Viewing profile — smurph

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 th…

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 (for…

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…

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…

That sounds like a regular lead developer, but I agree a good lead dev is worth more than any software architect.

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 j…

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 p…

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…

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. …

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 …

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 bette…

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 ha…

The bevel is pointless. You won't be able to notice it in on smaller versions of the logo, which it most of them.

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 …

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 …

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 …

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, bu…

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 …

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 pig…

"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.

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…

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 d…

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 solv…

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 …