alexdowad

7 ms·

1.
by alexdowad 6mo ago
There's obviously some nuance here, but the fact is that much modern software is riddled with bugs, and this is sub-optimal for everyone (both software users and software builders). Most of the bugs which frustrate and irritate softwar
2.
by alexdowad 9mo ago
> Quite impressive... Yes, quite! Monsieur Bellard is a legend of computer programming. It would be hard to think of another programmer whose body of public work is more impressive than FB. Unfortunate that he doesn't seem to write
3.
by alexdowad 9mo ago
Lua isn't my primary programming language now, but it was for a while. My personal experience on the library ecosystem was: It's definitely smaller than many languages, and this is something to consider before selecting Lua for a
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by alexdowad 10mo ago
Agree. It always seemed like a strange and poorly conceived technology to me.
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by alexdowad 11mo ago
ivanjermakov, I don't know if you are an open source maintainer or not (I am, for several projects). If you are, and you follow the policy that "I will never reject PRs because of having no time, I will always get to it eventually
6.
by alexdowad 11mo ago
Be tactful and kind, but straightforward about what you can't/don't want to spend time reviewing. "Thanks for the effort, but my time and energy is limited and I can't practically review this much code, so I'm
7.
by alexdowad 1y ago
My belief is that whatever technology can be invented by humans (under the constraints of the laws of physics, etc) will eventually be invented. I don't have a strong argument for this; it's just what makes sense to me. If true, t
8.
by alexdowad 1y ago
Afraid that I can't apply for this (because it's on-site), but what you are doing looks awesome. Hope that you succeed!
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by alexdowad 1y ago
Wholeheartedly agree.
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by alexdowad 1y ago
There are absolutely times when one can get LLMs to "say something valuable". I am still learning how to put them to good use, but here are some areas where I have found clear wins: * Super-powered thesaurus A traditional thesauru
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by alexdowad 1y ago
If your firm has been around for long enough, then it will almost certainly have long-standing clients who repeatedly come back for changes, additions, and general maintenance to existing software, as well as new development. Those long-sta
12.
by alexdowad 1y ago
Hi! It's strange for me to see one of my posts get some love on HN, years after I wrote it (and not one of my best pieces, by my own estimation). Thanks to everyone who took the time to read.
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by alexdowad 1y ago
I'm together with sethammons in that "rounding error". I actually go further and explicitly list things which I'm not good at on my resumé.
14.
by alexdowad 2y ago
I've worked on numerous Rails projects since 2010, and it has lots of strengths, but I would really hesitate to base a new project on Rails. The benefits of using a big framework (which you alluded to in your question) are easy to see
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by alexdowad 2y ago
Ah, that must have been it. Thanks for the link!
16.
by alexdowad 2y ago
Great article. It reminds me of another anecdote, regarding a university professor who told his students that he would deliberately include one falsehood in each lecture, and the students were charged with listening carefully and identifyin
17.
by alexdowad 2y ago
One small tip: Senior candidates may be discouraged from applying if you don't mention up front what your compensation range is.
18.
by alexdowad 2y ago
I'm not an AI expert, but feel free to ping me on other CS-related topics. See https://alexdowad.github.io/cv for a rundown of which topics I am 'expert' (or at least semi-expert) in.
19.
by alexdowad 2y ago
> Start the team from hiring senior talent... This is very important! Once you hire the first couple members of a development team, subsequent hires will almost certainly be at the same level of technical skill or weaker.
20.
by alexdowad 2y ago
Although it doesn't help with your current problem: for future projects, consider demanding payment in installments, linked to project milestones. When the final invoice is small, the motivation for unscrupulous clients to stiff you be
21.
by alexdowad 2y ago
Sure. I've done similar things myself, though the "advanced languages" which I'm expert in do not include Scala. This is a good example of what I'm talking about in the last paragraph of the comment which you are re
22.
by alexdowad 2y ago
There are lots of interesting ideas to be found in the Lisp/Scheme family. A Lisp can be an excellent choice of primary dev language, especially for a dev shop which puts enough investment into training and tooling. At the same time, t
23.
by alexdowad 2y ago
From your description of your current level, reading Patterson's "Computer Architecture: a Quantitative Approach" would be a next good step.
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by alexdowad 2y ago
"Recently" (~5 years ago) I got very interested in mathematics, and decided to self-study up to an undergrad degree-equivalent level. I researched what topics are typically included in a 4-year math major university program and wh
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by alexdowad 2y ago
Aside from what has already been suggested, you could consider reading selected chapters of Intel's programmer manual. I personally read through the whole thing once (well, skimmed some parts). From my experience, Intel's x86 manu
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by alexdowad 2y ago
Mr. Courtice, your cautious and restrained assessment of the value of your own work is appreciated. I applaud your humility and like to think that I would take a similar approach in your position. However, you have not really answered the b
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by alexdowad 2y ago
This is interesting to me. The first question which comes to my mind is: As a D3 user, is this something which I might prefer to D3, at least in some contexts? If so, when might it be preferable to D3? That's obviously a controversial
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by alexdowad 3y ago
Don't be sorry! I enjoyed your post, and your English is very good. Here's another tiny little nitpick if you want to improve your translation a bit more: In English we don't say "inequation", we say "inequalit
29.
by alexdowad 3y ago
That is doubtless true for the type of people who frequent Hacker News (mostly computer programmers). But in some other communities, the word 'theory' is commonly used in the same manner as Gilbert Ryle uses it. The author of this
30.
by alexdowad 3y ago
> Aren't you modeling an entirely different problem... Not really, but read on: You correctly state that in the Monty Hall problem, the host reveals a door without the prize. That's the same situation which I described in my pr

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