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Zed Shaw has Left Dropbox

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Re: Zed Shaw has Left Dropbox

#61

Post by mistermann »

mistermann wrote: post #10
starkfist wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that bizarre, you write software mainly used by systems administrators. I used to work with one of the guys who wrote apache, and now work with a guy who wrote most of one of the popular NOSQL engines. And they both work as systems administrators. Not "useradd" systems administrators (although they are technically in that part of the org chart) but more like what Google calls "SREs." Rather than explaining w…

Uhhhhh....oh, why bother.

Ah, nice downvotes, I guess a good lesson to not comment on smartass one liners who can later edit out the entire theme and content of their original post.

The original post I commented on: "Maybe because you write software used by sysadmins?"

Re: Zed Shaw has Left Dropbox

#62

Post by bad_user »

mistermann wrote: post #61
mistermann wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uhhhhh....oh, why bother.

Ah, nice downvotes, I guess a good lesson to not comment on smartass one liners who can later edit out the entire theme and content of their original post. The original post I commented on: "Maybe because you write software used by sysadmins?"

No, the lesson is to not add one-liners that don't add anything to the conversation.

Even after posting the original message, I really don't get your comment on it.

Re: Zed Shaw has Left Dropbox

#63

Post by bad_user »

alnayyir wrote: post #51
stcredzero wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Start watching Alan Kay talks. He explains.

>Start watching Alan Kay talks. He explains. I'm not that jazzed about the idea of reminiscing about a Smalltalk. How about instead of making esoteric references, you just say what's on your mind? This is a thread, not a bibliography.

Alan Kay's talks aren't only about Smalltalk ... they are often about education, and the part computers might play in children's lives. The man is a genius.

> This is a thread, not a bibliography.

What is that supposed to mean?

Re: Zed Shaw has Left Dropbox

#64

Post by jeb »

And that's the problem with Rockstar Programmers. They know they are rockstars, they know that they can get funding for their own product at a moments notice, they know that they can always go on a speaking tour.

You need them, but they don't need you, and they know it. So they walk in and want to do what they want to do, they have no intention of doing the shitty stuff. But work in a company has a lot of shitty stuff to be done.

The problem with Zed is that though he is a good developer, he's also a good writer and probably a good talker. Those last two are important to him, and when people work at companies, they should not be having two big side projects (writing and talking). It distracts from the work.

All the rockstar programmers of the last few years all seemed to have entered CTO roles, have started their own companies, or are important people in very big companies. Very few are still just slugging away at code at small startups.

This story is basically why you should not hire rockstar programmers. Hire normal people who depend on you for their income.

Re: Zed Shaw has Left Dropbox

#65

Post by shareme »

zedshaw wrote: post #24
pavs wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just curious, what would be your ideal job? Assuming you want to work for someone and not just on your own projects.

Right now, find a company doing something bad ass with HTTP and then make Mongrel2 blow their socks off. Then repeat it again and again until I've got something. Either that, or getting a Ph.D. in Education.

sounds like facebook should recruit you :)

Re: Zed Shaw has Left Dropbox

#66

Post by mark_l_watson »

zedshaw wrote: post #6
alnayyir wrote: post #4

>If you got something interesting that doesn't involve me being a system administrator Is it me, or is this a running meme/problem for him?

No it's not you, I do get asked to be a sysadmin quite often. I have no idea why. It's not something I'm good at. I did for a short time in college to pay tuition a decade ago. I don't enjoy it. I never apply for it. For some bizarre reason, people ask if I want to be a sysadmin out of the blue. Drives me crazy.

Hello Zed. I find myself doing some sysadmin work, not by plan, but it happens that way. Something needs to be working right now, it is easiest to just do it, etc. Also, scaling and deployment issues come up, and best to just deal with stuff. The question is what fraction of time is spent on sysadmin vs. development. BTW, I look forward to checking out mongrel2, and I think using the AGPL + optional commercial licensing is a good plan.

Re: Zed Shaw has Left Dropbox

#67

Post by mark_l_watson »

mark_l_watson wrote: post #66
zedshaw wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it's not you, I do get asked to be a sysadmin quite often. I have no idea why. It's not something I'm good at. I did for a short time in college to pay tuition a decade ago. I don't enjoy it. I never apply for it. For some bizarre reason, people ask if I want to be a sysadmin out of the blue. Drives me crazy.

Hello Zed. I find myself doing some sysadmin work, not by plan, but it happens that way. Something needs to be working right now, it is easiest to just do it, etc. Also, scaling and deployment issues come up, and best to just deal with stuff. The question is what fraction of time is spent on sysadmin vs. development. BTW, I look forward to checking out mongrel2, and I think using the AGPL + optional commercial licens…

Another comment on AGPL: I both wish that the AGPL became a often-used license and that when required commercial options would be affordable. Obviously developers control the licensing and costs of their creations, but as a for instance, if I could not use AGPL on a customer project: I would be happy to pay about $25 for a VPS license or perhaps $100 for a single server license for good bits of infrastructure software that work better, are more efficient, etc. On the other hand, the neo4j AGPLed project is awesome, I will use it for my own AGPL projects, but the $1000/server cost will probably keep me from being able to use it on customer projects (but maybe not, depending on their budgets).

Sorry for the long rant here, but I would like to see a healthy atmosphere for developers producing quality AGPL projects and the community accepting that they need to pay up reasonable fees for non-AGPL use.

Re: Zed Shaw has Left Dropbox

#69

Post by cracki »

jeb wrote: post #64

And that's the problem with Rockstar Programmers. They know they are rockstars, they know that they can get funding for their own product at a moments notice, they know that they can always go on a speaking tour. You need them, but they don't need you, and they know it. So they walk in and want to do what they want to do, they have no intention of doing the shitty stuff. But work in a company has a lot of shitty stuf…

Companies should hire drones. Companies shouldn't hire people with a life.

Is that your conclusion?

Re: Zed Shaw has Left Dropbox

#70

Post by abstractbill »

zedshaw wrote: post #24
pavs wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just curious, what would be your ideal job? Assuming you want to work for someone and not just on your own projects.

Right now, find a company doing something bad ass with HTTP and then make Mongrel2 blow their socks off. Then repeat it again and again until I've got something. Either that, or getting a Ph.D. in Education.

What might "something bad ass with HTTP" look like in practice? It sounds like merely being a very big website wouldn't be interesting enough to you.
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