91–99 of 99 posts
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…
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…
I think he's smart enough to contribute strategically to the project and the direction it takes. I think he's knowledgable enough to teach me and other people in the group things we don't know. I think he's good enough to bring in other good people when we need to expand. And I think he'd just be an awesome, fun guy to be around.
Hiring a cog doesn't get me any of that. If I have to pay Zed two-three times what it costs me to hire a cog to get all those skills, I'd consider it a bargain. And I'm guessing he'd be pretty happy at that rate too.
If you truly believe in Mongrel2, start your own company. Don't wait for the company that's going to truly open source it , it won't be the way you want it if it's not your company.
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You know what, forget the blackjack.
Very amusing, but can we leave the reddit banter at reddit please? I like Futurama as much as the next geek, but this isn't what I come to HN for.
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You don't understand — those are the good parts The rest is far, far worse. Say what you like about the tenets of Constructivism, Zed, at least it's an ethos. I'm surprised that you'd have beef with it — you don't even like Papert's Constructionism? As easily misinterpreted and misapplied as liberation pedagogy can be, at least it gives the non-subject-matter-experts something to apply themselves at, something they c…
I'm a scientist mostly, so I prefer Direct Instruction from Siegfried Engelmann and Wesley C. Becker and learned quite a bit about how to teach effectively from them. What's interesting is DI is the only method with solid evidence backing its success. Lots of it. The others are mostly just bullshit rhetoric.
DI does have it's merits — it does keep bright assholes like us from dominating the classroom as students in a mixed setting. You can also get through the material a lot faster without getting mired in repetitive interactivity, but the script has to be perfect, or you can skip past a crucial facet without noticing, and there's very little opportunity to get back on the rails, especially because from the lecturer's perspective the resulting complaints are difficult to distinguish from the usual whining.
Part of the problem with curriculum design is that trials generally only occur with either uniformly high-achieving or uniformly delinquent students, both of whom can abide nearly any method if it's intentionally delivered.
If you truly believe in Mongrel2, start your own company. Don't wait for the company that's going to truly open source it , it won't be the way you want it if it's not your company.
How would you make a company around a webserver?
There are still some companies left idling along from a group 10 years ago that sold commercial event-driven webservers / reverse-proxies / caches / load-balancers that were much better than Apache, but are heaps of shit compared to the nginx ecosystem.
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First off, you don't know me, so don't presume to know how I am to work with, or what kind of employee I am. In fact, what you wrote here is borderline slander, as you're basically telling people to not hire me. You and everyone else needs to quit that shit because I don't do it to you, and it does have a major impact on my life. Second, who the hell are you to say I shouldn't have a life outside of your company? Thi…
Let me put it this way: You're a talented singer, songwriter, guitarist, and producer. The company needs a person who plays bass. They could hire you as a bassist, but that's not where you belong. You're a rockstar. You belong in the front. What I'm saying is not slander, it's the opposite. YOU are putting yourself in the wrong spot, because you should not be playing bass when you have all these other talents. You sh…
'sorry, that wasn't meant to be an insult - I just think you're better suited to running your own show'
would be a better way to put it.
I think heroku would be a good fit for Zed. Or maybe Railsmachine (if they want to step up the competition)
Wow, I completely forgot railsmachine existed.
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…
If I had the money, I would hire Zed because I think he would bring a lot more into play for me than just "slugging at code" for me. I think he's smart enough to contribute strategically to the project and the direction it takes. I think he's knowledgable enough to teach me and other people in the group things we don't know. I think he's good enough to bring in other good people when we need to expand. And I think he…
This phrase has appeared multiple times in response to comments on this story, but I think it misses the point entirely. The parent poster has a point at some level, but he delivers it with no tact.
The point is that you need more than money to hire really talented people. It sounds as if Zed left Dropbox because the problems he was solving there weren't the type of problems that he was passionate about solving. The pinhead, middle-manager response to this is to get pissed off and rant against hiring "rockstar" programmers, but that just shows how little they understand about what motivates really talented people.
I can't speak for Zed, but I know a few talented programmers myself. I've brought them in on projects and seen them hit the door in short order. The #1 reason was never money. Great coders are artists. Their greatest work will always be works of inspiration, not portraits they're paid to paint by narcissistic clients.
The bottom line is, if you want to hire talented people, set out to solve interesting problems, or build interesting projects. And don't be upset if the "rockstar" programmer you hired doesn't want to keep doing what you're doing. Go out and find someone who is interested in solving those problems and pay them what they deserve.