smurph

8 ms·

1.
by smurph 10y ago
I agree that male friendship has suffered a lot over the past few decades, and the decline of overtly exclusively male organisations for adults probably has something to do with that. The only real exceptions I can think of are athletic lea
2.
by smurph 11y ago
The Detroit that existed for most of the 20th Century likely can't exist again in the US unless the whole nation's economy changes. You'll never have a large population of low (formal) skilled workers making good money becaus
3.
by smurph 12y ago
His direct boss probably has little or no say in how much he gets paid, and the person who does influence that has probably never met him or even heard of him. Welcome to corporate America for the working class.
4.
by smurph 12y ago
I've noticed the same thing. Management tends to be older white men with MBAs and there's a big culture divide between them and the developers who control their destiny. So what do they do? They go hire a guy about their age with
5.
by smurph 12y ago
That sounds like a regular lead developer, but I agree a good lead dev is worth more than any software architect.
6.
by smurph 12y ago
They don't say anything is illegal, they say it is 'prohibited'. They don't say who it is prohibited by, and since it's clearly not the federal government you have to assume it's just prohibited by the NFL itse
7.
by smurph 12y ago
Am I the only one who thinks it's insane that someone can go from an undergrad CS degree to a failed startup and then directly into (presumably well paid) consulting gigs? I'd be pretty wary of a consultant who's only work ex
8.
by smurph 12y ago
Merge commits from pulls really bothered me at first, but as I've used git more I've realized that the hoops you jump through to always rebase and avoid them aren't always worth it. A merge commit might clutter up your git lo
9.
by smurph 12y ago
Big defense contractors have a yearly VRIF (Voluntary Reduction In Force), which is when they offer slightly better than average retirement packages to expendable older employees. Young people would never get the offer (because they couldn&
10.
by smurph 13y ago
A lot of kids are attending college because it's a status symbol for their parents, and I think it's been that way since the 90s. I remember being in high school and hearing about my friends getting in big fights with their parent
11.
by smurph 13y ago
I actually really like the Zune music player that you could (still can?) download from Microsoft. I never even owned a Zune, but the player software is a lightweight WMP with better design. Sure the Zune Marketplace/pass links were all
12.
by smurph 13y ago
I've had federal employees tell me with a straight face that waterfall development is the only model that works, and that is why 'all of the tech companies use it'. These people have often gone and gotten certifications for s
13.
by smurph 13y ago
The bevel is pointless. You won't be able to notice it in on smaller versions of the logo, which it most of them.
14.
by smurph 13y ago
In my last job I had to lead a team of people and I had one developer in his 50s and one in his early 60s. They were fine, I loved working with them. The guy in his 50s was just a awesome engineer who could code circles around me and everyo
15.
by smurph 13y ago
Joel said it best: Smart and gets things done. That's really all you need. They don't need to be rock stars or 10xers or top 1%. You just need to be able to give them something to do and have confidence that it will get done in a
16.
by smurph 13y ago
I worked with a guy like this who didn't realize he was doing nothing useful. He thought that printing updated spreadsheets and reading random documentation was worth his likely 6 figure salary. It was no secret though, all of the youn
17.
by smurph 13y ago
The city government is still corrupt and incompetent, and the remaining population is largely unemployable. Yes it's a good thing that the city is going from broke to just poor, but I don't know if it will every truly recover.
18.
by smurph 13y ago
This model assumes everyone in your organisation is Clueless and the author correctly points out that it falls on its face when you try to apply it to a group with a few Losers in the mix. Also, someone is always writing the checks and hand
19.
by smurph 13y ago
In my experience, this is how the big defense contractors approach software. They will gravitate towards the most expensive proprietary tools in hopes that their engineers will pigeon hole themselves into that environment. I honestly had pe
20.
by smurph 13y ago
"Get your rat out"? Seriously? That's got to be one of the most foul things I've ever heard. Real life is so much more disgusting than fiction.
21.
by smurph 13y ago
In my experience, there is no shortage of older people who hold the title of Software Engineer, usually with a high number following it or an impressive word proceeding it. However a lot of these people have moved into 'big picture' roles a
22.
by smurph 13y ago
I'm a young programmer and this is a goal of mine. It doesn't mean I will stop building things, but it would be nice if I didn't have to do it for other people and didn't have to do it for at least 40 hours a week if I didn't want to. With
23.
by smurph 13y ago
I'm not saying that trying to innovate on a successful product team is bad. I am saying that when someone's motivation for innovating is to further their own career and not to solve the customer's problems, then their ideas are going to be
24.
by smurph 13y ago
Many of the attempts that had been made, especially at Microsoft, were also just new versions of existing apps with some kind of syncing built in and a higher price. Office Groove is an example. Office doesn't need to have a DropBox built i
25.
by smurph 13y ago
So I got [number], but I don't really know if it's good or bad. There is a percentile but no scale of where the psychopaths begin and end. Pretty pointless.
26.
by smurph 13y ago
Right now I would say it is a commodity. I think the majority of people getting into bitcoin right now are doing it either for emotional reasons or because they have enough disposable income to play with it. I don't think I could convince m
27.
by smurph 13y ago
So why would a reasonable actor choose to store money in this currency when there are easier to get, easier to use, demurrage free currencies available? I get the economic idea (I think) but it seems like something that would need a near mo
28.
by smurph 13y ago
Seriously. I think reading HN or at least some quality development blogs is probably a better indicator of competency than any of these certs. Just don't tell the incompetent people.
29.
by smurph 13y ago
I tend to write object.parse(byte[] buffer) methods a lot, especially when the object type itself is being defined in another team's code.
30.
by smurph 13y ago
So her response to the criticism regarding missing out on good people because they did not have degrees from top universities is to say "Why can't we just be good at hiring"? Seriously? Your employees are trying to tell you how to improve y

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