Kirby

6 ms·

1.
by Kirby 17y ago
Of course, in reality, most people aren't exactly these two extremes, great implementer and great innovator. Everyone has both traits in different amounts, and if you have a functioning team, they can be split up unevenly. In this way of l
2.
by Kirby 17y ago
Twilight, because it's god-awful. Oh, you meant _programming_ books. Never mind!
3.
by Kirby 17y ago
I'm more tempted to think of people as individuals who make their own life choices, rather than think of all women as 'pregnancy risks'. Especially in technology - a lot of geek women don't have or want kids. And as an employee, I want at
4.
by Kirby 17y ago
I think there's a reason to post this one in particular - to set up a comments thread on HN about it. I kind of thought it had harsher implications for Academia - for every self-congratulatory paper of something new, it's already been done
5.
by Kirby 17y ago
Also, keep in mind that you have to get _very_ big before this becomes an issue. If you're at Yahoo, Google, MSN - yes, language issues can become a performance design consideration. If you're at merely a big site, like Ticketmaster, IMDb,
6.
by Kirby 17y ago
I kind of am, but I think in reality perl and python appeal to a different enough mindset, and solve similar enough problems, that there's almost no real competition between them. Most people will instantly like one and loathe the other ba
7.
by Kirby 17y ago
In reality, I'd wager there's a _lot lot_ more kids programming today than 30 years ago. How many people had a computing device at home back then? This anecdote makes the point that a very specific kind of thinking was better suited by the
8.
by Kirby 17y ago
I've had more traumatic code errors due to times than I care to admit. The bottom line: Learn from Unix. Store everything in epoch time (even if you're in Windows.) Do all your math in that. Showing local time is for display _only_. You
9.
by Kirby 17y ago
For a different definition of worst: I started a job recently at an ecommerce company. There was a long-standing bug with the cart display in the upper right of the page always saying that the cart was empty. People would report it all th
10.
by Kirby 17y ago
Perhaps, but the perception of learning HTML being a barrier to entry was much smaller back then. People were excited to be part of something new, and didn't really balk at having to learn something. Totally different mentality today.
11.
by Kirby 17y ago
The typical view of a business type by a software engineer is not pretty. It gets pretty close to, we do all the work, they do little but interfere with us, and then they take all the money. So it's an uphill battle to have a good relatio
12.
by Kirby 17y ago
For beginners, this is definitely good advice. Particularly the first point - if you're using a relational database, and don't structure your data around its strengths, you'll take a profound performance hit. And sure, don't pass around d
13.
by Kirby 17y ago
I, for one, get higher quality work done when I'm allowed to take breaks. This shop might be heaven for workaholics, but there's a lot of really excellent folks who just wouldn't enjoy their jobs if there was someone in the room constantly
14.
by Kirby 17y ago
Well, in a very real way, delaying your entry to the job market by four years right now is a very safe bet. It's brutal out there for people without in-demand skills. But what this article dances around, but doesn't quite realize, is that
15.
by Kirby 17y ago
I think this nails it. If you're part of a conscious diet and watching calories, diet soda can be a good choice, because you're _explicitly_ controlling for the effect the study is about - the false sweet causing cravings and ultimately mo
16.
by Kirby 17y ago
I've gone through periods of life where this was true. There were reasons - truly bad boss, problems in my personal life, etc - but eventually I realized that slacking off had started to become the primary cause of my depression. So I did
17.
by Kirby 17y ago
This person is not, and has never been, a software developer. I take issue with: "Such issues have been largely overlooked in the Amazon.com discussion, which takes for granted that "glitches" are inevitable and self-correcting, that the ma
18.
by Kirby 17y ago
Paul Graham can be hit or miss, IMO, but this one is a direct hit. I don't mind meetings per se - in a good company, they have merit - but their effect on the work day can be disastrous. If you don't work somewhere that understand that pr
19.
by Kirby 17y ago
People like to claim that TV is only full of crap. This is grade A, Microsoft-FUD-level, Bullshit. Like anything, sure, most of it is crap. Just like if you went to a bookstore and picked up 10 random fantasy novels. You might conclude t
20.
by Kirby 17y ago
IMDb is, well, a worldwide collaboration, but if pressed I'd say the driving force was primarily British. (With help from America, Italy, Australia, Germany, and a few other geeks of the day.) I suppose obsessive data gathering is consist
21.
by Kirby 17y ago
Terrible advice! Also, if your side-job is at _all_ related to your main job, be very careful, and lean towards quitting sooner rather than later. Talk to a lawyer to make sure you'll actually own your side-work and get your documents in o
22.
by Kirby 17y ago
I also used to work at Amazon, and this is all true. Personally, I like having an ergonomically reasonable desk, and don't miss my door desk at all. The downside of frugal is, employees don't feel treated as well. Amazon had free coffee an
23.
by Kirby 17y ago
I fundamentally agree with the author, even though I'd frame it differently. I vastly prefer living as a Software Engineer than my days studying Computer Science, because it's not all sterile, formal, and rigorous, but is open to more comp
24.
by Kirby 17y ago
Yes. Except I really have implemented caching in a half-day, using memcached. :) (Utterly fixed the speed issues with the site I was working on then, incredibly easy to use.) That was a good day. It almost never happens like that - in fac
25.
by Kirby 17y ago
It really does depend on the question. A lot of interview time, particularly on phone screens, is "Does this person's resume reflect reality?" That's where "What's a class?" and "How do you do a join in SQL?" come from, and if the candida
26.
by Kirby 17y ago
Yeah, no kidding. I think the only funny April Fools tech joke was the original announcement of Parrot. Which is even funnier since Parrot 1.0 was just actually released. :)
27.
by Kirby 17y ago
Because I'm not a sales or marketing person. :)
28.
by Kirby 18y ago
It depends on your biochemistry to a large degree. Some people need hardly any sleep, some do _much_ better work if they sleep a full night's sleep, which can be defined anywhere between 6 and 10 hours. Some people do well on a 24-hour cl
29.
by Kirby 18y ago
On the plus side, smoking is good for creating a social interaction situation - smokers meet each other and chat. And it creates some semi-forced breaks in the day, which is good. On the down side, there are health risks (obviously). And
30.
by Kirby 18y ago
True. In this case, they were not major changes, the guy just wasn't doing anything. It can be useful to drive home what you already know, but not really to discover information. At a functional software house, it's largely obvious to _ever

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