jbrains

4 ms·

1.
by jbrains 2mo ago
We are closing next week on a 5-pin bowling center in central Canada. I have vague plans to do something similar, but no skill on the hardware/software interface side of things. I would like to discuss this with you once we are settled
2.
by jbrains 11mo ago
First, that sounds hard. I'm happy that you're asking for help and I hope you find the help you need. Next, you'll probably get a bunch of advice about leaving immediately, how you don't have to put up with this nonsense
3.
by jbrains 4y ago
Read the book "The E-Myth Revisited" before you decide to go solo. You might be having an entrepreneurial seizure; it's not necessarily a bad thing, but you might prefer to be better prepared for what happens after that.
4.
by jbrains 5y ago
> I feel guilty when our customers have repeated bugginess in our app. You might be feeling over-responsible for the bugginess in your app. If you did your job perfectly, which forces in the environment around you would still cause you t
5.
by jbrains 5y ago
I routinely run a combination of Slack and Discourse for my online communities. I can move interesting Slack threads into Discourse for longer-term and more-thoughtful discussion. The immediacy of chat has its place, but so does the semi-pe
6.
by jbrains 10y ago
This happens all the time. We have a vague notion of a thing, so we call it "X". Later, as we learn more, we realize that we can think of X as a category of things, and that one of those things, annoyingly, should probably be call
7.
by jbrains 12y ago
I agree. I think you've overstated how many people take that position, but I agree. By the same token, I find it unfortunate when a person turns "TDD doesn't work for me" into "TDD is a bad idea", which DHH has
8.
by jbrains 12y ago
I think of it the other way: if it's easy to write code that "understands" your code, then it's probably easy to understand your code, because you can encode (ha!) your understanding precisely enough for a computer to ex
9.
by jbrains 13y ago
"V" means "viable". The profit motive encourages businesses to race to the bottom of "viability" just as with quality. So it will always be.
10.
by jbrains 13y ago
I like to pair. I like to talk about pairing. I have worked with people who don't pair well. I worked with one person whose wife noticed that his entire personality changed for the worse when he tried to pair. He stopped pairing. You d
11.
by jbrains 14y ago
TDD is a fundamental learning technique. It teaches the principles of modular design. Notice! One can learn modular design in a variety of ways. I make no claim that TDD is "the only" nor "the best" of these, but I claim that it works for e
12.
by jbrains 14y ago
"Better to leave it in the social sphere." I don't consider this some idle philosophical stance, either. The technical solutions don't actually solve the problem, since people work around the attempt, and they create additional problems,
13.
by jbrains 14y ago
I see a lot of comments here of the type "You have to know when to refactor". I don't do it this way. Instead, I rely on a willingness to undo a refactoring when I see that something else might work better -- and even to undo that when I
14.
by jbrains 14y ago
I just realised that the statement "it's still an if-then construct" illustrates a common problem among people practising OOP: conflating implementation with interface. The OR is not an if-then construct. If anything, the if-then construct
15.
by jbrains 14y ago
Yes, but that's probably a matter of familiarity over clarity. This is a perfect time to use the irrationally-dreaded ternary operator. param = object.property.nil? ? default_value : object.property Verbose, although less so, but rev
16.
by jbrains 14y ago
Not an if statement, but unnecessarily clever code that doesn't reveal its intent. An example of the tension between general clarity and a concise, well-known idiom. The kind of thing that makes C++ impenetrable to those who don't write it
17.
by jbrains 14y ago
The only person who may feel pain is the person with the greatest problems in the world? Really? By whose measure? Where will we track this? How will we update the leaderboard? I know: I'll buy theonlypersonintheworldallowedtofeelpaintoday.
18.
by jbrains 14y ago
The dearth of empathy built into this "comment" is disquieting. You make many assumptions here. Can you count them? What if you've got only half of them wrong? No matter how good we have it, failure will disappoint us. I don't see a problem
19.
by jbrains 14y ago
I generate about $25k/year in mostly-passive-income from single family rental homes. I average 20 hours/year maintaining this income stream in answering email, collecting invoices for my accountant, and making the occasional tough decision
20.
by jbrains 14y ago
Maybe this: in "draft mode", you automatically commit on all changes in pass/fail state. Then, at some point, you "publish", at which point you squash all the commits from commit X to HEAD whose message matches "[ON RED]". I imagine git reb
21.
by jbrains 14y ago
I have started doing this for my training courses. When I demonstrate live, I commit to git. I use some variation of "FAILING" in the commit messages to call attention to "red" commits, in "violation" of the usual rule that tests pass 100%
22.
by jbrains 14y ago
Did this manager spot the causation between compulsory bowling and folks resigning?
23.
by jbrains 15y ago
I would have enjoyed the article more without the needless judgment of "not worth learning".
24.
by jbrains 15y ago
I think you're overanalysing a phrase written by people whose first language is not English. :) I interpret it as "Don't kill yourself to make money if you can live /like/ you already have it."
25.
by jbrains 15y ago
The most fun part of this lifestyle is being able to say "I'd like to go to Paris again this year", then finding work close enough to Paris to pay for going to Paris. By not needing to squeeze every dollar out of my trips, I can be much mor
26.
by jbrains 15y ago
I'd say that any project where someone decides to spend hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars is pretty serious.
27.
by jbrains 15y ago
I don't think it's about a specific technology: it's about a particular organisation and working group. If they're willing to work with someone who telecommutes, then perhaps they're willing to work with someone who works while they sleep.