Viewing profile — tim_h

The difference between doctors and programmers is that programmers get to build/leverage tools that are abstractions of other tools, hence you can have orders-of-magnitude differen…

Probably the availability of people with 5+ years of programming experience. It was 1959! :)

Basically, in a client-server relationship, use persistent buffering on the client-side so that the client can tolerate server downtime. I like the simplicity of this approach. It'…

If an ISP starts openly inspecting content like this will it become liable for all content that passes through it's network? Edit: I'm surprised to see this downvoted. Care to comm…

Just curious, what specifically is the indicator that a person doesn't care for the company? I didn't get that impression from reading the GP. Is it not paying attention to the new…

I wasn't suggesting that that C++ is somehow outdated or inferior. I'm just wondering if the percent usage of C++ is declining with respect to other languages. I'm trying to estima…

Is C++ usage on the decline? I've used a lot of different languages, but I've never had the occasion to learn C++. I work in web search and we tend to use interpreted languages. Th…

Pangool actually seems like a generalization of Hadoop. This doesn't necessarily make it more complex. If a problem maps exactly to the Hadoop API, then it should also map exactly …

The right balance between technical and pragmatic is project specific. Here are a couple of heuristics I use to find it. 1) Minimize the overall time investment required to have an…

In software engineering the "thinking beforehand" approach is probably riskier than the "think as you go" approach. For example, often the requirements aren't well-defined when the…

This resonates: > The most important characteristic of a suffering-oriented programmer is a relentless focus on refactoring. This is critical to prevent accidental complexity from …

The article mentions that "Tokyo" DC was taken offline by disconnecting the data center from the "New York" and "Paris" DCs. Then writes were performed, Tokyo was reconnected, and …

I don't know how similar/dissimilar Dexadrine and Adderall are, but they have really different effects on me. Adderall made me feel high, and seemed to encourage me to focus like a…

Why is it that people will hold against you an immature act that you did years ago, ignoring the fact that people tend to mature as they age? Perhaps the timeline will help overcom…

First, even if natrius cannot answer your question, absence of a counter-example does not constitute proof of your argument. Second, I've been taking an ADD medication called Dexad…

The site guidelines ( http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html ) say "On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting." Judging by the comments on this thread, such i…

I was diagnosed with ADHD at age 18. At that point in my life I had developed pretty much a hatred for school, and had resolved to never go to college. Spending 8 hours/day at scho…

There's a sad real-world example of people who are willing to shorten their lives in order to earn more money: the sulphur miners of East Java ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asi…

It sounds like you have to be wearing the device in order to benefit from it. Do you work from home while "plugged in"? Or, can you just use it while thinking about a tough problem…

ChristianMarks said in one of his comments that he believes the device has allowed him to overcome a bias in the valley against hiring older engineers. Why would he want to reveal …

Which companies recognize 10x or 100x developers?

What if Curebit had an important demo/presentation that was botched as a result of this? I think the response should be tailored to provide them with a learning opportunity rather …

Why the downvotes? The parent poster used $3.8 billion to come up with the $60 billion estimate (3.8 * 16.2 is approx 60). Isn't it true that we don't officially know what Facebook…

The reported $3.8 billion in FB revenue is not an official number. It came from a CNBC reporter who cited undisclosed sources. Official revenue would have to be about $6 billion fo…

What does it mean that they "NAT'ed the shares"?