be unchanged) to illustrate the problems:

1\. There is a padding in the body (the white space around the content) that wastes precious screen real state.

2\. The font size in relation to the screen width was increased without the proper adjustments in the layout. That caused:

a. The top links to become cluttered and disorganized

b. Both the top and bottom links to span multiple lines without the proper spacing between then, making it easier to click the wrong link

c. The article links and other information to reach the end of the line more often and, associated with the lack of right padding in that area, makes it touch and sometimes spill over the right margin over the white background.

It is very important to have a better layout for mobile devices on HN specially because it is very hard to interact with the site (upvote, click articles or submit) but IMO it should be properly designed, implemented and tested in multiple devices and OS before deployment.

This last point is the most important of all. It is very tempting to implement responsive design via media queries and to neglect tests in the bottom and top range causing screens too wide or too narrow to fail.

Apologies for the long and public post. Hope it helps

[1] [http://imgur.com/4uPlzPB](http://imgur.com/4uPlzPB)

[2] [http://imgur.com/18mp2TH](http://imgur.com/18mp2TH)

<comment><USER24> Absolutely - while it would be very nice to have an improved mobile experience for the default site as it currently stands this seems quite a bit worse than many of the currently available HN-Reader Apps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Keep it. But on Chrome for Android, even on a 1080p display, 31% of the screen width is wasted! [http://imgur.com/MNVnanN](http://imgur.com/MNVnanN) Wasted screen space is my #1 pet peeve on mobile.

<comment><USER26> I am not seeing that problem on my device. What version of Chrome are you using?

<comment><USER25> Chrome 46.0.2490.76 on Galaxy S4.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Keep, but as others suggested it can still be tweaked a bit.

I'm on android chrome and below is what I'm seeing, it would be great to remove the white space on the sides like others have shown it is on the iphone...

[http://imgur.com/zaHK3PC](http://imgur.com/zaHK3PC)

<comment><USER28> Agree, I'm getting the same thing on an Iphone 5s. But much better than before!

<comment><USER29> Same here. On Android, OnePlus + Chrome

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Just adopt [https://cheeaun.github.io/hackerweb/](https://cheeaun.github.io/hackerweb/) it does wonders on phone/tablet form factors. This design will not easily accomodate slightly larger displays such as tablets very well. This screenshot someone posted points out a lot of CSS problems regarding font size and the navigation layout: [http://i.imgur.com/idgEFon.png](http://i.imgur.com/idgEFon.png)

<comment><USER31> Your screenshot has a different username. Thought I'd let you know.

<comment><USER32> It is the image from this comment [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10489733](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10489733) .

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Next up: Comment thread folding.

It's the one feature that keeps me from switching from [https://cheeaun.github.io/hackerweb/](https://cheeaun.github.io/hackerweb/) on mobile, or uninstalling the Hacker News Enhancement Suite in Chrome.

<comment><USER34> Agreed. This is the straw that nudged me back to Chrome after experimenting with Firefox for a month or so. I just couldn't bear doing without comment thread folding.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Don't bail. But here are my suggestions.

Make the "post" page more mobile friendly. Currently I need to scroll a lot to read the content. When I mean post page, I mean the page that comes up when you click on a post.

May be add a very teeny little margin. Again I know HN is more towards KISS, so you can ignore me here.

Apart from that, the rest works great on iPhone6. Good job.

</comment><comment><USER36> Huge improvement (iPhone 6s).

Now that you're returning to different results for mobile vs not: how about Upvote on the left (where it is) and downvote on the right of "hours ago"? I don't want the buttons bigger (and I suspect others don't either) but I would prefer not to accidentally up/downvote incorrectly.

</comment><comment><USER37> Please make easy url for mobile users who want the desktop version! Auto- detect without opt-out sucks.

I like the desktop version better than the new version (android/chrome). I like the tiny fonts for reading. Hitting tiny UI elements is hard, but zooming in then hitting is easy enough. The new big fonts + huge front page margins means much less content visible.

<comment><USER38> this++ to opt out of the mobile version. This should always be possible.

Tips for mobile developers:

Don't make it impossible to zoom.

Don't make it hard/impossible to get to the desktop version.

Don't make it hard/impossible to view in landscape (I am amazed at the "rotate your device" popups)

Don't make your popups impossible to dismiss on mobile (can't get to the X due to size/positioning)

Don't download megabytes of javascript to display a small amount of text content.

Do support "reader view" (in mobile Safari) or equivalent, so I can get a view that is simply readable AND accessible. Sorry that this overrides your hard work, but really I just want to be able to read your content. Your ads are fine, if they don't use all my bandwidth.

<comment><USER39> This should be a manifesto, a bit like "contrast rebellion"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> One thought... Use the full screen width on the main screen. On chrome android there are large left/right margins... 20% of the screen space is wasted.

<comment><USER41> Same here, with Firefox for Android. Left and right margins are not necessary. Also, please let all text wrap and let users zoom in and out the way they want.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> The main difference I notice is that I can no longer double-tap to zoom on the main page. I can learn to get used to pinch zooming, but it will be more difficult to use HN with one hand on my large phone.

I have to zoom because otherwise it's impossible to click the correct links.

</comment><comment><USER43> It's a good step! I have suggestions to clean it up:

1- You should add a margin on the left and right side so that the content doesn't bleed to the edge of the screen. (10px would keep it aligned with the input bar on iOS Safari).

2- The floating login link looks weird, I would just add it along the rest of the links below "Hacker News". To keep it tight, only show the Submit link if the user is logged in.

3- Add margin to the logo and make it bigger. Also, the entire orange bar could be made more spacious.

</comment><comment><USER44> It goes off page: [https://www.dropbox.com/sc/fynq1jrekppuonc/AADGsGuFFeWKye7hp...](https://www.dropbox.com/sc/fynq1jrekppuonc/AADGsGuFFeWKye7hpTpmQkjSa)

<comment><USER45> I see the same thing on Android Firefox but you can pinch to zoom out and it ends up still being readable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Much better here (android). Some things:

1\. Possibly too much whitespace left/right of content.

2\. Are the rank numbers necessary, or could they be moved to the meta-detail?

3\. Bigger upvote and comment targets would be nice.

<comment><USER47> Moving rank to the meta-detail line (alongside the point-count) could work very well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Definitely a step in the right direction, but very difficult to read. The font is far too small and all links are similarly too small to allow easy tapping.

This comment form could also use work. It doesn't fit the width of the screen, so I have to pinch/scroll to see what I've written then maneuver back to type. Nor does it auto expand or allow manual resizing. Just trying to scroll risks pull-to-refresh in Chrome for iOS or some embedded WebKit browsers.

I'd also say the navigation could be addressed. The first comment about sizing is a start, but the separate site and account navigation lists don't have enough space now, let alone once you up the font. Some sort of collapsing/hidden/drop down menu might need to be considered if you intend to keep 8 independent links with sufficient padding for accurate tapping.

A good start, but still not there IMO.

</comment><comment><USER49> I hope I'm not too harsh, but a straightforward no will be my answer. It's a work in progress, but atleast on an iPhone 5, it seems to be worse than the desktop version of it. It does save me a pinch or two, but at the end it doesn't look user friendly and the upvote/down vote button are still the same. And commenting doesn't seem mobile friendly to me. So essentially the only 2 things a user should be doing on HN: comments and votes haven't improved.

There is a web app, namely HackerWeb, which even though lacks enough functionality but looks more humane and real. Try that out; and if not copy it, atleast take hints to improve your version of the site.

One more thing, why don't you guys come up with an online open contest, and let the community hack a newer version? That'll be fun, and make your lives a little easier as well.

</comment><comment><USER50> The margins are a bit too big (Chrome, Galaxy S6) [http://i.imgur.com/MYTVihG.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/MYTVihG.jpg)

<comment><USER51> I get similar margins on an iPhone 4s running iOS 7. It's quite a bit of wasted space - maybe 15-20% of total screen width.

Other than that, it's a big improvement.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Just opened the page on my phone and immediately wondered why the text was so readable without having to zoom in. Then saw the empty space around the page was gone, and then read the top post and it all made sense. This was a very pleasant surprise. I'd really like if you kept it, big improvement.

</comment><comment><USER53> The left and right hand side margins are too large. Any chance you can use padding instead of a margin so there isn't a white border around the whole page?

<comment><USER54> Agree with reducing left/right margins by half, looks a bit squashed on HTC one. Overall much better than before.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Much better, but I will still use this web app [http://cheeaun.github.io/hackerweb/](http://cheeaun.github.io/hackerweb/)

Don't bail, but maybe redesign the whole page, and get rid of the tables in the markup?

</comment><comment><USER40> Definitely a good start... Far easier to use already. Comments screen seems too wide... Scrolling left and right but yes... Great start.

</comment><comment><USER56> Here's how it looks on iPhone4 - [http://i.imgur.com/olj9ocC.png](http://i.imgur.com/olj9ocC.png) \- lots of wasted space and a messy header.

For the header, I'd consider splitting it into two lines, like this - [http://i.imgur.com/7EAROA8.png](http://i.imgur.com/7EAROA8.png). That is, keep top line for user-specific items, and put the rest in the bottom line. This also means moving "submit" to the top and hiding it when a user is not logged in.

</comment><comment><USER57> Keep it. The text flows nicely now -- that was my biggest problem with the previous mobile UI.

</comment><comment><USER58> can we make the up/down vote buttons for comments bigger or at least in different places? It's impossible to hit correctly unless you zoom in.

</comment><comment><USER59> I actually think it's much harder to read in portrait mode since the titles have all different lengths. It's okay in landscape though.

<comment><USER60> +1

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> I think it is an improvement and was actually coming to Ask HN to ask if anyone else was seeing this. I'm glad I saw your post first.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry to beat you to the punch, but I learned my lesson the last time we tried something like this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> It's definitely better than the previous version. But, honestly, I already gave up on browsing Hacker News on mobile. Instead, I just use a dedicated MiniHack App.

I think it would be cool to open up API even more and let community create amazing apps for you. Maybe create a contest for people to develop native apps? Perhaps, a winner could get an interview to get into YC or YCF.

</comment><comment><USER63> I'm not a fan as I can't see as much on the homepage as I could before. I know the font was small but it didn't bother me.

Now it feels kind of crowded, lots of wrapped text.

Seems I'm in the minority though. Agree that the up/down arrows are still quite small, but I'm not sure how you could fix that, you don't have much room to work in.

iOS 9.1 on iPhone 6.

</comment><comment><USER64> Keep please and thank you for working on this!

This is much more readable on Android/Chrome Moto G, will try more later.

</comment><comment><USER65> I'm finding the font size is too small on mobile - generally you want to go a little bigger on mobile.

</comment><comment><USER66> Finally! please don't bail. But the homepage in iPhone5S (and maybe all iPhone4.7 inch) doesn't take full width as in iPhone6. Here is a screenshot ==> [http://i.imgur.com/bMcUcjU.png](http://i.imgur.com/bMcUcjU.png)

</comment><comment><USER67> * Bail. Only six stories are visible at a time.

* Please add a way to turn it off, showdead-style. I miss the old style.

</comment><comment><USER68> On desktop Firefox, the page width seems to have a minimum of 500-550px, so it looks like there is something broken since phones are 320px minimum.

Also below 375px it seems to revert to the desktop layout (?!?).

So the graphical design is fine, but the CSS implementation could use some major improvements.

</comment><comment><USER69> On iPhone5S the comments are so much better (don't have to zoom) but the front page is harder to read. I suggest less padding on the side and a smaller font for the titles.

I'd say it's better than before (don't have to zoom in) just a little tweek and will be perfect.

</comment><comment><USER70> This is a vast improvement in every way, IMHO. Maybe tweak it, but don't go back, please!

</comment><comment><USER71> I'm a fan. There are definitely some problems (like bad margins and such) but it's better than viewing the site with the desktop styling, which incidentally is a bar that many major sites fail to clear with their own mobile styling!

</comment><comment><USER72> It's better than the previous layout, however reading comments still requires horizontal scrolling on both Firefox and Opera on a Nexus 4 running Android Lollipop. If you could wrap comments to the right margin it would be perfect.

<comment><USER73> Agreed. I've abandoned so many sites which are extremely badly designed. Most common reason for this is lack of text wrapping. Nobody wants to use such sites.

</comment></comment><comment><USER74> Looks much better on iphone 6. No longer have to zoom to read. But some of the UI buttons are still too small (comments, etc.)

Also, I don't think the numbers on the left add much value and may be better replaced with bigger up vote button.

</comment><comment><USER75> We desperately need a mobile version of HN. I know I use it on mobile almost exclusively.

But this is terrible, I'm sorry. As others have said, there have been dozens of great HN mobile versions done by the community. Why not endorse one?

</comment><comment><USER76> It would be helpful to have '{n} comments' closer to the left under thr headline in a consistent location so one's left thumb can more easily reach that. Other than that this looks like an improvement.

</comment><comment><USER77> I prefer the new index page, better for fat finger syndrome, but also prefer the old comments page. The new comments page is too wide on windows phone, making the text too small when i double-tap to fit the width.

</comment><comment><USER78> Please give me a way to switch this off.

I appreciate what you're doing, and it seems an improvement for use on a small screen - but on an iphone 6+ it is much worse. Everything was a great balance before (and the comment pages are still readable), but now the front page is terrible.

The giant font causes titles to span multiple lines and breaks the flow of each item. It is much harder to read than before. Also it was one of the few sites that used a natural size font on the 6+ display...

Any chance we could get something like ?fontsize=14 on the end of the url for such specific tweaking?

</comment><comment><USER79> It's much better than before, but still doesn't feel good on my mobile devices (Jolla, 540x960 and (Lumia 920, 768x1280).

I don't like how comments are displayed, why is there no auto word-wrap?

</comment><comment><USER80> This is a big step in the right direction. Could use a bit of work but it's good enough that it will probably replace my hn app which has never gotten commenting or voting quite right.

</comment><comment><USER81> In the login page can you add autofocus on the username please?

</comment><comment><USER82> Put the CSS on github with a set of static pages demonstrating the article/comment page and the main list page.

Review the pull requests.

You'll have a fantastic mobile layout in a day or two.

</comment><comment><USER83> Much better, but not great on iPhone 5c: [http://i.imgur.com/beYBY5f.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/beYBY5f.jpg)

<comment><USER4> Given a choice between this and the old non-mobile-optimized site, I'd take the latter. Everything is too squished on smaller iPhones.

<comment><USER83> Really? It looks kind of bad, but is more functional methinks.

<comment><USER84> I'm on an iPhone 5s. It looks the same as your screenshot, and I am not a fan at all. When it first loaded I assumed something was buggy with the browser or the css. I would like the option to go back to the old version.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER85> A step in the right direction, but still not a good experience. Writing this comment is pretty hard as well because input text takes on 200% of the screen.

</comment><comment><USER86> I'm apparently a week late, but great googly moogly - KEEP! PLEASE! It's not perfect (on Android, the nesting is non-existent and the +1 arrows are a little small), but it is head and shoulders above what it used to be. I can read a comment thread in portrait mode without having to squint, zoom, pinch, or rotate my device, which was my biggest peeve about using this site on mobile.

</comment><comment><USER87> Please keep it but like everyone else has said, there's still a lot to be done.

Even better, why not just ask for community help? There are already a few skins/viewer sites already that do this just fine that you can takeover or just ask for some volunteers.

This site is very very simple and would take just a few hours or perhaps a weekend of time to get a nice new layout. Why not be efficient and end up with a better product?

</comment><comment><USER88> I still like [http://hckrnews.com/](http://hckrnews.com/) better. Maybe you could cooperate?

</comment><comment><USER89> Yes. On Android it's comparable to how well the old markup worked with Windows Phone 7, which made me wonder why people were complaining.

</comment><comment><USER90> I typically dread mobile designs but this is OK. My only wish is the article title text is smaller or an option for smaller font sizes.

</comment><comment><USER91> Slight improvement over zooming in manually... but my main issue is with the voting buttons and that seems to have remained unchanged.

</comment><comment><USER92> Add margin on the top to the YC logo, and add some margin on the bottom. And also some padding to the numbers for each story, it looks a bit awkward when they touch the screen.

Would like the comments button a bit bigger, and inside the comments to have a max-width set so that I don't have to scroll left and right.

Overall pretty nice, no more need to zoom in every time I open HN.

</comment><comment><USER93> Keep. It at least now saves me a zoom pinch. :)

</comment><comment><USER94> This is great, but I still have trouble with the small font size. Adding A+ / a- buttons would be a nice addition, even though there is a workaround.

It's got to be possible to override zoom (pinch out gesture) and have it only change the font size, so there's no text clipping. The buttons would be much simpler and easy to control though.

</comment><comment><USER95> New markup is better, however it would be good if "request desktop site" button on adroid worked for extreme cases.

<comment><USER96> And iOS. I often use this feature.

</comment></comment><comment><USER97> Maybe just me, but it seems to have a lack of padding around the edges. Also the comment input isn't mobile optimized.

<comment><AUTHOR> What do you mean by the comment input? Some pages are still rendering the old way; it may be that that's one of them.

If we're going to keep these changes we'll upgrade the remaining pages soon.

<comment><USER98> With mobile safari, activating the comment box zooms in slightly, such that it no longer fits in one page width.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER99> It would be nice if the mobile experience (or both) would use a simple javascript confirmation box when hitting "flag". Flagging seems like it should be an exceptional action and it simple to just hit "ok" as a confirmation step rather than trying to find what you accidentally flagged on the page to unflag.

<comment><AUTHOR> We're probably going to extend 'flag' to give people a better way to report dupes, and that will require a confirmation, so yes. In the meantime, there's an unflag link, so misflags are undoable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER100> Using Android, Note II. I see some whitespace on the left/right side of the main page. Also, clicking to read a comment thread or adding a comment still requires me to slide around left and right. Think it's probably just the Note 2 though, iOS looks ok.

But, yeah I'd keep it for sure. Definitely an improvement

</comment><comment><USER101> An scroll to top element, usually a fixed floating arrow in other sites, will be nice on discussion page. I've found myself scrolling a lot to see first comments and post details on this very page. As an extra arrow is not a good use of screen space, only showing it on scroll up might be a better idea.

</comment><comment><USER102> One of the number one ways websites piss me off is the stupid "you're on mobile have a mobile layout no you can't have desktop mode" mentality. I outright won't buy from e-stores that do it. And now HN is doing it. I would expect you to know better...

</comment><comment><USER103> Keep. First time I've been able to read the front page in portrait. Personally I'd like larger font for comments and maybe the comment width nipped in a bit as I end up zooming and scrolling which is bad for flow, but that's a trade off and I'm an a11y edge case.

</comment><comment><USER104> it's a big improvement, but I think text is a tad too small, as are the upvote/downvote buttons

</comment><comment><USER105> Much better than the last attempt at mobile, and much better than no mobile styles at all. Please keep!

</comment><comment><USER106> Definitely an improvement over what came before!

Curious why it doesn't work when I shrink my desktop browser window though -- is it actually a separate "mobile version" that is only served to certain devices (instead of just having some breakpoints at narrower widths)?

</comment><comment><USER107> Pretty bad on iPhone5/iOS9.1, lot of useless margin. But at least it's readable. Keep it.

</comment><comment><USER108> This looks great on my phone; please keep it. The text sizes are awfully small but still really clear and the layout seems to work well.

One caveat is the text entry box for entering a comment is a fair amount wider than the screen in either orientation. I hope this can be fixed.

</comment><comment><USER109> Default view of comments page seems to be too zoomed in?

[https://i.imgur.com/bDrJSHI.png](https://i.imgur.com/bDrJSHI.png)

Firefox on Android running on a Nexus 5

But once you zoom out it seems fine. And it's much more usable than the old view.

</comment><comment><USER110> Definitely a good start. Like a couple other people have said, the tap targets could generally be bigger and more spread out, but otherwise, it's a lot more readable.

Also worth stressing: so far it looks better than the status quo everywhere it's different.

</comment><comment><USER111> Bail, or keep but fix text size / wrapping in nav header

iphone6 / ios9 / chrome

issues in nav header:

(1) "submit" link wraps so it's under "new", shld be same line as "ask | jobs | "

(2) username (karma) | logout has similar issue; "logout" wraps

</comment><comment><USER112> Doesn't hurt, at the least.

</comment><comment><USER113> I never understood why everything was built using old table html. I see the difference now is that you are td's with more reservation. I would simply switch everything over to div tags. Custom css works better this way.

</comment><comment><USER114> Looks very good compared to the previous state. Keep it! The header menus wrap ([http://imgur.com/0V9vrZq](http://imgur.com/0V9vrZq)) but it is a minor thing.

</comment><comment><USER115> This is a great first attempt but it's a little difficult to read the text

</comment><comment><USER116> I like it. If the majority end up disliking it and the look is reverted, please consider adding a confirmation step or ability to hide the flag button on mobile. That's my most common fat finger error on HN.

</comment><comment><USER32> The comment page doesn't scale well with Firefox on my hm note 1s. I have to manually zoom out to get the full view.

That aside, the homepage looks good. I'd like the new look be kept, with the comment page rewritten.

</comment><comment><USER117> On iOS9, iPhone6: The comment box and comments overflow which require horizontal scrolling or zooming out. It worked better before simply because zooming in (double tap) is easier than zooming out (pinch).

</comment><comment><USER118> Keep.

Suggestion: Increase the width of the index table and remove the body margins. The table with the id `hnmain` should have it's width changed from 75% to 100%, and this CSS should be added: `body { margin: 0; };`

</comment><comment><USER119> Much better, Please keep it.

</comment><comment><USER120> KEEP!! This looks so much better on my note 4. No more zooming in and out.

</comment><comment><USER121> It is SO GREAT to be able to read things without zooming or scrolling!!! I'm so excited!!!

It needs minor tweaks to make it uniformly readable across arbitary screen sizes, but in general this just made my day!

</comment><comment> ju-st Better. But still bad. Lots of wasted space and no line break. Android, FF: [http://i.imgur.com/JublCrT.png](http://i.imgur.com/JublCrT.png)

</comment><comment><USER122> For me it's just the A:tag that is slightly bigger. I have to do slightly more scrolling now, but that is acceptable.

I still have to zoom in to up-vote or click on comments though, but that do not bother me.

</comment><comment><USER123> Keep. This is way better than before. No need to zoom in like crazy now.

</comment><comment><USER124> It's great to see an attempt at mobile responsive design. This looks like a good step in the right direction. Here's hoping for even more work to make the site work on mobile.

</comment><comment><USER125> It looks nice and easier to read, but I signed up to this site a few days ago because of the bad/lack of css. I don't mind having to zoom in manually as I do on reddit too.

</comment><comment><USER126> This is indeed an improvement, but I'm only seeing real improvement on the home page, the comment page overflows to the right instead of everything on screen on my HTC One m7

</comment><comment><USER127> Cool, but please reduce margins to save precious horizontal space!

<comment><USER121> Oh? I was thinking the opposite, that things look super jarring being flush against the borders.

EDIT: Ah. It's a different story on iPhone 6s Plus than say, 5s.

</comment></comment><comment><USER128> Presuming this is not the end; it's a great start! I consume 90% of my HN content on mobile. I like the list view a lot more. I think commenting should be worked on next.

</comment><comment><USER129> Much better than before. I'm on Chrome on a Nexus 6.

The screen is zoomed in slightly by default, however, but a quick pinch to zoom out makes it all fit well on the screen at a good size.

</comment><comment><USER130> Much better, keep going

</comment><comment><USER131> It looks ok in firefox and chrome on the nexus 5x. Comments clip off the screen when you click into a comment section. When you zoom out, they're harder to read.

<comment><USER132> "Comments clip off the screen when you click into a comment section. When you zoom out, they're harder to read"

Yes, this is frustrating.

</comment></comment><comment><USER133> Doesn't work well on Iphone 5s landscape. I usually checkout HN once a day on my phone. I find most sites that try to cater to phones degrade my experience...

</comment><comment><USER134> It feels so small on my tablet now. [http://i.imgur.com/WG1ERvyh.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/WG1ERvyh.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER135> Writing this on an iPhone. It's a good start. Two things that should definitely be bigger are the voting arrows and the "comments" links.

</comment><comment><USER136> Out of interest why go min and max device width? Why not just kick in the improved readability at max-width: 667px (or other more appropriate dimension).

</comment><comment><USER137> Thank you. Thank you!

</comment><comment><USER138> Much, much better -- please do keep! In fact, I just deleted the old iOS app I was using for it and just saved the webpage to my homescreen instead.

</comment><comment><USER139> Improvement over the last one. The large voting arrows are good. Too much wasted white space on the sides of the screen on the iPhone 5/5s.

</comment><comment><USER140> Ignore the nitpicking, this is a dramatic improvement.

</comment><comment><USER141> Keep it, please and thank you! [Android/Chrome]

</comment><comment><USER142> Please increase the size of the vote buttons on mobile or place the up- and down-vote buttons not next to each other. (written on iPad)

</comment><comment><USER143> Definitely keep it! As others have pointed out, it's not perfect, but definitely an improvement over the non-responsive version.

</comment><comment><USER144> It's still just about as hard to read a comments thread on a mobile device. However the main page does look a bit more readable.

</comment><comment><USER145> [http://i.imgur.com/BzqJU5S.png](http://i.imgur.com/BzqJU5S.png) on Nexus 5.

</comment><comment><USER146> Keep. Much better than before. However, text in comments is still to small (maybe enlarge text and decrease indentation for replies)

</comment><comment><USER147> Keep - old Nexus 4

</comment><comment><USER148> I wholeheartedly approve. It's not perfect, so I hope you do some good A/B testing to evolve layout. Pick a good metric.

</comment><comment><USER149> I must be missing something. It looks the same. You didn't just assume "mobile" meant "iPhone" did you?

</comment><comment><USER150> Keep. Add a bit of margins, slim down metadata and make links bigger / easier to hit. I like the improvement though.

</comment><comment><USER151> Keep. I would add another couple pixels of padding to the left and right of the site though when on the newsfeed page.

</comment><comment><USER152> Keep - iPhone 6s

</comment><comment><USER153> The three hardest problems in computer science are (1) cache-invalidation, (2) naming things, (3) HN mobile markup.

<comment><USER153> and of course (4) off-by-1 errors

</comment></comment><comment><USER154> It is near perfect in landscape on chrome for android. Portrait needs some tweeking; especially the comments page.

</comment><comment><USER155> To invoke the late Chris Farley for the love of God why can't the comment text be larger? (iPad iOS 9.1)

</comment><comment><USER156> I like it. Just noticed it this morning.

</comment><comment><USER157> Keep! And increase all font sizes to at least 1em. And give this comments page the same treatment, please.

</comment><comment><USER158> Keep - much more scannable at a glance.

</comment><comment><USER159> I love the new main page. However thr comments are still to small to comfortably read without zooming.

</comment><comment><USER160> Keep. I have a iPhone 5S and with the original markup, I'm unable to read the site in portrait.

</comment><comment><USER161> The header bar now wraps to multiple lines when in portrait orientation on my iPad Air 2. Not a fan.

</comment><comment><USER162> All the comments pages load too far zoomed in for me (iPhone 5c w/ iOS 8). Otherwise looks good!

</comment><comment><USER163> Happy with the improvements! Can you increase the text size so you can click on the discussion links?

</comment><comment><USER90> I prefer the desktop but if you keep the mobile (since it's not terrible) please smaller fonts.

</comment><comment><USER164> This is great -- much appreciated. Works well on an iPhone 6S in Chrome and Safari (same engine).

</comment><comment><USER165> iOS User - I'm not a fan, don't like the text stacking and I like the regular interface.

</comment><comment><USER166> Keep! Now just enlarge the text size so we don't have to zoom on desktop to be able to read.

</comment><comment><USER167> Keep. But make voting arrows bigger.

</comment><comment><USER168> I like a lot. Bigger upvote/downvote buttons are my main request. Thank you for doing this.

</comment><comment><USER169> Keep -- and keep improving. Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER170> I'm using app.hackerwebapp.com for browsing HN from mobile - easy to use on mobile.

But anyways keep.

</comment><comment><USER171> The home page is nice but the internal pages like this one still dont work for my phone.

</comment><comment><USER172> Much better, I don't have to keep zooming in and this fits my screen a lot better.

</comment><comment><USER173> On my S5 I get a margin. IMHO it's not necessary (or should be smaller at least).

</comment><comment><USER174> It's an improvement for sure, but cheeaun.github.io/hackerweb is way better.

</comment><comment><USER175> Keep it. Looks great, true to the original, and now readable on my constant companion.

</comment><comment><USER176> I now don't have to zoom, still sub-par can't we have a official native app?

<comment><USER159> I think an official app, while nice would be a lot of work and would use a lot of manpower HN does not seem to have much of.

there are currently many third party apps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER177> Keep it. It's better than before, and makes it easier to read. iphone 6, iOS 9.1

</comment><comment><USER178> iPhone 6 Plus. Definitely keep.

</comment><comment><USER179> Keep. Looks much better than before using Firefox on my cheap 5" Android phone

</comment><comment><USER180> Definitely better on my phone.

Easier to read by far, but requires some side scrolling for most comments.

Please keep.

</comment><comment><USER181> Huge improvement, thanks Dan!

</comment><comment><USER182> With all due respect, but did somebody even check the comments page once?

</comment><comment><USER183> Looks decent on my Nexus 6.

</comment><comment><USER184> Keep. No zoom needed. Great

</comment><comment><USER185> KEEP!

</comment><comment><USER186> Looks much better on WP ;)

</comment><comment><USER187> Looks good, although the voting buttons could do to be larger. Keep.

</comment><comment><USER188> Yes please! Much better.

</comment><comment><USER189> Much nicer - keep at it!

</comment><comment><USER190> Not bad, please add mobile view to the login page as well :-)

<comment><AUTHOR> We will.

</comment></comment><comment><USER191> Keep going keep going!

</comment><comment><USER192> Looks pretty good to me, using Android on a Galaxy Note 4.

</comment><comment><USER193> Keep it, definitely an improvement (and a nice surprise!)

</comment><comment><USER194> A step in the right direction but still meeds more done.

</comment><comment><USER195> it would be nice to have a button to use desktop version at top or bottom.. on iOS it's nice but I also like seeing more headlines at one time

</comment><comment><USER196> Definitely keep, makes use on mobile much easier.

</comment><comment><USER197> Potrait and landscape have white bars on the S6

</comment><comment><USER198> Works well. Keep.

</comment><comment><USER199> Much better on the iPhone 6. Don't bail.

</comment><comment><USER200> Better than before. Keep. But continue work.

</comment><comment><USER201> Not perfect, but definitely an improvement.

</comment><comment><USER202> iOS user-- I prefer the old version. I also hate not being able to pinch and zoom to adjust what I'm viewing.

</comment><comment><USER203> may I ask what triggers mobile-specific behaviors? \- screen size? \- user agent? \- O/S? \- browser ID?

</comment><comment><USER204> it's better! half way to good imo.

</comment><comment><USER205> Looks fine on BBOS10 default browser

</comment><comment><USER206> Keep it and move forward improving.

</comment><comment> grey-area Keep, please.

</comment><comment><USER207> keep it! much better, than before.

</comment><comment><USER208> great update. Keep improving this!

</comment><comment><USER209> It's an improvement, so yes.

</comment><comment><USER210> Please keep

</comment><comment><USER211> Finally!

Keep it, please!

</comment><comment><USER212> Keep

</comment><comment><USER213> Keep

</comment><comment><USER214> Keep!

</comment><comment><USER215> Keep!

</comment><comment><USER216> Keep it!

</comment><comment><USER217> Firstly, thanks so much for starting to work on this!

Let me suggest a few things:

* I'm confused as to why you're using tables for layout? Might want to consider something more modern, and use tables just for tabular data, and use divs, classes, and CSS for handling the layout: [http://learnlayout.com/](http://learnlayout.com/) You can get a lot done without using tables and <center> tags, etc.

* The width on your table is 85%, why not 100%? Let that bad boy go to the edge of the viewport, on mobile every pixel counts.

* I'd suggest adding this to your 'body' css, make that content go to the edge of the viewport:

margin: 0; padding: 0;

* I see a lot in inline styles in your table, you might want to consider taking those out, and just throwing them into your CSS stylesheet. Those are the most specific, and override everything. Maintaining that will be hard, and painful. Unless you have some historic, or those are dynamically entered for good reason by your CMS, I'd take them out.

* <tr class="spacer" style="height:5px"></tr> Things like this could be better improved by removing, and just adding padding to the element you really wanted to add some breathing room around

* <span class="score" id="score_10487419">318 points</span> Perhaps this is a personal preference but I prefer classes over ids in CSS. Classes are more easily overridden, and have less headaches than ids on large websites [http://csswizardry.com/2011/09/when-using-ids-can-be-a-pain-...](http://csswizardry.com/2011/09/when-using-ids-can-be-a-pain-in-the-class/)

* <span class="deadmark"></span> Reason for these? Looking at it, I'm not sure what value it might provide. If it's something that isn't pertinent to that item on the page, I'd consider not rendering it, as there is nothing in it, and you, as a general rule shouldn't use spans or divs to solely help you lay things out on the page

* <td colspan="2"></td> As I see you have these there, since you're laying out with a table, I'd encourage you to not do that. Tables are markup heavy, and you'd find you could bring your page weight down if you did not use tables for layout. See [http://www.stevesouders.com/blog/2013/05/09/how-fast-are-we-...](http://www.stevesouders.com/blog/2013/05/09/how-fast-are-we-going-now/)

Specifically for mobile:

* Responsive Design: [https://developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/design-and-ui...](https://developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/design-and-ui/responsive/fundamentals/)

* Touch Targets: [http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2012/02/finger-friendly-desi...](http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2012/02/finger-friendly-design-ideal-mobile-touchscreen-target-sizes/)

I hope some of those tips are helpful. Keep going! Keep learning!

</comment><comment><USER218> Keep.

</comment><comment><USER219> whatever it is, it will def. be better than the old HN on mobile.

</comment><comment><USER220> ITS THE BEST! KEEP IT :)

</comment><comment><USER221> keep it looks better than before

</comment><comment><USER222> keep

</comment><comment><USER223> Keep it!

</comment><comment><USER203> it's not working at all on my rotary phone.

</comment><comment><USER224> The previous version was just a desktop browser page crammed on a tiny screen. This one, you can at least read. After years and years, HN finally found out about responsive web design.

</comment><comment><USER225> It's awful. I thought HN just didn't care. Why is this so hard? I do this every day for work and HN should be dead simple. Is this saying HN doesn't have anyone who knows how to do this?

EDIT: My initial post was from my phone. Now I'm on my workstation and I see the markup here is antiquated, pre-1998 HTML. No wonder this is so horrid. You should be ashamed but, still, I could do better.

<comment><USER39> Let's see your re-design.

</comment></comment><comment><USER226> Keep, nexus 5.

Dang btw:

\- [https://developer.chrome.com/devtools/docs/device- mode](https://developer.chrome.com/devtools/docs/device-mode)

\- [https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Tools/Valence](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Tools/Valence) / [https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Tools/Responsive_De...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Tools/Responsive_Design_View)

You probably answered this elsewhere, but I can't find it. What has kept you from using a CSS framework?

</comment><comment><USER227> It's great but needs qa badly.

</comment><comment><USER228> Yes please keep it! It was so hard to read before on mobile.</comment>


The App Engine SDK and workspaces (GOPATH) - <AUTHOR> http://blog.golang.org/2013/01/the-app-engine-sdk-and-workspaces-gopath.html

<comment><USER2> An interesting feature of go I wasn't aware of is build constraints, e.g.:

         // +build !windows</comment>


EV Certificates Make the Web Slow and Unreliable - <AUTHOR> https://www.aaronpeters.nl/blog/ev-certificates-make-the-web-slow-and-unreliable/ <comment><USER2> So getting rid of an EV SSL certificate is as beneficial to web speed (and cost savings) as the dreaded Google AMP. Thanks for the numbers!</comment>


Image Shows Chinese Submarine Entering Cave Facility – South China Sea - <AUTHOR> https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/35837/image-shows-chinese-submarine-entering-mysterious-cave-facility-at-south-china-sea-base <comment><AUTHOR> So there is a certain "pedigree" problem with stuff randomly plucked from the internet - it I just love the James Bond-iness of a submarine cave, but also I remember Ice Station Zebra, where US and Russian spies battled it out on frozen Arctic to find a satellite _film canister_ that had pictures of US and Russian nukes or something.

I mean, going in fifty years from satellite imagery of military hardware is national security level one to "lets just put it some on a blog and see who clicks" tells me something about the next war - you won't be able to fool the opposition into thinking you will attack from over there.</comment>


US Department of Justice investigating MPEG LA - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703752404576178833590548792.html#

<comment><USER2> _But the group says it isn't acting to kill a competitor. It said it's simply offering a service for patent holders and is agnostic about which video format prevails. "We are effectively a convenience store" for licensing patents, said Larry Horn, MPEG LA's chief executive. "We have no dog in that fight."_

So, MPEG LA has no interest in extracting maximum possible amount of royalties for its patent holders?

<comment><USER3> If you keep reading, it's clear that MPEG-LA believes it has patents in the portfolio that cover VP8. If they expect to extract licensing revenue from those patents it's altogether possible that they don't care which format ultimately wins.

<comment><USER4> The MPEG-LA doesn't charge royalties to it's members. The members also all hold patents - it's just an agreement not to sue each other.

They do charge royalties to anyone not in the association - those royalties can of course be >100%.

In the old days we used to call this a cartel - but that's illegal.

<comment><USER5> _The MPEG-LA doesn't charge royalties to it's members_

Is that true? I though members had to pay royalties even if they had a patent in the pool.

<comment><USER4> It's a complex and secret process - but MSFT and Apple are not paying $10 for each copy of windows/iOS that includes an H264 player!

<comment><USER6> There's a royalty cap. I believe MSFT is paying the maximum royalty cap for H264. And Apple only has one patent in the patent pool of 1000+ patents.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Instead of the government investigating the MPEG LA for anti-trust violations, how about they spend some time fixing the patent system. This whole h.264/VP8 brouhaha is a symptom, not the disease.

<comment><USER8> Let's remember that different actors in the government have their own motivations. Investigating the MPEG LA is a DOJ issue. The DOJ's full of long- term government employees who are motivated by their own career metrics.

Fixing the patent system will require legislation, which is a function of our elected officials. These officials, really (and tragically) by necessity at this point, are driven by funding their re-election campaign.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> MPEG LA exists to extract patent royalties. By patent terms they are a 'legitimate' monopoly as the patent system was created to allow an inventor a temporary monopoly over their technology (20 yrs) on the condition that it passes to the public domain after that.

Given the early MPEG patents are in the mid - 90s they will begin to start expiring in 2015. Once we reach 2021 there will be a dozen free codecs with source code on the market.

In the meantime, MPEG LA does what it can to maximize its revenues.

<comment><USER10> While patents do confer a form of monopoly protection to an inventor and their assignees, that does not give anyone the right to form a cartel of multiple patent holders who work in concert to fix the price for the combined product.

MPEG-LA's workaround for that, which is what is at stake here, is some sort of carve-out with the FTC, stipulating that because it's an emerging standard, MPEG should not be subject to the normal restrictions on patent pooling.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm pretty firmly on WebM's side in this whole patent flame war thing, but getting the Justice Department looking into MPEG-LA already just makes me think Google's got some damn good lobbyists in Washington. I never heard of the government getting involved at this early stage of a patent battle before.

Of course, MPEG protection racket-esque comments in the article makes this a bit easier to swallow.

<comment><USER12> I guess even Google would be pissed if an investment of 125M was to be flushed down the toilet. Also, I'm pretty sure they had far-reaching strategy right from the beginning, and had prepared themselves for such issues that might eventually leading them into battle.

<comment><USER10> It's a win/win for Google. The long game is this: either they win the fight outright and webM becomes _the_ video standard, or they use webM and the specter of long, drawn-out (and expensive) litigation to force MPEG-LA to rethink their royalty policy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> "I can tell you: VP8 is not patent-free," Mr. Horn said. "It's simply nonsense."

These statements are conscience injections, red herrings, and convenient sound bites for zealots like Gruber to use in their "see I told you" agenda-driven opinion pieces. Truth is, patents for a video codec to be used on the web is _simply nonsense_. It's a stifle of creativity and hopefully we end up winning with a free, open codec that can be used in open source software. This is the formula that encourages innovation.

H.264 hardware inconveniences, gripes - to the wind.

<comment><USER14> I think you gravely misunderstand the patent system. When you can get a patent on drawing a line onto the screen ([http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=KYwhAAAAEBAJ&dq=r...](http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=KYwhAAAAEBAJ&dq=render+line+raster+display)), it means that anything in your codec _might_ be patented by some ridiculous patent already.

<comment><USER15> So _might_ your own proprietary software. And the Pope _might_ be an axe murderer. A very large number of things _might_ be true. Singling out this software as particularly hazardous because of _might_ s smacks of FUD.

<comment><USER16> If you walk across a minefield, you _might_ step on a mine. Singling out minefields as particularly hazardous because of _mights_ smacks of FUD.

Joking aside, this is a false dilemma. Patent trolls actually exist, inadvertent patent infringement is not some purely hypothetical risk. Particularly in fields like video codecs where the mines are laid especially thick.

<comment><USER15> If you walk across a minefield, you are walking into a place where there are proven to be mines in your likely path. That's a much more present danger than the mere possibility of a mine's existence. A minefield _verifiably_ has mines, not just _might_ have mines, and thus walking in an arbitrary path there has a measurable chance of blowing you up (and there might be some specific paths with a 0% chance of blowing you up, which are also different from the minefield in general).

In spite of this supposed huge vulnerability, nobody has ever suggested even one single patent that could potentially be read as covering anything in Google's WebM tech, much less the "minefield" that MPEG-LA try to conjure up with their vague insinuations. You'd be about as well-supported by the evidence if you claimed that God just hates WebM and will smite down anyone who uses it to encode video.

I'm not saying that WebM _isn't_ on a patent minefield. I can't prove that negative claim. But I can say that I've never seen anyone offer any credible evidence for this minefield.

<comment><USER17> Is there a reason that Google isn't offering patent indemnification other than that they aren't sure WebM is patent free either?

<comment><USER18> Is there a reason that MPEG-LA isn't offering patent indemnification other than they aren't sure H.264 is patent free either?

<http://news.ycombinator.net/item?id=2100601>

This argument is total FUD.

<comment><USER17> Google claims WebM is patent free.

MPEG-LA doesn't claim H.264 is patent free - they just offer a simplified way to license a large number of patents.

If it is FUD, perhaps you can offer an explanation rather than just deflection.

<comment><USER13> WebM - free license, no guarantees of indemnification

H.264 - paid license, no guarantees of indemnification

Any argument that circumvents the above fact is _agenda-driven_. People know that WebM is the better choice; but are instead trying to find a roundabout way of keeping their H.264 encoders relevant.

<comment><USER17> Simply untrue. Presented in those terms, the 'fact' is:

WebM - free license, indemnification against 0 patents.

H.264 - paid license, indemnification against > 1700 patents.

(here's the list: [http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/avc/Documents/avc- att1.p...](http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/avc/Documents/avc-att1.pdf))

For WebM to be a free equivalent, Google would have to indemnify users against _that list_ of patents. If Google is sure that the patents are not infringed, why doesn't it at least do that?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> WebM is an inferior codec to h264. As much as I'd like a patent-free alternative, it's unlikely that consumers will be willing to take a step back in video compression/quality. The fact of the matter is that large companies can afford to pay royalties, and end users don't have to. There's very little incentive to move to something new, let alone inferior in quality and of dubious future.

Now imagine a patent-free codec came along that had substantially better quality per bit-rate and was at least as efficient as h264. You wouldn't need lobbying to move us over. The pirates would embrace it first, and everyone else would follow. At the end of the day, moving forward is the only way we know. Sadly, WebM is leading in the opposite direction.

<comment><USER20> All your arguments below, about WebM not being supported and hardware accelerated on every device, apply equally to your hypothetical better than H.264 codec. So it's a bit simplistic to say only quality matters, and Google's has created more hardware (and software) support for WebM than I thought possible.

It's likely that getting that support was aided by being clearly patent-free so certain compression techniques and wide support are probably linked.

Of course, a better than H.264 codec isn't hypothetical. THere is H.265 and VP9 coming, neither of which has hardware support or patent royalty demands or wide usage by pirates. The level of support for VP8 is likely to influence how those things pan out in the future.

<comment><USER19> Yes all my arguments apply to my hypothetical codec. Where did I imply otherwise?

If you want your codec to be adopted despite lack of hardware/software support, you really need to offer something worth the hassle. Notably reduced buffering wait times for consumers, and lower bandwidth costs and ease of distribution (encoder/decoder) for pirates would be such needs worth the hassle. WebM is worse in all these cases. Very few people care about royalties, so it's simply not enough to ask everyone to swap out all the hardware and other infrastructure for mostly ideological fluff.

You actually need to make a better codec. And so far there is nothing out there (H265 and VP9 don't have a usable encoder/decoder).

<comment><USER20> My point was that Google _is_ providing the software and hardware support[1], in conjunction with every big name you could mention, with a short list of notable exceptions, therefore overall it is as strong as another hypothetical royalty-free codec which is technically better, but which has less hardware, software or industry support.

In short "better" codec means more than just compression efficiency and asking people to switch out their infrastructure for a quality improvement is as tough as for a cost reduction. It only happens now because the whole industry acts in concert to make it happen. There's no reason why the industry couldn't coalesce around a free codec next time if the "idealogues" and "hippies" have laid sufficient groundwork, either with no business case or one that only works in certain niches. This is how it has worked in many other free software or free content success story.

[1] this doesn't seem to be widely known. If you google for WebM then one of the twitter results is Joe Hewitt asking smugly when Google will announce hardware and Youtube support for WebM, something they'd done about a year previously.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This is hilarious! If patent enforcement is an illegal anticompetitive action, then the patent system itself is a contradiction.

<comment><USER22> Yeah really.

This looks to me like the patent system operating as designed.

I guess if you're Google you can get the government to make an exception for you in the interest of fairness.

But it's cold legalistic capitalism for the rest of us.

<comment><USER23> As someone else pointed out, the one thing that makes this interesting is, instead of bothering to do the legal legwork first to PROVE they cover vp8, they simply make vague threats to scare people out of using it, which I highly doubt is how the patent system was meant to be used.

<comment><USER6> Are vague threats illegal? Do legal threats have to be specific? It seems like one of the most common threats I know of is, "I'm going to sue you!" It's usually not a specific, "I'm going to sue you based on violation of XYZ". It's usually a very vague statement. Is that generally illegal, but just not enforced?

<comment><USER22> _Are vague threats illegal? Do legal threats have to be specific?_

Not in general, if they're vague enough.

But when they come from the lawyer pool of a massively-funded cartel sitting on 1700 patents, they're inherently credible threats.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Video formats should be open and free to use/redistribute. Otherwise, startups can't get off the ground quickly (YouTube being the exception).

Charge for encryption/licensing formats.</comment>


(Spammers) Take Advantage of Death in Boston - <AUTHOR> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/04/hacking-rings-take-advantage-of-death-in-boston/index.html?hp

<comment><AUTHOR> While the actual title is silly fear mongering based the other meaning of "hacker" (and with the Times, I'm unsure if an editor or an author writes the blog titles), this is more interesting to me for the tactics being used. Amazing really (on many levels - shocking to technical) that they fine tune these pages based on obituary notices. More troublesome, for the pay-for- content sites, is that users take advantage of these things.</comment>


Pythonic financial simulation - <AUTHOR> http://blog.i2pi.com/?p=208

<comment><AUTHOR> I forgot to mention it in the blog post, but there are well defined measures of code coverage for software development. I'm not sure if the same concepts have made there way into legal analysis. I would like to see that any financial portfolio 'stress tests' require complete code coverage.

However, I seriously doubt whether the proposal will ever be enacted. There is just too much going against it. I do like that agent simulation is becoming wider known in the broader financial community as it finally gets us closer to acknowledging that financial instruments _are_ computation. And along with that association comes the tacit recognition that not everything is easily computable.

For a good introduction to the intersection of computability and economics, check out [http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/oso/public/content/economic...](http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/oso/public/content/economicsfinance/9780198295273/toc.html)

<comment><USER2> Velupillai's book is awesome. An exercise of his that I love is looking at how much of general equilibrium theory one can prove using only constructive math.

A nice blog on a similar vein seems to have been started recentely on <http://aiecon.tumblr.com/> by a grad student of Sandholm.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Interesting blog, showing the banking-side view. The call for 'executable- regulation' reminded me that lawyers also pride themselves on their fine analytical minds, piling up sharp clauses to cover this and that.

I suspect that, if they could, and would, run unit tests on their products, there would be much wailing and gnashing of teeth.

On the other hand, we already have that with the current system, and that's perhaps the point of it. The making of sausages, and all that.

<comment><USER4> " The idea that while ABS documents are chock full of legalese, a computer program can provide a very concise way of understanding how a financial instrument is supposed to operate."

That is extremely interesting. A good friend of mine is a lawyer and used to work on large financial contracts (with sometimes billions of dollars in a single contract). He would tell me crazy stories about how two legal teams would spend hours arguing over things like the placement of a semicolon. So in reality legal contracts really are code...just a code for lawyers and not computers. I would not be surprised in the least if computer code was more efficient, but it may take just as long to write (if not longer). The upside is that while lawyer code needs to be tested in court, computer code gets tested by compilers and private QA teams, significantly shortening the process and relieving a significant portion of bureaucracy.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Books you should have read when you start a career in SE / CS? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Three boks I'll recommend you read as soon as possible.

1) The Mythical Man month

3) The Pragmatic Programmer

3) Code Complete.

The thing about these books, well atleast 1 and 3 is that when they were written they broke new ground. Or if that phrase bother you, they were the first mainstream publications that brought their core ideas to developers.

Reading these books early in your career will help cement these best practices.

Reading these books after you've been a practicing programmer means,IMHO, that the return you get from reading them goes way way down.

You'll find that you've already learned all/most? of what they are trying to teach.

You'll find yourself getting frustrated that they are preaching what you already know as common sense and first principles.

Or put another way, I'm not sure there is much that someone who has programmed for 5-10 years can get out of those books that they haven't picked up somewhere else already or learned the hard way.

<comment><USER3> A quick reference for the important points in Pragmatic Programmer :[https://blog.codinghorror.com/a-pragmatic-quick- reference/](https://blog.codinghorror.com/a-pragmatic-quick-reference/)

Code Complete: [http://codecourse.sourceforge.net/materials/Code- Complete-A-...](http://codecourse.sourceforge.net/materials/Code-Complete-A- Detailed-Book-Review.html)

<comment><USER4> Thank you. The most value I get from these kinds of books is to become aware of important concepts so that I can actively work on improving them. In other words: what I seek from these books is the mental framework that experienced developers rely on, the rest is mostly noise.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Some I haven't seen mentioned here:

1\. Coders at Work

Peter Seibel does an amazing job of asking programmers questions that make them explain their methodology. The interview with Donald Knuth is awesome; really enjoyed hearing him talk about literate programming.

2\. The Soul of a New Machine

Tracy Kidder's 1981 Pulitzer Prize winner I think is a brilliant case study on how engineers work together and the things that can go wrong and right with different personalities interacting with highly technical ideas. The project in this book starts without the consent of management, which to me shows the value of questioning the system to add business / engineering value.

3\. Little Schemer

Small book that will give your brain a serious workout and show you how to problem solve with Lisp like languages. Even if you never end up using a Lisp dialect, this book expands your brain.

I have more here, all of which I recommend for software and other careers [http://benbrostoff.github.io/books/](http://benbrostoff.github.io/books/)

<comment><USER6> +1 for Little Schemer. Before I read it, I could write recursive methods, but after I read it I could think about recursion naturally.

<comment><USER4> This! The primary benefit of this book is in learning to understand recursion. Lisp just happens to be a good environment for naturally expressing recursion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug and The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman.

While they're not strictly software or programming related, I really like the concepts of making interfaces that require minimal thought to use and empathizing with your users. I've seen an unfortunate amount of "programming machismo" where a confusing or poorly engineered system is used and accepted because "that's just how things work in the real world". And whenever someone struggles with the process, it's obviously because they're wrong, not the system. But more often than not, if more than one person has trouble understanding your system, whether it's an API, a website, a build process, the design is the issue.

<comment><USER8> Don't Make Me Think is a good one, but I always felt like its lessons could have been summed up in an infographic...though I guess that would be missing the context to get people over that hill. I guess if you don't know that intuitively, you're the kind of person that needs that book.

<comment><USER9> I honestly felt the same way about "The design of everyday things". The first few chapters are quite interesting but it gets insanely repetitive after a while. To be fair I feel that way about a lot of pop-sci books...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Our field is so varied that there is no good answer to this question unless you specify what you want to focus on.

Some people are inevitably going to recommend _The Art of Computer Programming_ , which hardly anyone has read and isn't that relevant to the work that 99% of us are doing.

Someone will probably recommend _The C Programming Language_ , also called K&R after the authors, but again it's not very useful unless you're going to be using a lot of C and even then I personally don't think it provides anything you can't get from guides on the internet. (I have actually read this one, but it's been a while)

There are other classic textbooks that will probably be mentioned that are only useful to those in that domain. Many of us can get by without a deep understanding of algorithms and data structures, most people don't need to read a compiler book, etc, etc.

However, there are some generalized books that people often recommend like _The Pragmatic Programmer_ and _Code Complete_. These are, in my opinion, good recommendations if you're looking for something to read but I wouldn't say that someone starting a career in software engineering _should_ read them. Software engineering isn't really a field with seminal texts that should be read by everyone.

For example, every political scientist should have probably read _The Republic_ by Plato and _Politics_ by Aristotle among many other texts. I don't think software engineering has that equivalent, partially due to the relative newness of the field and partially because the primary output of our field is not written texts.

Another interesting question would be "What codebases should someone starting their career in software engineering look at?". Are there things that the average joe programmer can learn by poking around the Linux kernel or Firefox? Maybe. I don't know. I've never done it. I'd be interested in hearing from those who have, though. Maybe I'll do my own ask HN.

edit: I feel I should clarify that this is written from the perspective of a software engineer, not an academic in computer science. For all I know there could be seminal texts that those on the academic side should all have read.

<comment><USER11> > recommend The Art of Computer Programming

And, if you do decide to dive in and read them, plan to spend a few years on them.

<comment><USER12> It works as a reference, just today I found out that the devops darling of anomoly detection [1] is in volume two [2].

[1] [https://www.slideshare.net/tboubez/5-things-i-learned- toufic...](https://www.slideshare.net/tboubez/5-things-i-learned-toufic- boubez-metafor-lisa2014) [2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolmogorov%E2%80%93Smirnov_tes...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolmogorov%E2%80%93Smirnov_test)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Designing Data-Intensive Applications[0] by Martin Kleppmann. There's a previous HN thread about it[1]. Helped me understand a bit more about databases and systems. The book is also very approachable and has the perfect blend of application and theory at a high level that anyone approaching the industry for the first time stands to gain a lot from reading it.

The Architecture of Open Source Applications[2] series is a good one for leaning how to build production applications and you can read it online. The chapter on Scalable Web Architecture[3] is a must-read.

[0] [https://www.amazon.com/Designing-Data-Intensive- Applications...](https://www.amazon.com/Designing-Data-Intensive-Applications- Reliable-Maintainable/dp/1449373321)

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15428526](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15428526)

[2] [http://aosabook.org/en/index.html](http://aosabook.org/en/index.html)

[3] [http://aosabook.org/en/distsys.html](http://aosabook.org/en/distsys.html)

</comment><comment><USER14> As far as a technical book, Data Intensive Applications by Martin Kleppman. This book covers distributed systems as well as databases, data-warehousing, and data-processing.

A lot of tools and patterns you don't see in school that describe how most of the "magic" behind high-powered software we use is implemented.

<comment><USER15> This should honestly be the top-voted answer. The standard palette of cargo cult options are at best a weak proxy for real-world experience.

But Kleppman's book is genuinely and outstandingly useful for understanding the various components involved in modern backend architectures.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> My take on some which I think should be atleast read once:

      1) The unix programming environment
      2) The design of the unix operating system
      3) The Pragmatic Programmer
      4) Programming Pearls
      5) Computer Systems: A Programmers Prespective
      6) K & R C
      7) The art of Unix Programming.

PS: I admit my bias towards systems.

<comment><USER17> I'm halfway through the 5 and its an amazing resource.

<comment><USER18> Really phenomenal textbook. Maybe the only one I've read (almost) all of the way through.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've read most of the recommended books, but as far as what I think has delivered immediate real value, I'm going to go with:

1) Clean Code 2) The Phoenix Project 3) UNIX and Linux System Administration Handbook

I'm sure #2 will be something folks want to fight over _shrug_. If you want to sidestep years of headache it's a must-read though.

<comment><USER19> FWIW, "The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement" by Eli Goldratt, almost certainly was the inspiration for The Phoenix Project, and is IMHO a better read. One could follow up with any of Goldratt's other books for more information about the Theory of Constraints.

<comment><USER8> In a sense, I agree with you, but TPP is specific to a software organization and I find it "translates" better, especially to the inexperienced.

<comment><USER19> You make a compelling argument that making the information accessible is more important than the means of conveyance.

This is a good point for many books listed in this thread: it doesn't matter how you pick up the design pattern knowledge, the algorithm knowledge, the code quality knowledge, etc etc, so long as you get it, and with complete understanding.

<comment><USER20> Couldn't agree more. The fact that there are options out there means that there are more ways for these things to hopefully "click".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> _Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs_ :

[https://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp](https://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp)

<comment><USER22> This is the most influential book I have read in my SE career. It's not a LISP book. It's a book about programming fundamentals. E.g. Objects are covered as well. They even build a register machine at the end.

I think a translation to a more modern language (lua!) would boost adoption quite a bit.

<comment><USER23> _How To Design Programs_ pursues a similar goal. Esp. 2nd edition has largely been rewritten and uses a more modern programming language. Maybe give it a try?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> There are many books which sound good in theory but I think my younger self would not have been able to make use of the wisdom in those books because I did not have the experience to relate to what the book was talking about. Nevertheless, if I had to ignore this factor, I too, like many others in this thread, recommend "The Mythical Man Month". However, I think, it's more important to figure out what one wants from life than to just better one's craft. Of course if that is what you want in life, then indeed pursuing that makes sense. I'm also tempted to recommend "Siddhartha" by Herman Hesse and "The Consolations of Philosophy" by Alain de Botton.

<comment><USER11> > recommend "The Mythical Man Month"

But be prepared to come away very depressed than a book that's now 44 years old contains wisdom that none of the people who ought to have absorbed it have.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> 1\. The Mythical Man Month. Quite old, but still a classic.

2\. Dilbert. This comic series is an excellent introduction into how corporations actually work.

3\. The Systems Bible. Somewhat obscure. Fascinating ideas on how large systems, both technical and organizational, actually work.

<comment><USER26> Dilbert! Amen. Humans are not Vulcans.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams ([https://www.amazon.com/Peopleware- Productive-Projects-Teams-...](https://www.amazon.com/Peopleware-Productive- Projects-Teams-3rd/dp/0321934113/))

It talks about what makes a good team, how powerful they can be, and also gives some insight on team dysfunction.

</comment><comment><USER28> You start career. If you already have been programming like in high school or something and finished CS university don't focus much on technical books. Learn how to work with people not computers and listen. I assume you know objects, ifs, for loops. It is enough for technical start. I don't expect more from junior. "The pragmatic programmer" is quite good start on it.

If you lack technical background and have problems with structure because you have not worked through university/school in structured way then "Code complete", "Clean code". Pick also something in depth for your specific area you are going to start, for C# good would be "C# in depth" to get really details of tech you will be working on. Get details in one programming language really well then you can pick up some other tech.

</comment><comment><USER29> Le Petit Prince. Certainly you've read this but it should be reread on occasion and starting a career is a good time.

eg "You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed"

</comment><comment><USER30> How to Win Friends and Influence People

</comment><comment><USER23> My favorites so far:

\- _Pragmatic Thinking & Learning_ by Andy Hunt

\- _The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman

\- _The Effective Engineer* by Edmond Lau

\- _The Pragmatic Programmer_ by Andy Hunt and Dave Thomas

\- _SQL Performance Explained_ by Markus Winand

And [http://teachyourselfcs.com](http://teachyourselfcs.com) curriculum is pretty good as well.

As a side note, there's so much we can learn from game programmers and OS/database/compiler engineers.

</comment><comment><USER31> Anything about Complex Adaptive Systems. Holland's short intro is nice.

Eventually you're going to be faced with a very complex system to refactor. It helps to understand the principles of healthy complex systems in nature.

[https://www.amazon.com/Complexity-Very-Short-Introduction- In...](https://www.amazon.com/Complexity-Very-Short-Introduction- Introductions/dp/0199662541)

</comment><comment><USER32> The Practice of Programming by K & R.

Or has this fallen out of favor?

<comment><USER33> It is by K&P, not K&R. Great book though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> This will be an unusual suggestion, but I highly recommend Geographic Databases and Information Systems by Stefanakis. The book is split into three parts, and the last one is specific to GIS. The other two, however, are a great introduction for databases, indices, data structures and even some graph theory. I've revisited several concepts I'd seen before at college.

</comment><comment><USER35> Back when I was just graduating from college I picked up a book called "Coder to Developer: Tools and Strategies for Delivering Your Software". It was basically written for people who knew how to write code, but not all the stuff that comes with it in a professional setting - unit testing, build systems, version control, deployment and monitoring, etc.

I'd have a hard time recommending it per se, because it relies heavily for examples on specific technologies that were dated even when I was reading it half a decade ago, but I think something like it with that kind of content is a must-read for anyone starting in SE, especially coming from a CS degree that might have been light on those areas. If I could find a version that's more recent I'd recommend it to every new grad I know.

</comment><comment><USER36> Find a book that introduces to programming patterns. I read 'Design Patterns' from the Head-First series when starting out [http://www.headfirstlabs.com/books/hfdp/](http://www.headfirstlabs.com/books/hfdp/)

</comment><comment><USER37> Superdupermegapreviouslies:

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=books&sort=byPopularity&prefix...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=books&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story)

</comment><comment><USER38> The Art of Unix Programming. It teaches the "why"s, not just the "how"s.

</comment><comment><USER39> This might sound either obvious or naive but if you are not a CS major, I would really emphasize reading CS textbooks such as CLRS, Programming Pearls, Dragonbook and most importantly textbooks on statistics m probability, linear algebra. There is a pyramid of skills for developers. People who haven't studied throughly above stuff usually ends up at bottom (aka "enterprise" or "web" or "database" developers). They spend their lives in trivialities of patterns and plumbing and only very rarely doing something interesting such as distributed computing, game programming, systems programming, ML/AI.

</comment><comment><USER40> For the technical side of things, [http://teachyourselfcs.com](http://teachyourselfcs.com) gives a nice curriculum.

</comment><comment><USER41> "Introduction to Algorithms" by Cormen et al. is one of my favorite books. It gave me a deep understanding of algorithms and data structures.

<comment><USER42> How do you compare it with Steven Skiena book?

<comment><USER41> Never had the chance of studying it. I'll give it a closer look. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Most books recommended here are for programming of some or administration, anyone have notable books for cyber security, pen testing, red teaming, etc?

<comment><AUTHOR> +1, that would be awesome! :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> 1\. Mythical Man Month - obvious reasons

2\. Deathmarch: The Complete Software Developer's Guide to Surviving 'Mission Impossible' Projects- also a classic.

3\. Thinking fast and slow - a great introduction to biases that will affect your thinking in any project.

4\. The Art of War - strategy and tactics for attacking any problem. My personal favorite translation is by Thomas Cleary.

<comment><USER45> It's next to impossible to find a soft copy of "Deathmarch", except for in Russian. I tried but I haven't found yet.

<comment><USER46> Do you mean this one? [https://www.amazon.com/dp/013143635X](https://www.amazon.com/dp/013143635X) ? Or do you mean a different book?

<comment><USER45> Yes, the link is about a hard copy, not a soft one.

<comment><USER46> Is hard copy vs soft copy different than hard cover vs soft cover?

<comment><USER47> Yes. Hard copy is printed (hard or soft cover); soft copy is electronic.

<comment><USER46> Huh, I've never heard "soft copy" used for that before—I've always used electronic copy or digital copy. TIL.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Something for any industry that interests you. Computers are a tool. We use them not because a bubble sort is n-squared and quick sort is nlogn with a n-squared worst case. Step outside of your box and learn something about the real problems in the world and you will be the better as you realize how you can apply computers to solve the real problems.

</comment><comment><USER48> I'm surprised to see basically only books on how to be better at making software. Nothing on negotiation or other soft skills like that.

Do people generally just not value things like negotiating? Or do you just not think a book would have helped younger you?

<comment><USER42> I can recommend two books, Crucial Conversations, and Getting to Yes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> The Little Schemer

</comment><comment><USER50> The Principles of Product Development Flow: Second Generation Lean Product Development

It changed my understanding and thinking about how best to work flow development. I highly highly recommend this book to coders to managers.

</comment><comment><USER51> \- The Pragmatic Programmer

\- Refactoring

\- Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering

\- Code Complete

</comment><comment><USER52> Code Complete. I found Code Complete to be as eye opening for day to day work as SICP is while learning in University.

</comment><comment><USER42> The title makes me wonder, is it too late to read these books for me, a decade long programmer?

<comment><USER53> No

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> Linux kernel coding standard, for attitude rather than specific guidance?

</comment><comment><USER55> Waltzing With Bears. Oh my god how I wish I had read that one book.

</comment><comment><USER56> (1) Object Thinking by David West. (2) Thinking Forth by Leo Brodie

</comment><comment><USER57> Code Complete 2. I bought it... never read it.

</comment><comment><USER58> Effective Engineer by Edmond Lau

Game Programming Patterns

</comment><comment><USER59> Web Scalability for Startup Engineers

</comment><comment><USER60> The Glass Bead Game by Herman Hesse.

</comment><comment><USER61> 1) The Art of Computer Programming

2) The Art of Computer Programming

3) The Art of Computer Programming

4A) The Art of Computer Programming

<comment><USER62> Has anyone really read these books from page to page?

Also, are they really relevant when you are starting your career? These seem more into the category of making you competent in the field of algorithms research, rather than something a person starting a career should read.

<comment><USER11> > Has anyone really read these books from page to page?

I recently finished reading the first three, and have started on the fourth (with a detour to read "fascicle 1.1 on MMIX"). I started the series planning to work every single problem. That turned out to be just a little unrealistically ambitious - I settled for _attempting_ every single problem except for the "unsolved research problems" (in some cases, just figuring out what the problem was asking for left me with a sense of accomplishment). Even so, I ended up spending a year on each volume, reading/working problems for a half hour a day or so. On the one hand, I loved these books, and really enjoyed reading/working through them, but - recommended before beginning one's software development career? You'll need to know a fair amount of calculus to make sense of a lot of it, and it'll take quite a while to get through. It's questionable how relevant it really is, fascinating as the subject matter is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> Hackers and Painters

</comment><comment><USER64> The Phoenix project. Everyone should read, IMO. I actually started with The Goal first. Then Phoenix project and then the Google SRE book.</comment>


The $100,000 Twitter hitcher: How Baydin got Dave McClure to invest  - <AUTHOR> http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2010/10/15/twitter-plea-helps-baydin-get-seed-money-from-angel-investor-dave-mcclure-startup-moving-to-the-valley-next-month/

<comment><USER2> Too bad Baydin is moving to Cali. I learned a lot from the public pitch they did a few weeks ago at Capitalize. Guess the pitch was good practice for the west coast. :)

Wish these guys good luck in SV.

</comment><comment><USER3> I can't see picture of Michael Chin <http://www.baydin.com/about.html> are they still in business?

<comment><USER4> Yes, we're still in business. :)</comment></comment>


Young Business (Brad Fitzgerald on young people starting a business) - <AUTHOR> http://aptdesignonline.com/blog/young-business-part-1 <comment><USER2> _"... Brad Fitzgerald on young people starting a business ..."_

Not this <http://bradfitz.com/></comment>


Show HN: Sibylant graze, play the multiplayer word game Contact (Haskell/WS) - <AUTHOR> https://modalduality.org/sibylant-graze/ <comment><AUTHOR> About ten of us are playing in [https://modalduality.org/sibylant- graze/play/lobby](https://modalduality.org/sibylant-graze/play/lobby) if you'd like to join!

A bit about the technical stack: the server was written in Haskell using WebSockets. Source at [https://git.modalduality.org/sibylant- graze/tree/](https://git.modalduality.org/sibylant-graze/tree/).</comment>


Show HN: Multiplayer Tetris built in 48hrs - <AUTHOR> http://nko2-forward.herokuapp.com/

<comment><USER2> For about two minutes I fell in love with this.

And then someone started repeatedly stacking blocks in any game I played to force a loss. And there was nothing I could do. Me and my teammates' beautiful castles of tetra...destroyed.

Find a way to fix that, and you have an amazing game on your hands. <3 it.

\---

EDIT:

So after playing a little more, and getting more acquainted with the game, I can add that I love the dynamic that multiplayer adds to it--especially when you have six or seven other players and you're all trying to space yourselves out evenly, and you sometimes have to cross the whole map, putting pieces in and fitting them around with other people--I had some people do some (incredibly good) anticipation of my moves and vice versa--it felt surprisingly cohesive as a team game for something that used to be such an individual effort.

I have a note about the IP of Tetris, because I seem to recall reading that they're: 1) quite strict about the licensing of the game and 2) adamant about the rules and structure of the game when they do give permission for it to be used.

I love Metris, and for a 48 hour project I think it's awesome--I also second the feedback given by Jarred, particularly for ghost blocks where my tetra- block will land, and the movement: holding down keys.

<comment><USER3> Were you able to actually clear lines?

I have been playing with a pair of colleages and when we finally got the whole thing ready for a tetris clear... the lines stood there laughing at us! :S

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I love Tetris, so I can give you a bit of constructive criticism here.

\- I don't want unlimited space for the blocks to move.

\- I have no idea how this is multiplayer

\- I should be able to press spacebar and the block goes down all the way at once

\- I should see an outline of what the block will look like on the bottom, at it's current position and rotation

\- Movement is weird - I should be able to just hold right or left arrow and it go several blocks over, versus repeatedly hitting the arrow keys.

\- Change the key to rotate the block to something else that isn't an arrow key

Check out the Tetris games over at <http://tetrisfriends.com> for a good example. If you can make one without ads and with a better workflow it could be very fun/useful.

I hope that helps.

<comment> eric-hu I've played many other versions of Tetris that use up as rotate, but besides that, you read my mind.

I went back and tried a second time. This is multiplayer because everyone connected to the site plays on the same map (I think? I saw one other person connect while I played).

<comment><USER5> The problem with using the up arrow as the rotation key is that you can only rotate it in one direction. Typically Tetris allows you to rotate both clockwise and counterclockwise using two different keys/buttons.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It was fun until someone joins your game and sabotages is by stacking blocks straight to the top. It happened in all the games I played. Nice app though.

<comment><USER7> Agreed - nicely built app with an incredibly easy way for people to troll :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This game doesn't work for me in Firefox or IE... I see a block but it doesn't move and I can't move it. What now?

EDIT: Aha! It only breaks if I enter a Twitter username.

EDIT2: Nevermind. It stops working after awhile. The score moves, but I see no new pieces.

</comment><comment><USER9> Change the name. Metris is just asking for the owner of the Tetris trademark to come after you (and they are quite well known for defending their trademark actively).

</comment><comment><USER10> Worked great on Chrome[1] for a couple of minutes with a few players then crashed with the broken tab icon.

[1] Chrome 11.0.696.57 running on Ubuntu 11.04 32bit.

</comment><comment><USER11> Something might be done to vary the pieces. My first nine pieces were all the same shape, the following 5 were the same and so on.

</comment><comment><USER12> Is this all built in Rails?

<comment><USER13> looks like it's built in Node.js as part of the Node Knockout competition.</comment></comment>