apaitch

6 ms·

1.
by apaitch 13y ago
I dunno, either you will reformat using some kind of automated tool before you check in or you won't. If you will, then why not do it before the review and spare everyone the trouble? In a codebase that conforms to certain standards st
2.
by apaitch 13y ago
Thanks a lot! I'll definitely check some of these out!
3.
Ask HN: Waterloo/Toronto tech scene?
2 points by apaitch 13y ago|3 comments
4.
by apaitch 13y ago
I don't seem like a good fit for any of these positions (Java/C++ engineer >.<), but I'd love to learn more about database internals and how things work and how to make them better. Is there much to do in that area, or
5.
by apaitch 14y ago
Let's say I'm lazy. Sure, maybe I "haven't found what I'm meant to do" quite yet, but if I'm lazy AND armed with the "I don't want to do it - the universe is telling me not to!" rhetoric then how will I ever find something I love? You have
6.
by apaitch 14y ago
That's part of the reason I put visionary in quotations. It's a slippery term. In this case, when you think Steve Jobs = visionary you don't think "he made Apple a great place to work." Since Steve Jobs seems to be one of the paragons of "v
7.
by apaitch 14y ago
As I said, I barely know her/of her so my opinion is based on superficial things like reputation. The main point I was trying to make is not that she's not a "visionary" but that the things she's doing to help Yahoo are admirable and worthy
8.
by apaitch 14y ago
That's actually what I'm trying to say - she doesn't come off as a visionary (in my opinion) but if she is able to set up a good and healthy work environment then she won't need to be the one coming up with all the ideas.
9.
by apaitch 14y ago
I know almost nothing about her, but Marissa Mayer doesn't come off as a Steve Jobs or Elon Musk-like "visionary" who will drive Yahoo to unexplored and unexpected market openings. Her approach seems to be to make Yahoo a great place to wor
10.
by apaitch 14y ago
Commuting does kind of suck if you're trying to roll in during rush hour. But without super-heavy traffic I find driving to be rather enjoyable in itself. Even more so if you're riding a motorcycle :) Perhaps the problem is not commuting, b
11.
by apaitch 14y ago
Most people want to get the promotions and the money, but I think it's not only to buy the materialistic stuff they want. For many white-collar workers it's about the prestige, the status, the self-validation, and the respect these things t
12.
by apaitch 14y ago
I think that spending 4-6 years doing research in an area you love is something anyone would be interested in. In addition, going into it with the decision that you don't want to have a career in academia would free you up from much (though
13.
by apaitch 14y ago
I didn't mean to get into the debate between natural talent and skills acquired by work - probably should've cut the "natural" part out of the definition to make that clear. I was thinking of the "potentiality" aspect of talent. I agree tha
14.
by apaitch 14y ago
From the outside looking in, it certainly doesn't seem like everyone is eager to snatch up mediocre graduates. I can't say I've done much research on the subject or crunched numbers, but I noticed two things: 1) Complaints about "talent sho
15.
by apaitch 14y ago
It's totally understandable for a 10-man startup to not want to take in a relative newbie and have him/her drag down the team's productivity when they've got to ship in a month. However, for bigger companies (not necessarily giants like Goo
16.
by apaitch 14y ago
What happens once a person encounters programming is a different story. I tried, with seemingly mixed success, to portray Jon as someone who is indeed interested in coding - enough to try stuff on his own, and certainly not on a "just to ge
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There is no talent shortage(apaitch.com)
83 points by apaitch 14y ago|100 comments
18.
by apaitch 14y ago
Are SF and Silicon Valley really that different? Isn't Palo Alto like a 30 minute drive from SF? I know of people who bike the distance as a daily commute. Sure, there are advantages and disadvantages to living in and outside the big city (
19.
by apaitch 14y ago
Team Liquid is a rather popular professional gaming team, especially in Starcraft 2. I doubt anyone would end up on their website not knowing who they are (why would you go to teamliquid.com just for kicks?) so it's not that bad of a flaw.
20.
by apaitch 15y ago
What would people do if, as you say, everyone gets into it just for the money? Would enough people consider leaving somewhere else?
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by apaitch 15y ago
This kind of thing - not the exact events or people described, but the atmosphere conveyed - is exactly what's been turning me off from Silicon Valley. I've interned here twice, and I know that it's full of the top engineers in the world. Y
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Ask HN: How do you choose your weekend projects?
5 points by apaitch 15y ago|4 comments
23.
by apaitch 15y ago
Open source software and free software are two different things, and Stallman is an advocate for the latter (as well as the former). I think that's an important point, and one which people tend to miss.
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The Autonomous Car of the Future
2 points by apaitch 15y ago|0 comments
25.
by apaitch 15y ago
I learned Scheme in my intro to programming course and I loved it! It was very lean, simple and straightforward. No voodoo, everything is explainable, and an easy substitution-based "debugger" to step through your code. On a side note, I do
26.
by apaitch 15y ago
A wise man learns from the mistakes of others, yes. But you don't have to be doing what everyone else is doing to learn from their mistakes (otherwise you wouldn't be learning from their mistakes, but from your own). Also, if, as you say, y
27.
by apaitch 15y ago
I'm not sure I can fully agree with the idea that programmers are self-taught in the sense of writing good code. I'm a student at the University of Waterloo, and in the courses in 1st and 2nd year a sizeable chunk of the marks depends on re
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Theoretical Computer Science Cheat Sheet(tug.org)
1 points by apaitch 15y ago|0 comments
29.
Grades: Don't Worry About It(apaitch.com)
1 points by apaitch 15y ago|0 comments
30.
by apaitch 15y ago
I would like to think that there's a happy medium between these extremes, especially considering that cleverness is not necessarily equal to incomprehensibility. Choosing the best tool for the job and writing clean code can be just as satis

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