How China's one-child policy has backfired on men - <AUTHOR> http://europe.newsweek.com/chinas-one-child-policy-has-backfired-men-327875 <comment><USER2> Why do people believe that women have the upper hand now?

They might have in the slight time frame between high school graduation and marriage (~25 years for Chinese women). Before they have not much say because their fathers are the boss. Afterwards they have husbands who don't do anything but work and sleep (and maybe care for their mistresses). It's true that in that short slice of time their power over each single men who wants them is nearly unlimited. But would you trade your whole life for 5 years of power over guys you don't care about?

And it's not really true that they have power in a global sense, it's only in each of these 1-on-1 encounters with potential marriage partners. On the global scale requirements like beauty and social standards are higher and the push to marriage is also stronger than for men.

So this "has backfired on men" should be read as "has decreased the huge advantage of men to become only a big advantage for men".

<comment><USER3> Except that the article actually says the opposite.

 _> Consider Cai Li (who asked her real name not be used in this article), a 34-year-old marketing executive in Shanghai: she is smart, engaging, hip and attractive. She is also the divorced mother of an 8-year-old girl. When she caught her husband, a Taiwanese businessman, philandering five years ago, she didn't hesitate. "I divorced him as soon as I could," she says. "He was shocked. He thought I wasn't serious, that I wouldn't do it because of our daughter. I said, 'You'll see'. And within a week I had filed the papers [for divorce]. And why wouldn't I? Why should I put up with that? I have parents here in Shanghai who help take care of my daughter, I had a good job. Plus, if I want to get remarried, it's not as if there's a shortage of men, even at my age, who would be interested. [My ex] was crazy to think I was going to stick around."

> The only problem for Cai was that her parents sided with her ex. "They had a > typical Chinese reaction. They said, 'Oh come on, he probably won't do it > again. It's not that big a deal anyway'," she says. "It was a generational > attitude. When they were young, people put up with it, I guess. But I told > them, not now. I was really angry. I put my foot down. Things are different > now." _

Is this one woman an exception?

<comment><USER2> Huh? Are you arguing against my point or for my point? At first you say "the article actually says the opposite", which makes me think you want to argue for women having a better position. Then you show an example of a women getting pressured by her parents to not divorce beside being in an unacceptable position.

I'm a little confused but I assume that you argue against my post based on your first sentence.

Maybe it's not clear how much influence Chinese parents have on their children. As a woman it might even happen that your husbands parents have more power over your life than your own parents. So there is often no chance to divorce. In fact many Chinese women wouldn't even attempt that, because of fear to lose their job, any chance to remarry, losing both party's parents' favour. The husband does not have to accept any punishment for having a lover on the side, not doing their part at home, or for not taking care of the child(ren).

A typical situation in China is the wife fighting the younger girlfriend of the husband, both fighting to gain the man's favour. This only happens out of fear, not out of respect for oneself.

So to answer your question: She's an exception for actually divorcing her husband, but she's not an exception for getting punished for the divorce more than the husband who is actually the one who caused the divorce.

<comment><USER4> The pressure was there, but the increased power let her do the divorce anyway, even though she wasn't in that "five year period".

<comment><USER2> Even if I'd agree with that point it would still just be "she's better off than her mother's generation" not "she's better off than the husband", right?

<comment><USER4> Sure. They have the advantage in some areas and it's closer to equality, though men still have most positions of power. The article didn't try to say that women had taken over.

<comment><USER2> Then I have misunderstood it, seriously. To me it said Chinese men are in such a poor situation now, which to me implies that the Chinese women have the upper hand. Maybe I've read too much into it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Some officials are already acknowledging that one child has gone on too long, and most couples are allowed to have two now (most minorities have always been allowed more, most country-side dwellers are allowed two if the first is a boy). But many couples aren't taking advantage of the new two child policy, since raising a kid in a Chinese city is expensive (especially schooling, which isn't really free).

Korea went through the same cycle: too many kids in the 70s, got everyone cut back, and then they went over a demographic cliff and now have to beg couples to have more kids today.

<comment><USER6> Russia has Day of Conception Sept 12 for married couples. If you have a child 9 months later you get money form the governemnt. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_of_Conception](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_of_Conception)

<comment><USER7> Oh, that's not creepy _at all_.

Could you imagine such a thing in the United States? I envision big posters in medical buildings saying "Uncle Sam Wants YOU (to get knocked up)!" The target birth month would be hell for parents, as well: nonstop shuttling of your kids to birthday party after birthday party.

<comment><USER8> Or you could all chip in together and have one big party for all the kids where everyone gets a present? It'd probably end up being cheaper for each parent but overall be a better party.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Really great read; sheds light on some things I never understood about china, but now it makes sense.

Goverment: "Stop making so many babies! that's it, just one per couple."

Citizens: "well, if we can only have one, we better make sure it's a boy!"

What could go wrong?

Yes, woman are gaining some upper hand here; and thats good. But it's not because of a change of outlooks or perspectives of the people, it's simply out of scarcity of the gender.

And what happens when there aren't enough women to go around? why, they import them of course! And by import I mean sex slavery and arranged marriages.

"life...finds a way..." to keep on fuckin'

<comment><USER10> >Citizens: "well, if we can only have one, we better make sure it's a boy!"

I get the feeling that the people who invented the "One child policy" where at a different stage in civilization/education/whatever you call, than the people for whom they made the rule. So they didn't even consider that the public might choose to get rid of their girls.

China has been extremely focus on reaching the western standards of living, but their culture haven't been able to keep up. I think it's great that they addressed the issue of over-population, something that a country like India has failed to do. Their error was that they didn't try to bring about lower birth rates though education and welfare programs and instead opted for punishment. The Chinese where given an incentive to abort girls, so in hindsight it's not a surprise that things have worked out the way they have.

<comment><USER11> > they addressed the issue of over-population, something that a country like > India has failed to do

India took the path to education and propaganda to voluntarily reduce the fertility rate. I don't think India has failed in its initiatives. Instead, I think they are going extremely well given that there is no legal limit on how many kids you can have. India is on track to reach peak-population by 2060. [1]

Most educated middle class couples would not think of having more than 2 kids (this has been true for the last 15/20+ years) and now we are entering a phase where a small minority is choosing to go without kids, completely.[2]

The total fertility rate in India has gone from 6 to 2.5 in the last 50 years. (Google for "total fertility rate india")

Edit: One more thing - there are 11 states in India that are at or below a TFR of 2.1 [3].

Net net - far from a failure, India is making good progress.

[1]: [http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Indias- population-w...](http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Indias-population- will-peak-at-1-7bn-in-2060-UN-study/articleshow/8164798.cms)

[2]: [http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life- style/relationships/...](http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life- style/relationships/parenting/No-kids-please/articleshow/6859698.cms)

[3]: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_states_ranking_by_fertil...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_states_ranking_by_fertility_rate)

<comment><USER12> It's well known that birth rate decreases as a nation's economic status increases. India has also gone through massive economic changes in the last 50 years, which is likely to have affected fertility rates much more than propaganda.

I'd like to see studies with control groups before believing that voluntary methods can significantly impact fertility rates.

<comment><USER11> Voluntary: done, given, or acting of one's own free will

India's population control has been voluntary. Aside from a failed attempt in 1975 (declaration of emergency/forced castration of a negligible number of people), all of the decline in fertility in India has been voluntary.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> They can look at as many corollary data plots as they like, but the simple explanation is that modern society has made men dispensable. A traditional "patriarchal" marriage is based on the woman's need of a man to provide for her and keep her safe, while the man's attachment to a woman is primarily one of desire. Now that modern society has made it possible for a woman to live well without a man, she is free to base her romantic relations on desire as well. Obviously these things take decades to play out, so we still see the primary desires of woman lean toward the financial capabilities of the male. But this will slowly change. For better or worse, family structures of the future will look nothing like those of the past. Single mothers will top 50% in China, just as it has in the USA, within two generations.

<comment><USER14> Single mother rates aren't because women are some kind of super feminists who refuse to marry. The majority of single mother families are the result of failed marriages and long term relationships.

They are also most likely to be financially insecure. And that insecurity is due to the lack of participation in the rearing and responsibility for their child by the father.

In short, the rising rate of single parenthood in the U.S. is not an outcome of empowering women and equal rights. It's a consequence of abject poverty and lack of accountability by fathers.

[1] [http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/23/discouraged- dad...](http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/23/discouraged-dads/)

<comment><USER15> pile of crap. women in the US are incentivized to divorce. In all cases they get primary custody of the children even if they have drug issues and walk away with substantial income. 80% of divorces in the US are initiated by the woman. This leaves men impoverished and unable to interract with their own children. The state treats them like money generators and that's it.

[http://www.uplifting-love.com/2013/08/80-percent-of- divorces...](http://www.uplifting-love.com/2013/08/80-percent-of-divorces-are- filed-by.html)

i don't agree with the above article, just posted it as the very wide evidence of women throwing away the marriage contract.

<comment><USER16> "In all cases they get primary custody of the children even if they have drug issues and walk away with substantial income"

Whoa. That is ABSOLUTELY not true.

"80% of divorces in the US are initiated by the woman."

20% percent (but probably much more) of marriages involve women being domestic abused by their husbands.

Why should a woman stay in an unhappy or abusive relationship?

Your comment is pretty out of line, man.

<comment><USER12> The overall violent crime rate is 0.4%. It sounds unbelievable that wives are 50 times more likely to be victims of violence than the general population.

Even in prisons, the violent crime rate is only 4%

<comment><USER17> For almost any category of violent crime or abuse, the statistics are clear that it is more common between people who know each other (family, spouse, lover, friend, coach, teacher) than between strangers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Ahh.. the unintended consequences of central planning.

<comment><USER17> I think it remains to be shown whether these consequences were unintended. The point of the one-child policy was to limit population growth. A gender imbalance which leads to women being more independent and marrying later advances that goal very well.

<comment><USER19> Furthermore, the number of females determines the size of the next generation to a far greater extent than the number of males. Or at least that's the way it works for most mammals.

All they really need now is some way to get rid of their least-fit excess males, so they don't get all angry and rebellious on them. What the central planners really need now is some sort of grand, state-funded enterprise wherein a few million young, unmarried men would get killed, without too much blame accruing to the state.

Now what sort of project could do that? I feel somehow that building up reef islands in the South China Sea might somehow be relevant, but I don't imagine that an oceanic construction crew would kill more than a dozen or so workers per year, and people would blame lax safety standards....

Hang on. I need to put my foil hat on....

Ah. Got it. They need to start a war with someone who is well-supplied with military technology, but not actually another superpower, or too closely allied with one, because that could quickly spiral out of control. Option 1 is China versus Malaysia-Vietnam-Philippines. Option 2 is China versus India. Option 3 is to cultivate an Uighur terrorist attack, and use that as pretext to invade Afghanistan, which has faithfully served as meat grinder for so many superpowers already.

Or maybe they could just use fluoride and phytoestrogens to make those males infertile, or use high-flying planes to spray chemtr--whoops, this hat needs to come off now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> 1.16 boys per girl? Down from 1.22? Wow. I knew there was an imbalance. I didn't realize it was quite so large.

It's really depressing that such an anachronistic notion (of carrying on your family's "name") is still so prevalent that it results in _tens of millions_ of abortions of unwanted girls.

My only hope is that 20 or 30 years from now when the children of this generation of Chinese are themselves looking to marry and have families that such misogyny has fallen by the wayside.

</comment><comment><USER6> Where USA stacks up to Materinity Leave compared to other countries.

1\. Sweden offers the most generous maternity leave policy, with 56 weeks paid at 80 percent of citizens' salary, and 13 additional weeks paid at a fixed rate thereafter.

2\. In some central European countries, the standard maternity leave is three years.

3\. Adoptive parents and same-sex parents get parental leave in the U.K., Canada, France, and yes, Sweden.

4\. There is still zero mandated maternity leave benefits in the U.S., although companies with over 50 employees are obligated to offer three months of unpaid time off under the Family and Medical Leave Act.

5\. This makes the U.S. one of only four countries in the world with no required paid maternity leave. The others are Liberia, Swaziland, and Papua New Guinea.

[http://www.payscale.com/career- news/2013/05/these-9-countrie...](http://www.payscale.com/career- news/2013/05/these-9-countries-have-the-worlds-best-maternity-leave-policies- infographic-)

</comment><comment><USER6> Japan is so screwed! By 2060 there population will be 50% of what it was and only 32 million people will be under 65 years old!

After peaking seven years ago, at 128 million, Japan's population has been falling — and is on a path to decline by about a million people a year. By 2060, the government estimates, there will be just 87 million people in Japan; nearly half of them will be over 65. Without a dramatic change in either the birthrate or its restrictive immigration policies, Japan simply won't have enough workers to support its retirees, and will enter a demographic death spiral. Yet the babies aren't coming.

[http://theweek.com/articles/453219/everything-need-know- abou...](http://theweek.com/articles/453219/everything-need-know-about-japans- population-crisis)

<comment><USER21> Japan is betting that automation means they don't need gazillions of workers to feed their old.

If they're right, they'd win so big compared to "us" that in fact the biggest obstacle they're facing might be that "we" won't allow them to win the bet.

<comment><USER22> However, if their bet fails and automation alone can't make up for the shortfall in the labor force, they stand to lose more compared to other countries like the US and those in Europe that do a better job of integrating immigrants into society and the workforce.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> One logical conclusion is that policy makers may decide that in order to cull the male population, war is needed.

</comment><comment><USER24> the real issues:

1\. more man than woman, about 50Million man will probably never have a wife. Really, either legalize prostitution, or somehow have a war, otherwise you will read more news about rape.

2\. the world is flat, woman are better educated and they do not want to marry a man that is inferior, they would rather stay unmarried if no good fit can be found, that further worsen the situation. low-class men are the real losers, in a large amount.

3\. people do get married do not want to have more than one baby due to various reasons listed by others here.

<comment><USER22> 1) That is a pretty dim and sexist view of men. You are implying that men who do not get married will be likely to resort to committing rape. I think a broad generalization like this should be backed up with statistics. It also distracts from marital rape, which is a frequent and often unreported form of rape.[0][1]

2) In China, sadly, there is still a gender imbalance in education. For example, the literacy rate is lower, on the whole, for women.[2] While a lot of attention is given to the demographic challenges facing men in China as a result of the one child policy, it is important to also recognize the challenges faced by women in China as well.

[0] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marital_rape#Prevalence](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marital_rape#Prevalence) [1] [http://www.ncdsv.org/images/nnfr_partnerviolence_a20-yearlit...](http://www.ncdsv.org/images/nnfr_partnerviolence_a20-yearliteraturereviewandsynthesis.pdf) [2] [https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world- factbook/...](https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world- factbook/geos/ch.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I'm curious how this seeming gender war will resolve. One way is that homosexual and asexual behavior will be accepted. Another is that men will decide to not prioritize marital relations. Finally, both genders could accept each other as equals and partners.

For the first, the supply of men will decrease. It might decrease enough to cause a more traditional relationship between the genders. The surviving heterosexual group will have more power since the demand is probably constant.

The second, is probably more how many picture the 1960s and 1970s in the US. Men getting the milk for free. In many ways if all you want is milk, so to speak, you get off quite well in the process. It is a selfish take on life, but oh well we'll all just matter anyway.

Third, this is the sanest approach. It allows the species to succeed. It also seems to make the major genetic predisposition of the species.

Only time will tell.

<comment><USER26> India has a similar gender imbalance for the same reasons- sons favored and selection technology. India seems to have a horrifying rape culture in some places. I dont know if its always been there or worsened by the gender imbalance.

<comment><USER25> That is a valid option that I didn't mention: actual gender war. A rape culture, to me, would fit that description.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> rm_-rf_slash I wonder if the irony has been lost on the young men in Silicon Valley reading this article and teasing central planning before they go back to the grind so that someday they too can impress the Bay Area's few women who still don't resent tech wealth from the view of their Lamborghini.

<comment><USER18> Where are these mythical women who resent wealth you speak of?

<comment> rm_-rf_slash A while back I could talk about working in tech with locals and it would drive good conversation. Recently when I brought up my work I was met with reactions of annoyance for being one of many newcomers pricing locals' favorite kindergarten teachers out of their homes of decades. I just don't get good vibes from locals in the Valley anymore, so I went back home to a college town with a far lower cost of living and plenty of new students coming in every year. Haven't looked back.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> This probably means there is a market for pickup artists who speak Chinese.

<comment><USER28> Or dating agencies for Chinese Men and overseas women, like the "Marry Russian Brides" ones you see on the web.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The article's description of women's power over men is reminiscent of Robert A. Heinlein's sci-fi novel _The Moon is a Harsh Mistress_ , in which Luna had many more single men than single women, with similar results.

</comment><comment><USER29> Is there any land in this world where the situation is reversed?

<comment><USER30> NYT had an interesting recent article "1.5 Million Missing Black Men", which discusses the socio-economic consequences in communities with a scarcity of men.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Sounds like Silicon Valley' similar gender imbalance.

</comment><comment><USER31> A lot of this is the result of historical policies and culture. It doesn't necessarily excuse poor behavior, but there's enough of that to go around on all sides that we eventually learn not to point fingers.

It is culturally expected of the man to take care of his parents and grandparents. It's a very gendered role, so a daughter might not accept that responsibility. Typically the son's loyalty is expected to go to his own parents, while the daughters loyalty would transfer to her husband's family. But sometimes when she got married her husband would accept responsibility for her parents as well. But that places a significant burden on the man. It wasn't that big of a deal with multiple children - you could split up the parents and grandparents. But with one child, you now have to hope that one can take care of six adults and a spouse. It's described as the 4-2-1 problem ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-child_policy#.22Four- two-o...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-child_policy#.22Four-two- one.22_problem)).

There was an article on modern Chinese women not wanting to support their parents that I encountered a while back (though I think it was older), but I'm having problems finding it. This might change, though, as new legislation surfaced recently making it a legal burden for _all_ children ([http://learningenglish.voanews.com/content/chinese-laws- requ...](http://learningenglish.voanews.com/content/chinese-laws-requires- adults-to-care-for-aging-parents-china-economy/1708639.html)). This should help alleviate a lot of retirement care concerns.

Some rural areas have policies where new children are greeted with extra land. This was returned to the government upon marriage for girls, while it stayed with the family for boys. Ostensibly this was to prevent the land from going to some city dweller. It's a policy littered with faulty assumptions, but that extra acre of land could be pretty tempting to a rural villager. ([http://research-china.blogspot.com/2005/10/why-girls-are- aba...](http://research-china.blogspot.com/2005/10/why-girls-are-abandoned-in- china.html)). Outdated ownership and inheritance policies are another cause for concern.

With the relaxing of the one-child policy, things got a lot better. ([http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/01/07/as- china-s-...](http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/01/07/as-china-s-one- child-policy-relaxes-girl-children-no-longer-stigmatized.html)) Note that some parents are aborting boys for girls, now. But we can see that a lot (but not all) of the parents concern over the gender of their child can come from government policies and wanting a place to live in their declining years. Let's not try to force our own paradigms and logic on other cultures just because it's convenient. I'm not Chinese, but I still get frustrated when people judge their worth without considering Chinese values and cultural expectations. It's a _lot_ more complex than an entire country hating women. Selfishness is a much more reasonable assumption. Assuming it's selfish to want your kids to take care of you when you took care of your parents and grandparents. I'd say it's more like perpetuating the cultural machine.

We've also completely ignored the historical relevance of China's bride price ([http://qz.com/92267/in-a-reversal-of-the-dowry-chinese- men-p...](http://qz.com/92267/in-a-reversal-of-the-dowry-chinese-men-pay-a- steep-price-for-their-brides/) and [http://www.npr.org/2013/04/23/176326713/for-chinese-women- ma...](http://www.npr.org/2013/04/23/176326713/for-chinese-women-marriage- depends-on-right-bride-price)). Surely the fact that it's been culturally expected to pay your wife's parents to be eligible for marriage has influence somewhere. Notably, a son (and thus continuing financial support) was still considered more desirable than a one-time payment. A daughter might make you rich, but a son would make sure you always had a place to live. Because if he didn't, society would make life very difficult for him.

Perhaps this would all be a bit better if parents weren't planning their children's lives (from their careers and educations down to their sex) based on their own wants and needs. But being old doesn't really make you wise.

</comment><comment><USER32> Ah, another anti-China propaganda piece based on American misconceptions about Chinese policy.

<comment><USER33> While there are absolutely tons of anti-Chinese US pieces written, I'd be interested to hear what misconceptions the US has about China's policy (I'm guessing the one child policy)?

From the raw data I've seen in recent years there is just under a 4% "shortfall" in girls Vs. boys within China.

<comment><USER32> Most Americans believe the "one child policy" limits families to one child. Then they extrapolate conclusions based on how they imagine that might be enforced. It's like someone thinking the American "Affordable Healthcare act" made healthcare in America affordable. And then they guess "oh, that law probably limited how much hospitals and doctors could charge or something". "So that probably made it harder for hospitals to make money, right? I don't care enough to find out whether that's true, but it makes sense." "Hey, an article about a healthcare merger in the US. I'll comment on it since I know all about why this is happening."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Overall, this would appear to be a good thing.

<comment><USER34> Let me see : baby girls are being killed, lots of men will never marry and women become spoiled brats that choose their husbands only for their riches ... we must have a really different notion of "a good thing".

<comment><USER14> Abortion isn't murder.

Women empowered to leave abusive, philandering husbands.

Women no longer pressured to marry young in order to survive, can focus on careers.

As far as whether women choose husbands only for their riches, I tend not to draw too many generalizations based on a sample of 2 in 750 million.

However, men and women in an egalitarian society tend to choose partners they view as having achieved comparable success socially, economically, and academically.

<comment><USER35> >Abortion isn't murder

Always struck me as a very Orwellian slogan.

<comment><USER36> It's not though. A fetus is not a person, and the act is not unlawful. So abortion is logically not murder, and therefore no doublethink is involved.

<comment><USER37> There was a time the same reasoning worked for slaves.

edit:

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

"If any slave resists his master...correcting such a slave, and shall happen to be killed in such correction...the master shall be free of all punishment...as if such accident never happened."

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

... a master could be held criminally liable for killing a slave only if the slave he killed was "completely submissive and under the master's absolute control."

So, effectively, slaves were considered chattel, and legally dispatched if not submissive to the will of the owner. Much like a cow, not like a person. This historical fact is not really at question.

<comment><USER36> Not true, it was never legal to kill slaves (in the US anyway).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> For anyone who made a lot of money on Bitcoin during the runup (which was largely powered by Chinese buying and the Chinese "saving" mentality mentioned in this article)... you have the Chinese one-child policy to thank for your Teslas</comment>


What will happen when an ant falls from the Empire State Building - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/tldr/2016/6/15/11936802/ant-dropped-from-empire-state-building-science-experiment-mystery-solved <comment><USER2> Much more fun exploration of the same topic (includes throwing ants from airplanes) by Kurzgesagt: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7KSfjv4Oq0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7KSfjv4Oq0).

<comment><USER3> Thanks for that! I got carried away and sank an hour watching stuff.

Totally off topic - My favourite was 'Optimistic Nihilism' \- [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBRqu0YOH14](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBRqu0YOH14)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Whenever I remove ants from the kitchen, I grab them gently between my fingers, to keep them from escaping. Otherwise, they will often jump out of my hands.

I'm sure that 5 feet is long enough to reach ant terminal velocity. So clearly ants know that falling 5 feet, or 1000 feet, is no big deal.

<comment><USER5> I think they just know that getting away from the monstrous predator is better than getting eaten by it, and so they escape without regard to the size of the leap. If you did the same experiment with your hand held out over the ocean, I'm sure they'd make the same leap, only to drown in the water.

<comment><USER6> I wish our ants were like yours. If I clean up a bunch of them there are likely to be a few that ran onto my hand keep running around my hand. Easiest way is to wash them off. I've never had an ant choose to jump from me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I didnt know that below a certain size, gravity won't kill you.

The idea a mouse can survive a fall into a thousand foot mineshaft is quite wonderful.

<comment><USER8> For cats it's better to fall off a higher floor than a lower one because they have more time to turn feet down and increase their air drag thus getting under the terminal velocity and allow them to survive the fall.

For humans a jump from the third floor is where safe ticket to afterlife start, though head first will end it just as fine from the second or even first floor.

<comment><USER9> > For cats it's better to fall off a higher floor than a lower one because > they have more time to turn feet down and increase their air drag thus > getting under the terminal velocity and allow them to survive the fall.

True, and there's been at least one, probably many, actual study done that came to that conclusion.

Small nitpick (I'm sorry, I couldn't stop myself!), their action doesn't get them "under the terminal velocity," it lowers what their terminal velocity is. It's just the speed at which the wind resistance is enough to prevent further acceleration by gravity. It's terminal as in the end of something (acceleration), not terminal as in the predicted death of the something.

<comment><USER8> Thanks for the nitpicking, English isn't my native tongue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If air pressure was a factor then you would see tons of dead ants littering elevator floors.

<comment><USER11> I'm glad we live in a reality where this isn't the case

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I don't think the final paragraph on why it wouldn't pop is a compelling argument. While I don't actually think the ant would explode - saying some ants live on mountains is not an argument against it. The explosion would occur from the change in pressure, not the absolute pressure.

The real reason is that the small size of an ant makes an effective pressure vessel and the differential is simply not very high. Some species of spiders which actually operate their legs pneumatically are known to fly across oceans high in the air with their silk as a sail.

[1] [https://www.cnn.com/2015/07/04/europe/spiders-sail-fly- ballo...](https://www.cnn.com/2015/07/04/europe/spiders-sail-fly- balloon/index.html)

</comment><comment><USER13> TL;DR – article is just click fodder. Ants have a safe terminal velocity and probably won't pop in the elevator on the way up from pressure changes, but no experiments were performed.

<comment> bjelkeman-again Mu guess would have been that it would have ended up in the water swept away by the winds, on a windy day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> What's the point of adding such a massive cookie bar, supposedly for the GDRP, if there's no way to say no? If they don't need/want to be compliant, why have it at all?

<comment><USER15> Funny, 5 minutes ago I've made this exact call in our website: remove the reject button.

Unfortunately, and for the time being, we are not able to give users an alternative, no-cookie version of our website. And we didn't have a good place to send them to when Reject was clicked. history.back() appeared to be the best option but unreliable. So we first replaced it with the legalese equivalent of "close the tab/leave if you don't agree" but it looks like even that is assumed to be implicitly understood by the visitor, so TBH I'm not sure what's the best compromise between usability and compliance.

<comment><USER16> Unfortunately I don't think "accept tracking or don't use the site" is in compliance with GDPR. There's some specific language in there about the site needing to be useable even if users don't give permissions to anything that's not 100% necessary for site functionality.</comment></comment></comment>


How to interview a technical co-founder - <AUTHOR> http://chrisloy.net/2017/11/19/how-to-interview-a-technical-cofounder <comment><USER2> I've got a problem with mixing 'co-founder' and 'hiring' terms: to me they look mutually exclusive. If you're searching for someone for 'co-founding' your startup, then you're asking for a partner. If you're trying to 'hire' someone, then you're asking for an employee. Partners are not to be interviewed, at least not with a 'coding test'.

Think of the reversed situation: you're a 'business guy' (whatever that means), and a 'technical co-founder' is asking you to join the founding team on the business side, but first he's asking you to prove your business skills by tossing an Excel sheets and saying 'please find the formula errors'? What will you think of him?

<comment><USER3> So how do you find a business partner? It sounds like you're suggesting that you need to already have been personally close to and trusting of your partner for a long time, or perhaps find a partner based on recommendations from very close and trusted friends or colleagues. That's probably how it happens most of the time. Is that the only viable way to choose a partner?

<comment><USER4> Go with recommendations, seek them out personally, or just take the person most willing to partner with you and use your gut feeling in how they interact with you.

There is no "easy mode" in finding a partner. You will have to take some risk here as well.

<comment><USER5> > use your gut feeling in how they interact with you.

The problem here is that intuition (gut feeling) is best trained in environments where you have:

1) The opportunity for lots of repeated trials.

2) Rapid feedback which results from the data you currently observe rather than from

So if you're predicting tomorrow's weather, intuition is useful: your prediction can't change the weather, you can do this 365 times in a year, and you'll get feedback the next day.

Picking a founder (or heck, uni project partner) is unlike this in that you _don 't_ have many opportunities to do it and the feedback only comes months later. So, its better to think through a more deliberative and explicit thought process.

That deliberative process might involve a difficult, awkward conversation like "Hey, so if we jump into this, we are going to have to really trust each other for a lot of things. I think its best if we explicitly come up with ways to prove to ourselves and each other that we have the skills to tackle the _known_ challenges we're going to have to face."

I don't know where "easy mode" comes into it at all.

<comment><USER6> > The problem here is that intuition (gut feeling) is best trained...

You have had an entire lifetime of trial and feedback in understanding the character, talents, and ambitions of other people. If you don't have that, or if you can't trust it, you probably should not be a founder yet. Wait until you actually have those skills because they're critical for everything else in running a business.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I agree with all of this (caveat, downplay the "interviewing" angle a bit), and let me add some more things I found helpful in my recent cofounder search:

\- the most important thing for an early stage startup is that they can validate. That means building incomplete and imperfect prototypes quickly and repeatedly. "Getting the architecture right", "clean code", etc, are usually the wrong skills for a super-early-stage startup, and your CTO shouldn't prioritize them.

\- more important is that you get on well with the cofounder. You're going to be working together for a long time. Make sure your personalities mesh, that you can spend a large amount of time together, and that you can discuss/argue constructively.

\- Having the same values and goals for the company are paramount. When finding a cofounder recently, I wrote a questionnaire with 40 open-ended "values" questions for cofounders to answer (and then I sent them my answers). It was very apparent when I met someone with values overlap and when I didn't.

Ended up with a great cofounder, have been working together for 6 months now: [http://ellenandpaulsnewstartup.com](http://ellenandpaulsnewstartup.com)

</comment><comment><USER8> As an experienced developer, who spent the summer exploring options after my last company was sold, I had many approaches from non-technical founders. Most of them completely skipped vetting me, and just were hungry for someone who could code. One I worked with part-time for a few months, with the explicit agreement that it was a test run on small projects to decide if we wanted to move forward together. The last one did interview me, and ended up being my #1 choice to work with because, aside from agreement on the product and how we'd build it, she was clearly thinking about the bigger picture, not just trying to find a coder. (Although the market drove me to take a different full-time job instead, anyway.)

All that to say, another criteria is that if your potential co-founder is too easy to convince to join you, that is a red flag - a good potential founder will have many options on the table. If you are their only option, there is a reason for it, and you should walk away.

<comment><USER9> > Most of them completely skipped vetting me, and just were hungry for someone > who could code.

How did these people find you?

I am ready to quit my stable job and do something fun for a while. Where do you I find people in the same boat.

<comment><USER8> Networking. All of my consulting contracts came from people I already knew, who either hired me directly or introduced me to someone who needed help. And those contacts and clients then introduced me to other people who were looking to found something new. FYI, I found zero value in meetups or other networking events, because the people who are working hard on good ideas are too busy (in general) to attend such things.

<comment><USER10> What was the source of your network, if I may ask? Old college friends? Church? Co-workers?

<comment><USER8> One contract came from a partner of a business I used to code for. The rest were just asking around town, in particular with people who worked in marketing - they knew who needed help growing their business, and would pair me up with business owners who had specific tech problems to solve.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I guess this is a terminology question: If you already have founded a company, how can you be looking for a co-founder? Isn't it already founded?

As a technical person and potential co-founder, I would be very wary of the "Company with non-technical founders looking to get their product built" scenario. First, it looks like they're looking for an employee, not a founder (see above) and second, I would want to vet that product idea front-to-back in terms of technical feasibility and schedule.

<comment><USER12> The "founder" title carries prestiege, which can fool some folks into thinking they are really founders. The important part, if you really want to be a cofounder in more than title, is to make sure you have equal share and control with all other cofounders. Otherwise you are indeed just an employee (which can be fine as well if you are satisfied with it).

<comment><USER13> Doesn't have to be equal. Had to be substantial (depends on stage of joining and how much derisking has been done)

<comment><USER12> To me that's an employee with substantial power, but mostly it's a semantic disctinction which goes to my original point. It does get a little fuzzy when you have enough share to "not get fired".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The opinion of your trusted friend or acquaintance is often just as illusory as your ability to judge for yourself. After all, you aren't subjecting your buddy to the same rigor you would a candidate, and you are just as incapable of judging their actual ability as the candidate's. You may trust your friend to give you good feedback, but if your friend is inexperienced or in a completely different technical domain (therefore lacking context), their opinion can even be counterproductive.

And how are you selecting your friend? How many tech people do you really know? Surely not that many if you're non-technical and interviewing for the position instead of partnering with one of them.

Time and again I see founders choose poor technical cofounders. Often it's enough to get the business off the ground, but then as the company grows they fail to grow with it. Now they're a CTO without the ability to handle strategy or manage people.

The sub-optimal recourse in these cases is often to hire a VPE to manage people while the CTO acts like the principal engineer. Now the VP reports to a CTO who is incapable of doing that job and (privately) insecure about it.

Basically I'm saying a non-technical founder selecting a technical cofounder is a crapshoot and people don't answer enough uncomfortable questions up front. Management skills (or at least aptitude) should be part of the selection criteria. There should be a discussion up front about how the position will evolve over time, and what the success criteria are at each stage, and what happens if those aren't met (mentoring, career counseling, step into new role with reduced title)? And the same conversation should happen in reverse, from the CTO to the CEO.

</comment><comment><USER15> My advice: Ignore all points except the last one. I've seen a lot of startups trying to hire a technical co-founder on their own, even following advice similar to point 1-5, but still ending up with a co-founder that was a bad technical fit ~80% of the time. With the involvement of a technical person in the interview process, usually either referring the candidate or having an additional technical interview with them, that figure drops down to ~20%.

<comment><USER16> Honestly, even that's a crapshoot. In fact this article presumes that it should be an interview, when it should really be a conversation.

If a non-technical founder wanted to "interview" me, I'd tell them to shove it. If they wanted to have a conversation about how we could bring our complementary skills together to solve a problem, then I'd certainly be much more interested.

<comment><USER15> I mostly agree. A co-founder interview should be more of a conversation rather than a traditional "company vs. employee" interview. Nevertheless, if it is already a running project, there is an imbalance of trust and skin in the game, similar to a job interview. So going through a technical screening can be a very easy way for the candidate to close that trust gap.

Also, the popular perception between technical co-founder and early employee- CTO is very blurry (unless you go by virtual vs. real shares). Some people will call a CTO that joined 3 months into the project and holds 10% virtual shares a co-founder and some people won't. Same goes for "technical co- founder" vs. "early CTO" interviews.

<comment><USER17> If you're joining 3 months into what's often a 7+-year mission (where if you're successful you'll be underpaid for a long-time and make your money on stock) and you expect a 90-10 distribution of shares you better be getting something like a salary (co-founder in name only). These kind of distributions are part of why yCombinator discourages unequal co-founder distributions. You're asking for the company to implode over co-founder issues if you think your 3 months at the start is worth a 90-10 distribution in shares especially when as a non-technical founder hiring a technical co-founder the technical co-founder generally has bigger opportunity costs financially.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Looking for anyone who is an expert in a domain your not familiar with is difficult. Especially a co-founder, as your success together will depend maybe more on dedication & your relationship VS technical ability.

At a minimum, look for someone who:

\- Has the ability to explain something complex from their area in terms you understand.

\- Is not afraid to question or disagree with you, but does so in a way that doesn't make you feel bad.

\- Is looking for a challenge and is genuinely interested in what your doing

\- Displays a history of non-conformity, thick-headedness in some way.

\- Really thinks/codes in terms of minimal viable product

\- Who you get along well with!

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Wow, I thought this one had just disappeared into the void. Glad to see I got people's attention and provoked debate, even if it seems much of it disagrees with my underlying assumptions.

For what it's worth, one thing I don't cover in the article is whether this is a good idea in the first place. It obviously isn't ideal, and as I say it is a difficult situation to be in. From my perspective, I think a non-technical founder is obviously better looking for a trusted former colleague or friend to join as CTO. Proven mutual history is the best thing you can lean on here.

But if this isn't possible, I would definitely espouse an interview process - however formal you prefer that to be. My post is therefore really intended as a how-to guide for someone in this awkward spot, looking to identify the skills and experience for technical leadership without the background to do so.

Of course other soft skills and fit are just as important. But any decent founder will need to identify those in all people joining the founding team. This is just intended as a step-by-step guide for those specific skills needed for a technical co-founder or CTO. I hope it is helpful for someone!

</comment><comment><USER19> If you are going to build a company, not a team of 2, the core skill of CTO is to ability to hire talented technical people to the correct positions. This is hard. Most people can't do this well.

Most of the early stage teams are better off to avoid using C-titles and talk this through from the get-go. The founders and first employees might be great builders, but not necessarily great CTOs when you start to grow the team.

<comment><USER20> That probably goes for the non-technical founder as well right? I.e. bring in someone more experienced to grow the business once the founders proves the market exists.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I think the reliance on open source work is too heavy. Plenty of amazing engineers have done work at organizations serving millions of customers but have not made contributions to open source. A portfolio is mentioned but is at the bottom of the list of importance, and even noted as such. The author mentions company blogs. At decent sized organizations these could be written by the marketing departments, little regard to the engineers.

<comment><USER22> Open source contributions shouldn't be a deciding factor as I've seen a few very active open source devs unable to do the commercial work on the proper level. On the other hand, lack of open source meaningful activity is a red flag.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Skipping over what others have pointed out - you don't interview a co-founder.

a) ensure this is someone you are going to get along with b) get someone else to assess their technical competence - you can't assess it and the guidelines you provide won't work reliably.

</comment><comment><USER24> I would suggest people double down on point 6, "Find someone to help". If you don't have anybody in your network, pay somebody.

Why? Well, there are two abilities that are only partly correlated: coding and talking about coding. A non-technical founder can only ever evaluate the talking part. My approach to interviewing involves both chatting and pair programming. A surprising number of people are pretty good talkers and pretty terrible doers. Indeed, some of the best talkers are the worst doers, because they've had to become extremely good at talking to keep getting hired.

(As an aside, some of the best coders are pretty bad talkers, but those are not the people you want for a tech cofounder.)

So please, non-tech founders, borrow or hire an expert. There are plenty of people who sell their time by the hour, including former tech leads and tech founders. Like accounting or lawyering, interviewing programmers is a skill not easily acquired. When you need it, it's worth paying for.

</comment><comment><USER25> nice article, though:

> A non-technical founder interviewing a technical one is akin to a brain > surgeon hiring a rocket scientist. Forgive the self-aggrandisement!

It's not _self-aggrandisement_ but lacks acknowledgement that it's equally complex the other way around. As engineers we tend to think no aspect is more important than the product we build. Yet without the right person to understand financial growth (and the patience to carry us along despite our lack of understanding), it's going to be rough! (not just finance, but sales, marketing, even legal depending on the field).

<comment><AUTHOR> That was my intended point (I'm a CTO at a startup).

I consider myself a decent rocket scientist (CTO) but would make a terrible brain surgeon (CEO) ;-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> It'd be interesting to find some successful CTOs (e.g. people who built up a company from the ground up to a successful exit) and ask them how they'd want to be interviewed for their job.

</comment><comment><USER27> This is great advice. Any decent CTO will immediately be put off by this kind of interview for a "co-founder" and be spared working with someone who doesn't know his circle of competence.

</comment><comment><USER28> didn't realise you could hire a 'co-founder' suspect it means subordinate who is paid in share options

</comment><comment><USER29> How things really work: Non-technical founder tells potential technical co- founder his great idea. Technical "co-founder" goes and creates Facebook/SnapChat on their own ;)

</comment><comment><USER30> For finding a technical co-founder, I think this is more like it:

Imagine you are looking for someone to marry and to cook for you. You will have to get along with them for years. You will need to share intimate secrets with them. The main thing that is really different is that you will not be having sex with them (although from what I hear that is not actually very different from most marriages).

The other thing is that instead of cooking food, they are doing engineering research. Pretty much all software projects are complex research projects. Now, imagine if the woman you married were a bad cook. You could always go out for takeout after dinner lots of the time. But say your entire business was built on making sure that her eggplant soufflé or whatever was 100% on point. If it doesn't taste good, it just crashes and you can't make money. But this is not eggplant soufflé its a completely new dish you need her to invent as a master chef. Only its more complicated than that. It has a thousand moving parts. Its sort of like they are inventing a new type of space ship for you.

So anyway, I would try to do smaller test projects or subprojects with people first and be very careful making a selection of a partner. Ideally it would take several months or a few years, checking out multiple people.

Also be aware that about 50% of all marriages end in divorce.

<comment><USER3> Finding a spouse or long-term romantic partner certainly seems like an apt analogy, but I wonder if the analogy really holds for any specifics beyond the empirical observation that a significant percentage of both marriages and businesses "fail." I put that in quotation marks, because I'm not convinced that the "success" criteria for either are well-defined. The standard view for marriages seems to be that any marriage that ends before one partner dies was a failure, but I don't see why a separation or divorce necessarily implies that there wasn't a net benefit for both partners. Likewise, if a business eventually ceases to exist, I don't think that necessarily implies that the founders didn't benefit on net (even if there was no obvious benefit, like a payout). I claim this even though I realize that both "failures" must usually cause considerable pain and/or hardship for all participants for some amount of time.</comment></comment>


Gnome: Staring into the abyss - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.gnome.org/otte/2012/07/27/staring-into-the-abyss/ <comment><USER2> 1\. As the author says toward the end of the article, I think the biggest problem with Gnome nowadays is that only a small number of people actually use it on a day-to-day basis. Popular distros like Ubuntu and Mint have shifted away from it. No matter what merits Gnome 3 might have, it was such a flop in its first few releases that it has the Windows Vista stigma attached to it. Of course, there's GTK and several Gnome apps that people do use on a daily basis. But for many people, Gnome itself is decidedly uncool. No wonder they don't want to contribute to it.

2\. If Gnome really wants to win back the hearts of potential contributors (i.e. power users), they'd better make programs that appeal to that demographic. People who have the skill and motivation to make significant contributions to a free software project often want a lot of room for configuration, including the option to use the desktop in a traditional manner. Taking away those little checkboxes and toolbar buttons is like slamming the door on power users. You might win a billion non-technical users, but none of them will ever submit a single patch.

3\. Gnome is too big for its own good. Why does a desktop environment project need to maintain a complete stack of apps and libraries, from GTK to Gnome Shell to a text editor to a bundle of games to a web browser to an email client to a media player to a full-blown spreadsheet app? Why can't they just tell people to get a third-party browser? They should spin off the rest and focus on GTK, the Shell, and a small number of essential utilities. If Epiphany or Gnumeric died a slow and lonely death, how many people would really care? Heck, if you don't have the manpower to maintain anything else, just give me GTK so I can install xfce or lxde on top of it. It's really just Firefox and LibreOffice and VLC that I want, and I don't need Gnome to run them.

Edit: some rephrasing.

<comment><USER3> > _Taking away those little checkboxes and toolbar buttons is like slamming > the door on power users. You might win a billion non-technical users, but > none of them will ever submit a single patch._

An experienced developer should be mature enough to know that he and his kind should not be the target audience of his product. And putting in all those little checkboxes makes a product a horrible experience for the rest of the world.

<comment><USER4> If you pay me, I will work selflessly for the masses. I will implement features I don't need, I will fix bugs I don't care about and I will write documentation for features I already know in and out.

If you don't pay me, I will still contribute, but then I will work only to scratch my own itch. I will implement features, but only those I want to have myself; I will fix bugs, but only those that annoy me personally; I will write some documentation, sometimes.

If you don't pay me, and your project goals make it impossible for me to scratch my itch, then I will not contribute to it.

<comment><USER3> If this is the attitude of all community developers then free software UI will never become successful.

<comment><USER5> This is exactly what shapes the areas of success for OSS. It's glaringly obvious looking back, that success perfectly matches the motivation of contributors in different areas.

And that said, it doesn't need to be so difficult to include all these pesky checkboxes in a way that they don't confuse or hinder usability for n00bish users. This used to work for Gnome 2. Never met anyone who thought Gnome 2 was too hard or counter-intuitive, they were just more or less used to it. Windows XP and Windows 7 have a lot more checkboxes if you look for them.

<comment><USER6> Sorry, gnome 2 was hardly 'easy', which is the bar that modern, commercial window managers are setting. 'Not hard' and 'not counter-intuitive' doesn't cut it any more for the bulk of users, who are less savvy than previously.

If there's one thing that Apple and even Microsoft are showing with their window manager and widgets, its that simpler is better, and we've been missing that all these years.

<comment><USER7> I had to walk my 80 year stepfather through an OSX install yesterday. He would definitely have failed if I hadn't been there (he still got stuck for five minutes on the gesture screen (or whatever it was), which neither us really got). He's used Macs for years - without being a power user of course. I _don't_ think Mac _are_ getting easier. They're getting harder to use but more "impressive", more filled with theater. And sure that's the "bar" that modern OSes are "setting". If open source follows in those steps, it certainly will be lost (and it's stumble a few steps down that well already).

Whether you call Gnome 2 hard or easy, it's main problem was that it's configuration apps and menus were confusingly organized. If the incremental improvements Ubuntu was making could have continued a few more years, things might have been great. The decision to create "Gnome shell" probably forced Canonical's hand but Unity also seems terrible to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is really sad if it's true. I'm probably in the minority, but I think GNOME 3 (even without extensions) is the best Linux desktop at the moment. It does seem strange when you look at it at first, but once you use it for a week or so and use anything different (even GNOME 2 which I'd used for years), you feel stifled in a way. It's hard to put into words, it just feels like it's out of your way.

Anecdote: I work at a small actuarial firm that uses Linux desktops, and when I migrated everyone (ten people) over to Ubuntu 12.04, they all loved GNOME 3.

<comment><USER9> I have mac user walking around in the office and asking me what kind of a desktop environment is it, being genuinely (positively) surprised that it is actually GNOME desktop on Linux. Well. And I have other Linux desktop users (like Xfce or something even more 'geeky', even TWM) that are genuinely surprise that I can just plug in another display and have it work without touching the command line (not that I can't use CLI xrandr, but why would I).

<comment><USER10> > that are genuinely surprise that I can just plug in another display and have > it work without touching the command line

I use XFCE on my low end/old laptops. I don't need to touch the commandline either nor did I a few (1-3) years ago.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> as one of the two people mentioned by name in Benjamin's blog post, I'd like to point out that I didn't "leave GNOME" (to work on other stuff).

I am still involved in the community, I am a director of the foundation's board, and I'm still working on Gnome projects in my spare time - which is actually easier these days since I moved from intel to mozilla.

I'm typing this from GUADEC 2012, in A Coruña; the conference is absolutely delightful, there's a lot of talks about direction and future involvement, and everyone here is really excited about moving Gnome forward, as well as regaining the enthusiasts market.

not everything is bleak and bad.

<comment><USER12> I'd love to hear how you think you're going to regain the enthusiasts' market. Care to say more? In particular, which enthusiasts? The ones who have already (like me) switched to Xfce? Or some other set of enthusiasts? Defining your market is important; if GNOME is going to continue to have a severe case of Mac-envy, I doubt you'll be able to also get back the enthusiasts --- and I don't think GNOME has enough developers to be able to complete head-to-head with Apple.

<comment><USER11> "enthusiasts" are not just "computer enthusiasts"; I want to excite users and make them care about Gnome - and I want to get excited, interested users, to contribute back to the community by making it dead easy to do so: create interesting apps, create documentation, create content, organize and attend events. in Gnome we have amazing outreach programs that give us new contributors every year - and most of them stick around, because we're a cool (even if sometimes too much introspective) community, where people care about people first, and software second.

I don't see Gnome as suffering from "Mac-envy" - mostly because everyone envies Apple's profits and margins, if not their user share; I mean, who wouldn't envy Apple. we don't have the resources to do multi-year usability studies involving tons of people; and we still lack the tools like Telemetry to get (consensual) user feedback. so we need to take inspiration in our designs and plans from stuff that others are doing, as well as doing our own thing. I mean, the GNOME 3 shell overview is basically Mission Control from Lion - but we designed it in 2008, well before Lion screenshots were released or leaked to the press; who copied who? ;-)

competing with Apple is also a false goal; we want to keep the keep the users free, as well as providing them tools and an environment that allows them to achieve their goals in a simple and delightful way. that will put us up against Apple, and Microsoft, and Samsung, and basically everyone. it never stopped us for the past 15 years, I don't think it will stop us now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm afraid everything desktop Linux, and by extension Gnome, just lost a lot of momentum by developers moving to Apple + web development. Nowadays most focus on open source front seem to be on lower level projects (languages, libraries, servers). FOSS focused on final-user applications remains a niche for academia and developer-centric tools, little has changed compared to what used to be available in the 2000's.

<comment><USER14> I've noticed this over the years when reading developer blogs via sites like Planet GNOME.

In the first half of the last decade, there seemed to be highly motivated, talented groups of contributors who helped build and maintain momentum in many popular open source projects like Gnome. I'm not saying there aren't top notch developers still working on FOSS, but many of those big-name 'rockstar' contributors seem to have either been lured to a competing/alternative platform, or just simply lost interest.

I often wonder if age plays an important role, with many former wide-eyed, young, idealistic developers possibly adopting an attitude along the lines of "meh. Maybe I should just buy a Mac and worry less about ideals and philosophies" as they get older and priorities change.

<comment><USER15> > but many of those big-name 'rockstar' contributors seem to have either been > lured to a competing/alternative platform

Many have been hired by companies, e.g. Nokia, and now don't want to work for free again.

<comment><USER16> This, in a Capitalist society where housing and cost of living so high, why would you want to work for free if you can work for money?

Now if we live in a Resource Based Economy, then that is possible, but until then, money is king.

<comment><USER17> I think you're mixing up things.

I contribute to GNOME, and that is not "working for free". It means having a fun hobby. If I'd get money for it, it would no longer be a hobby, but work. I did hear some people say that their hobby is the same as their work. IMO, work is more restricted (try doing nothing at all for 3 months with your hobby, then repeat for your work).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> One more anecdote for you... I'd been a content (if not exactly thrilled) user of Gnome for a decade or so. Then, I bought a new laptop, which prompted me to install Fedora 15, which was my first exposure to Gnome3, as my old laptop was running a really old Fedora version which had Gnome2.

So... after 2-3 hours of Gnome3, I had had more than enough to prompt me to bite the bullet and switch to KDE. There is nothing good I can say about Gnome3... trying to use it was painful in about every way I could imagine. Nothing works the way I expect, and nothing was intuitive at all.

KDE, on the other hand, has been a pleasant surprise. I'd dabbled with it 10+ years ago, but never made the permanent switch... and given that they had gone through their own "change everything and piss off all the users" thing a while back, I wasn't sure what to expect. But after using it a couple of days, I couldn't be happier. It took a few minutes to figure out some of the new approaches they've adopted but - by and large - a little trail and error, some exploration, and intuition, and I was back to productive work almost immediately.

I have no hard feelings towards the Gnome team or anything, but they're just trying to go in a direction that I'm not interested in. Best of luck to Gnome, but KDE is a clearly superior choice for me right now, and I'm thrilled to have made the switch.

<comment><USER19> I had a similar experience, where I found that none of my computers, neither my six year old laptop, nor my one year old laptop (!) could support GNOME 3, which has essentially prevented me from upgrading my fedora from 14. Since Fedora is currently on version 17, this makes me sad, and ruminating about which OS to jump ship to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Gnome 3 shattered the experience and momentum.

While Gnome 2 was gradually approaching ultimate goodness with its essential configurability (not too many knobs but an explicit set of gconf properties that you could tune if you wanted to), consistency, ease of use, and ten years of GTK2 providing a platform for applications that look and behave uniformly, it was certainly lacking in the integration side (networking, messaging, etc.) for which Gnome 3 is a response.

However, Gnome 3 broke so many little things that it doesn't matter what the new features do. This is one of the cases where Microsoft has been right: when you're big enough, don't muck with backwards-compatibility.

<comment><USER21> Gnome 2 was continuing to slavishly emulate Windows 98, right down to the opaque registry. But I guess that's what more users wanted, so Linux is doomed to stay the same forever as everything else innovates and overtakes it.

<comment><USER22> I want my desktop to look like, but not be Windows 98. I don't like the MS registry, or anything else MS for that matter, Debian With a desktop environment that enforces the desktop metaphor is a sensible alternative...

It would not be that easy to write a long email, let alone an article on a tablet or tablet-like computer interface.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> The key problem with Gnome 3 is that it wants to be both general-purpose and opinionated.

Gnome 2 was an excellent basis for a desktop because there were so many ways it could be used. It didn't limit you; you were free to trim out things you didn't want, or add things you wanted. Aside from that, it got out of the way.

Gnome 3 aims for the same demographic, but tries to force too many opinionated decisions on its users from the start. Distros that care about branding hate that because it makes it hard for them to differentiate (see Ubuntu). Many users hate that because it's too many things that they can't change without learning a new Javascript platform. It's certainly fair to say that typical Linux users (their target market, whether they like it or not) aren't used to that.

This post is wrong to blame tablets and smartphones for the decline. Linux users aren't abandoning desktops; they're abandoning Gnome 3, because it isn't giving them what they want. It's that simple.

</comment><comment><USER24> I'm fascinated that all the real innovation going on in desktop environments (gnome3, unity, windows 8) seems to be taking a hammering. This is possibly just a case of the vocal minority and normal resistance to change but it will be interesting to see it all shake out in a year or two.

In my view Gnome should try to emulate the android model. Build the whole stack up to the widget level (they are really good at this) and then publish a couple of apps and an app store.

<comment><USER25> > I'm fascinated that all the real innovation going on in desktop environments > (gnome3, unity, windows 8) seems to be taking a hammering.

Envy-driven development is not a good model. Desktop environments do not need tablet features in the first place...

> This is possibly just a case of the vocal minority and normal resistance to > change but it will be interesting to see it all shake out in a year or two.

Or the opposite can be true - a powerful minority (project/company leaders), envious of other companies' success on tablets, decided to spend a lot of resources to try to enter this space, to the detriment of the majority of their (desktop) users.

<comment><USER24> All projects and companies need a vision and clearly for a lot of designers, developers and product managers this vision is more integrated simpler to use, touch enabled devices. Part my comment was to say it is not yet clear that this is the right long term solution but its not like there are any compelling alternatives.

Microsoft is not entering the space because of envy(?!?) they are entering it because that is where they see the future of computing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> mike-cardwell This would have worried me back when Unity was crap a year or so ago. Now Unity is actually good, it doesn't matter if Gnome dies a slow death; we'll still have multiple good alternatives that are still being enhanced.

<comment><USER26> Unity is still crap. It might be suitable for a tablet or a phone, but it'll never fly on the desktop, for any but a tiny subset of users. In case you haven't noticed, most people hate it, and are delaying upgrades, installing Gnome or switching to Mint in droves.

One important function of the Start menu is discoverability of apps. If I want to see what junk I have installed, I can look through the menus to see what I have. With Unity you have to bring up the whatever and try typing search terms. If you don't know what you're searching for, it can be difficult -- and lots of times, you don't know the name of the application, because they have clever branded marketing names (Evolution, Firefox, GIMP, Inkscape, Shotwell, Chromium, etc.) which don't have their primary function ("image," "photo," "web," "email") as a substring.

Discoverability is particularly important for "control panel" type system administration applets, which are often vital to making your system function acceptably, and whose name, number, hierarchy, and division of functionality seem to mutate with every release.

Also, there are switching costs. The Unity interface is so foreign, I'd need several days -- possibly weeks -- to get as proficient with Unity as I am with Windows, Gnome 2 or Cinnamon. That's definitely a cost in time and frustration, and the benefits aren't clear.

Some features -- like the Mac-like "there's only one instance of each application" -- seem designed to cater to n00bs who need hand-holding because they don't understand the concept of multiple application instances, or the difference between launching an application and switching to an instance of that application.

I want multiple instances of certain applications -- terminals particularly -- and it's a major pain point with Unity. So not only do I have reduced productivity during the transition period, it seems like Unity is actually going to decrease my productivity once I do learn it, due to lack or hiding of core features.

Add to that the fact that Unity would crash regularly within the first hour of use when 11.10, the first Unity-only version of Ubuntu, was released.

I gave it a fair shot on two or three different occasions -- I think once when it was still called Ubuntu Netbook Remix, again when the beta was released, and finally with the official release of 11.10. (And a few incidental times when I've booted the Ubuntu CD for various reasons.)

In each case, within an hour of use I've concluded that Unity is a nightmare.

<comment> mike-cardwell > Unity is still crap. It might be suitable for a tablet or a phone, but it'll > never fly on the desktop, for any but a tiny subset of users. In case you > haven't noticed, most people hate it, and are delaying upgrades, installing > Gnome or switching to Mint in droves.

It works well on my laptop. Most people don't hate it. Those who tried earlier versions of it and hated it then (myself included) are pleasantly surprised when they give it another look.

> One important function of the Start menu is discoverability of apps. If I > want to see what junk I have installed, I can look through the menus to see > what I have. With Unity you have to bring up the whatever and try typing > search terms. If you don't know what you're searching for, it can be > difficult -- and lots of times, you don't know the name of the application, > because they have clever branded marketing names (Evolution, Firefox, GIMP, > Inkscape, Shotwell, Chromium, etc.) which don't have their primary function > ("image," "photo," "web," "email") as a substring.

This is hideously out of date. If I hit the windows key and type "image", then "gimp" and "inkscape" are in the list of choices. If I type "photo" I get "shotwell", "gimp" and "cheese". If I type "web", I get "firefox", "opera" and "chrome. "email" gives me "thunderbird".

> Also, there are switching costs. The Unity interface is so foreign, I'd need > several days -- possibly weeks -- to get as proficient with Unity as I am > with Windows, Gnome 2 or Cinnamon. That's definitely a cost in time and > frustration, and the benefits aren't clear.

This is an argument against "change", not an argument against "unity".

> Some features -- like the Mac-like "there's only one instance of each > application" -- seem designed to cater to n00bs who need hand-holding > because they don't understand the concept of multiple application instances, > or the difference between launching an application and switching to an > instance of that application. I want multiple instances of certain > applications -- terminals particularly -- and it's a major pain point with > Unity. So not only do I have reduced productivity during the transition > period, it seems like Unity is actually going to decrease my productivity > once I do learn it, due to lack or hiding of core features.

It takes hardly any time to get used to this change. Personally, my web browser, email client, terminal and text editor all support tabs, so I us ually only have one window per app anyway.

> Add to that the fact that Unity would crash regularly within the first hour > of use when 11.10, the first Unity-only version of Ubuntu, was released.

I'm not interested in older versions of Unity. I already said they were crap.

> I gave it a fair shot on two or three different occasions -- I think once > when it was still called Ubuntu Netbook Remix, again when the beta was > released, and finally with the official release of 11.10. (And a few > incidental times when I've booted the Ubuntu CD for various reasons.)

> In each case, within an hour of use I've concluded that Unity is a > nightmare.

So you're qualified to state that Unity _was_ a nightmare. Not that Unity _is_ a nightmare.

<comment><USER21> > Most people don't hate it. Those who tried earlier versions of it and hated > it then (myself included) are pleasantly surprised when they give it another > look.

I don't understand this, because I have used it off and on from the beginning and it really looks completely the same to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> RHEL 7 will be based on Fedora 18

<http://rhel7.net/news/98-rhel-7-roadmap>

which means we might see RHEL/CentOS/Scientific Linux/PUIAS users on Gnome 3.6

<http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/18>

Personally, I've worked out I spend little time actually _using_ the overall desktop GUI, so I'm not too sensitive to changes in UI logic. Typical end user I suppose.

I suspect the change to systemd will cause rather more fur to fly than the GUI in Enterprise circles.

I hope the author of the original article gets a bit of support and finds a direction for his labours.

</comment><comment><USER28> Damn, I knew Gnome was doing badly, but din't know it was this bad! :|

I personally am a fan of Gnome, and hope that they become relevent again. Unity is too fancy for my linking, and Unity 2D, which seems an option, is now deprecated! :|

<comment><USER29> One word: Xfce

<comment><USER15> Xfce has more manpower than Gnome? Xfce has achieved the transition to GTK+ 3? (both rhetorical questions)

<comment><USER12> I don't want XFCE to transition to GTK+3. As near as I can tell it's a nightmare, since it's so tightly tied to GNOME (fair enough, but I switched to Xfce to escape the tyranny of the GNOME UI designers).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> This is the (dead) G+ post by Linus that he refers to: [http://digitizor.com/2011/08/04/linus-torvalds-ditches- gnome...](http://digitizor.com/2011/08/04/linus-torvalds-ditches-gnome-for- xfce/)

<comment><USER3> What these articles never mention is a follow-up comment by Torvalds:

"And for all the people wasting everybodys time with "Why don't you use Unity/KDE/xfce/xyz" - I've tried them. They are even worse" [https://plus.google.com/102150693225130002912/posts/UkoAaLDp...](https://plus.google.com/102150693225130002912/posts/UkoAaLDpF4i)

<comment><USER31> This is also the way I feel. I don't quite like Gnome3 but it seems like the least worst option at the moment for me.

Tiling window managers, fluxbox etc: too much configuration, not sexy enough

Xfce: also doesn't look as slick, bugs

KDE: sluggish

I really like the Expose(?)-feature and really would miss it

<comment><USER32> Just to chip in on the tiling window managers: i3[1] is a really nice one which doesn't need a lot of configuration. Since switching from Window Maker, which I had been using for 10+ years, it has been the only window manager that didn't make me switch back.

(I tried out Xmonad, Awesome, Stumpwm and some other window managers over the years. Awesome was pretty close to awesome.)

i3 has a couple of issues I like to see resolved but all-in-all I'm very happy with it.

[1] <http://i3wm.org/>

<comment><USER33> Try scrotwm[1] - it's an xmonad workalike, but it's written in C instead of Haskell (not so important to me), and it has a config file instead of ... Haskell (quite a bit more important to me).

Also, terrible and hilarious name.

[1] <http://www.peereboom.us/scrotwm/html/scrotwm.html>

<comment><USER32> If it works like xmonad I'm not really interested. I don't like xmonad's approach to tiling wm's (mostly the master / slave window thing).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> For what it's worth, I've been very pleased with Gnome 3 and the new direction and focus in Gnome interface and design.

</comment><comment><USER35> _whinge_

meh, other than bus factor this seems overblown to me. I use Gnome3 on Fedora and it is great. It takes advantage of Fitts law and there is just less fuck- around-ability with it. (I thought even the Alt-to-PowerOff controversy was overblown; I suspend far more often then I shut down, this is a welcome simplification) If anything I felt Gnome3 had ushered in a renaissance in Gnome. What "new" goals does Gnome have to have other than creating a great desktop?

Please don't drive more developers away with more gratuitous Hacker News "X-is-dying" bitching.

<comment><USER35> by the way, I think if Gnome had "done nothing" by continuing to incrementally develop Gnome2 instead of doing something entirely new with Gnome3 the same argument would be trooped out: "Look, Gnome isn't innovating, it doesn't have vision, it's just a Windows clone, blah blah blah"

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I use Gtk on a daily basis while working to the elementary os. I just love their Vala language,it gives me the ease of c# and speed of C. But the thing is there is not much documentation present. The irc channel feels slow. I encountered a bug in Vte about a week ago about transparency and no one is able to help. This as a dev discourages me. I use Vala and Gtk solely because the elementary team uses it. Gnome becoming _uncool_ has started a vicious circle which will lead to its death.

</comment><comment><USER37> to understand the sickness of Gnome you've got to go way way back to the beginning...

I remember when KDE first came out -- I heard the first press releases and thought they were on drugs, but when I downloaded and built, I was like "wow! this is so close to being a commercial desktop"

Now, in 2012, we have KDE and Gnome and a few off-brand desktops and it's still like "this is so close to being a commercial desktop" -- but there isn't any Wow anymore.

Red Hat didn't like the license of the QT toolkit, so they had to go out and build their own desktop, which was probably the most disasterous decision in the history of Linux -- it's like Windows Vista without Windows 7.

For a long term all of the major linux distros have been wasting time and resources trying to make linux something nobody cares about. There's an obsession, for instance, about office suites that are so bad they make Microsoft Office look like a paragon of reliability and ease-of-use.

On the other hand, there's been a complete disregard for the people who ~really~ use Linux such as sysadmins and developers.

I've recently set up two laptops that run Windows as a host and Ubuntu linux inside Virtualbox. I use "putty" as my *term program and Cygwin/X to run the occasional GUI app I need from Linux. It's a sign of what a disgrace the Linux desktop is that putty has the same ease-of-use and reliability that xterm had 15 years ago, whereas the "terminal" program that Ubuntu tries to push on you is a bloated disaster in which cut-and-paste is as miserable as it was in Win 3.1.

<comment><USER38> I believe Gnome pre-dates Red Hat and it wasn't Red Hat that made the decision to create GTK. Although I could be wrong.

<comment><USER39> GTK predates gnome and RedHat, but was (at the start) really just a code layer in the GIMP.

Gnome was a response to KDE, and explicitly aimed to produce a KDE-quality Free desktop environment. If they were intellectually honest they'd have abandoned/merged the project when Qt was relicensed.

<comment><USER40> You dont let your users down just because someone else changed their license.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Since no one mentioned Cinnamon (LinuxMint) let me add that to the discussion.

I've been using it exclusively for months and I feel that it is doing what Gnome3 wanted to achieve. It is simple, intuitive and rock-solid. Never froze or crashed and diagnostic tools are great.

LinuxMint is the old Ubuntu which you used to recommend to your friends and family.

</comment><comment><USER42> I've always wondered why the platform Blender uses hasn't turned into a generic UI toolkit or even window manager. Granted, Blender itself is rather overwhelming at first glance, but you only have to spend a few minutes with it to fall in love with the snappiness and adaptivity of the interface.

</comment><comment><USER43> In my opinion Gnome needs a completely new start, from the ground up.

1\. When I last used GTK (about 2 years ago) it felt too big, old and bloated. If GTK were simplified and followed Qt's lead into scripting and easier interfaces (eg. Qt Quick), plus a MIT or LGPL license, this would encourage a new culture of apps.

2\. I hated Gnome 3 and Unity for that matter. Gnome 4 needs to take a step back and get out of the way. You don't use the computer just for Gnome, but you use Gnome as a stepping stone. All common apps should be one click away and everything should be as customizable and flexible as possible.

As kljin said, some Gnome apps are redundant and the workforce could do a much better job focusing on the core issues, that could bring more people back to Gnome and hence possibly continue these projects again in the future.

<comment><USER44> I don't want to bash Gnome. I have Debian testing (Wheezy), and I did try Gnome 3. It's steadily improving, though I still have issues with it. I try it every now and then - but I'm retreating to XFCE for the time being.

Gnome feels un-unified. I guess this has always been the way under Linux, what with QT, GTK and other toolkits, but when one app is slightly at odds with the rest of the Desktop - it feels, odd.

Example being non GTK3 apps, like LibreOffice (though someone here suggests that that is being rectified.) Even VLC, Opera, Firefox and Chrome feel a little out of place. Each behaves differently. You can't quit VLC with CTRL+W for example. Each are designed on different toolkits. Menus are inconsistant. Tabbing behaves differently in each app (can't we relegate this to the Window Manager or Desktop?) Keyboard shortcut unification doesn't exist. These are the edges I'd like to see addressed across the Linux desktop as a user.

Perhaps unification is a lofty target. And we should just be happy with the fragmented cottage patchwork.

I don't even know the difference between GTK, GTK2 and GTK3 and QT! My desktop is such a pain to theme it's a nightmare, I certainly notice that. What's new in layman's terms in GTK3?

As for some core apps, Evolution looked promising. But even that feels a little rough around the edges (I can crash it quite easily.) Thunderbird doesn't integrate with Gnome brilliantly. One flagship email client would be nice.

Focus on the core, the desktop design guidelines and some intrinisically needed apps. Most desktops on Linux seem to suffer in much the same way. Unity still appears ad-hoc.

I guess a good aspiration would be to make it as simple as possible for people to create applications as well as use them under Gnome.

Could there be some kind of CSSification of an app's controls? Present them as interfaces that could be styled differently according to the platform you are on. Leaving Window Managers to take on the role of innovative desktops. Perhaps apps are designed like this already? At least it would be easier to port an application across different form factors.

<comment><USER15> > "Could there be some kind of CSSification of an app's controls?"

That's exactly a feature that GTK 3 introduced: CSS theming.

<comment><USER45> All great, except a large portion of apps are still Gtk2 based, which means any potential theme developer needs to make his theme at least somewhat compatible with Gtk2 so there's a consistent desktop.

What should have been done, is the CSS in Gtk3 should've been designed with backward compatibility in mind, and the tooling to automate the creation of a Gtk2 theme based on a Gtk3 stylesheet.

As it is, they can't even move from 3.0 to 3.2 without breaking themes. I've no idea what the situation was for 3.4 or later, but I imagine much of the same.

Also, theming is missing a usable distribution and installation model. Currently, users are expected to simply extract an archive into a specific directory and follow any instructions that come with the theme - some include shell scripts. This is hardly "user friendly," like they claim they're attempting to make Gnome.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> I like Gnome 3 in that it made me explore other WM/DE options and think more about what I wanted.

I found Awesome, and though there are some things I don't like about it (or namely, some programs that don't work nicely in a tiling environment), every time I try to use another WM or a DE, I miss the speed and keyboard accessibility of Awesome. It's a blast to use.

I installed KDE for my wife to use. It takes KDE an order of magnitude longer to start than Awesome, for all those services and stuff that it's running--you know, all that stuff I'm probably not even using.

</comment><comment> UK-AL A lot of people are mentioning a lot of distos are moving away from gnome. Infact they are moving away from gnome shell, not gnome. If gnome has problems, we all have problems.

</comment><comment><USER47> GNOME is not necessary anymore. It was in the past, not today.

We have Qt that really works, much much better, and with LGPL license.

You can run stellarium, VLC or Marble in Mac or Windows without problems.

If you try to use gimp or inkscape in mac it opens x11, copy and paste does not work(in inkscape it copies pixmaps instead of vectors!!), what a botched job.

In windows you will have a lot of problems too.

GTK support for OpenGL, OpenCL was terrible, having to low code everything, while in Qt works as well as with cocoa.

Let GTK die and improve(or fork) Qt.

<comment><USER48> > GTK support for OpenGL, OpenCL was terrible, having to low code everything, > while in Qt works as well as with cocoa.

OpenGL support sucks in GTK and QT equally. Especially if you want a more recent version of GL.

OpenCL does not depend on your widget toolkit in any way.

> Let GTK die and improve(or fork) Qt.

Qt is not really as great as you seem to suggest. It's a bloated "batteries included" framework that has everything from it's own string type to wrappers for things like threads and sockets. GTK is a widget library that is a lot leaner and meaner in comparison.

These massive platforms that try to wrap everything in the underlying operating systems to a common API use only the least common denominator of the systems that it runs on. The easy 80% works quite well but things tend to fail miserably when you enter the 20% realm. Things like memory mapped files or asynchronous socket i/o tend to be missing from these wrapper platforms.

And Qt is still using an old non-standard conforming version of C++ to achieve portability to things like Symbian. And their own C++ extensions that require you to use their build system and pre-processing tools. So you can't really use Qt without going all the way to Qt land.

<comment><USER45> Probably worth adding that Qt being C++ is itself a problem - as it makes it inaccessible to the majority of programmers, due to the lack of ABI compatibility with C++ and any other languages. Gtk+ on the other hand, is almost universally accessible, because any language worth using can bind C APIs.

Of course, the downside here is that all the Gtk+ bindings to other languages are based on the Gtk+2 API. Gtk+3 hasn't gained much popular support.

<comment><USER48> > Probably worth adding that Qt being C++ is itself a problem

Yep. C++ is what I call a "dead end" language. If you write your code in C++, it will be only usable from C++. If you want to use it from Python, Ruby or whatever, you'll need a C shim in between. If it were written in C, you could use ctypes and other similar means to do FFI quickly.

Unfortunately, most languages other than C are more or less a dead end.

<comment><USER49> > Unfortunately, most languages other than C are more or less a dead end.

Except for Java, where you can reuse code directly with JVM-compiling stacks like Clojure.

<comment><USER48> Well that is arguable. If you stay within JVM, you can use your Java code from other languages like Clojure and Scala. To some extent you can use Scala and Clojure code from Java. But you can't really use Java code from Python or Ruby unless you work with Jython or JRuby.

So, I'd put Java in the "dead end language" bin. You can use C code from Java (via JNI) but it's not practical to do it the other way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Drop Gnome 3. Convince Mint developers to have Gnome team join in on Cinnamon. Finally make Cinnamon stable. Profit.

</comment><comment><USER51> If the existence of both GNOME and KDE has held back developers who are reluctant to halve their user community or double their coding efforts, then the collapse of GNOME may be a good thing.

</comment><comment><USER52> This is fallout of a battle-by-proxy between Red Hat (Gnome's _de facto_ sponsor) and Canonical (Unity's sponsor) for the future of Desktop Linux. Canonical seems to be winning.

</comment><comment><USER53> At some point people will realize that smart phones are great for communication but the desktop and mainframes will continue to be how people get real computing work done and games.

</comment><comment><USER54> Wow, am I one of the few people who really likes Gnome 3? I use it on my primary home PC on top of Ubuntu 12.04. I love it.

</comment><comment><USER55> This is the canary in the coal mine with regards to the acceptance of the Microsoft Metro interface on the desktop.

</comment><comment><USER56> I wonder how many other people, after reading this, ran: sudo apt-get install gnome</comment>