Viewing profile — Kirby

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 functi…

Twilight, because it's god-awful. Oh, you meant _programming_ books. Never mind!

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 wo…

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-co…

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 consideratio…

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. …

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 tha…

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 mat…

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 say…

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 …

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 …

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…

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 e…

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…

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…

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 star…

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 tha…

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 disas…

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…

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 …

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…

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, empl…

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 …

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 …

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 "H…