Viewing profile — rw140

I think that there's a tradeoff between software engineers being able to work well on this specific problem, and knowing which problem is a good problem to work on. The first benef…

To me it makes it HN feel that little bit less welcoming. I may be being over-sensitive, but it makes me feel like I'm eavesdropping on a conversation I wasn't supposed to be part …

See also http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1717023

Generally I don't get asked for an estimate until after I've done the design, so these numbers are code, unit test and very basic test on real hardware only. These are the rules I …

Orange buttons than red buttons, but an interesting case study nonetheless. I wonder whether red buttons would have been less effective, given the association with warning / stop (…

They're questions about the people you'll be working with and for - can you learn from them, can you work with them, can you trust them, is the team focussed on 'creating value' (i…

My current rule of thumb is that if I don't think that I'm 90% done when I'm only 50% of the way through my schedule I'm going to miss my deadline. My suspicion about the cause of …

Article dates from 2007.

Well, 'talk to your customers' is a little different from 'listen to your customers and make sure you understand exactly what problem your product/service solves for them'. And I t…

Is this article somehow getting past the duplicates filter? I'm sure I've seen it here before, and Google turned up http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1164968 and http://news.ycom…

I'd particularly recommend being part of one of the smaller sports clubs - as well as being part of a different social group from those on your course (it's really useful to have a…

Depends on your definition of fun, but I've used text books to give me practice exercises, instead of having to invent problems myself. (It's also a good way to learn a language's …

I'd take the view that the emphasis has shifted from 'can we do this? / is it possible' to 'how shall we do this? / what will make our users happiest'. Both of these are great aims…