PG's Rarely Asked Questions • Hacker News Board

Re: PG's Rarely Asked Questions

#61

Post by kemiller » Sun, Sep 18, 2011, 6:50 PM UTC

breck wrote: post #43

> The pointy-haired boss is a manager who doesn't program. So > the surest way to avoid becoming him is to stay a programmer. I agree. One of the absolute worst pieces of advice I got over and over again was "don't go into programming. It's all being outsourced overseas anyway. Just learn how to manage programmers." Luckily for some reason I finally decided to ignore that advice and strive to become a great programme…

Those task are not just things that could be called "managing" they ARE managing. I think it's funny that programmers think of managing as this horrid thing outside their realm, but really, it's just the skill of working with others and extending your reach beyond your own fingers.

To that end, I think PG is dead wrong. Programmers can make great managers, and find it very rewarding, even if they're not in code all day. There's as much variation in that end of the business as their is in the coding. Would you go into programming if you believed that ever job was a dead-end VB jockey? Of course not. The way to avoid being a PHB is to avoid behaving like a PHB.

Re: PG's Rarely Asked Questions

#62

Post by Samuel_Michon » Sun, Sep 18, 2011, 6:50 PM UTC

corin_ wrote: post #52

Does anyone have any insight into why painters are less common among hackers than other artistic persuits, such as music? I've never met anyone who bridged visual art with anything tech-related, but composers, singers, pianists, orchestra members... hell yes. Is it just that painters are less common that musicians and that ratio stays true in the tech world?

"I've never met anyone who bridged visual art with anything tech-related"

You've never met a web designer, video editor, 3D artist or graphic designer?

Re: PG's Rarely Asked Questions

#63

Post by corin_ » Sun, Sep 18, 2011, 6:58 PM UTC

Samuel_Michon wrote: post #62

corin_ wrote: post #52

Does anyone have any insight into why painters are less common among hackers than other artistic persuits, such as music? I've never met anyone who bridged visual art with anything tech-related, but composers, singers, pianists, orchestra members... hell yes. Is it just that painters are less common that musicians and that ratio stays true in the tech world?

"I've never met anyone who bridged visual art with anything tech-related" You've never met a web designer, video editor, 3D artist or graphic designer?

Yeah my bad, wasn't specific enough - I meant painters, sculpters and the like.

In my head they are called "art", I have to make an active decision to think of "art" as "the arts" including other things - guess just the way I learned the vocab. as a kid. So it was already a step to edit from "art" to "visual art".

Perhaps I should have gone with "static visual art that is created for the sake of being art"?

As to your examples, I suspect the main reason that there's such a link is (obviously) the big crossover. If you're an artist who wants to make money making websites, or videos, or whatever, it makes sense to learn at least some of the technology related to it to help you. And if you're, say, a website developer, it sometimes makes sense to go the other way too.

Re: PG's Rarely Asked Questions

#64

Post by cwp » Sun, Sep 18, 2011, 7:02 PM UTC

frisco wrote: post #44

dgreensp wrote: post #40

>I never had to manage anyone in our startup, even though I was the president. The other hackers were my peers, and would have given me the raspberry if I'd tried to "manage" them. We operated by consensus. And the rest of the company reported to our experienced COO, who was also more of a peer. Operating by consensus and not valuing the role of "manager" only goes so far. It may work when you're a few people living…

Are you saying that Google is anything other than one of the world's most wildly successful companies of the last decade?

Google has had both success and failure. The successes have paid for the failures and then some, but the failures did happen.

Re: PG's Rarely Asked Questions

#65

Post by tarmstrong » Sun, Sep 18, 2011, 7:07 PM UTC

sjtgraham wrote: post #46

frisco wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying that Google is anything other than one of the world's most wildly successful companies of the last decade?

No, he is saying operating by consensus doesn't scale.

"Scale" is a funny word. It doesn't scale in terms of decision making speed. But it does scale in terms of decision making quality. Obviously if social cohesion within the group is too high, or if the people present cross too many hierarchical levels, the group won't use its diversity to make excellent decisions. But if done properly, including more people in decision making results in good decisions.

This is one of the ways that you can get over narrow-minded specialists making decisions that work for them but screw everybody else.

Re: PG's Rarely Asked Questions

#66

Post by larrys » Sun, Sep 18, 2011, 7:12 PM UTC

NY_Entrepreneur wrote: post #30

larrys wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"how to make an A in Women 101-102!" My initial reaction to this was to agree with the statement. And I still sort of do. But I think women (or men) can be a big distraction if you are trying to create something. That being said the correct woman or men can help you achieve as well if the relationship is stable. The statement "behind every great man" there is a ... is basically true from my experience.

"Behind every great man is a woman"? Maybe! In the case of FDR, Ike, Patton, and McArthur, I suspect it was more their mothers than their wives! Few men have such helpful mothers! Then there is your "if the relationship is stable". Well, yes, and 'effective'! So, and especially for the huge fraction of men who don't have mothers as helpful as FDR's, how to get such a 'relationship'????!!!! May I suggest Women 101-102…

Not sure what you mean by this:

"Twelve year old boys, BELIEVE this!"

Re: PG's Rarely Asked Questions

#67

Post by NY_Entrepreneur » Sun, Sep 18, 2011, 7:13 PM UTC

pbreit wrote: post #59

NY_Entrepreneur wrote: post #23

"I want to start a startup, but I don't know how to program. How long will it take to learn?" A year? Depends! To be very useful on Windows, really need to be okay on the content of several books, each about 1000 pages long, have worked through about 2500 Web pages of documentation at Microsoft's MSDN, along with more pages from other sources. Then need to write some code, at least as exercises, using what learned. F…

For web development, you don't need any of that. And anyone taking up pg's suggestion should not be using anything from Microsoft.

"For web development, you don't need any of that."

For Web development on Windows, that is a good list of a minimal list of EXACTLY what is needed. Web development on Windows is JUST what I'm doing, and that list of topics is JUST what is centrally involved.

What are you going to leave out? T-SQL? OS backup and recovery? Good skills with an IDE or editor?

Yes, learning most of, say, Visual Basic by itself is easy. The 'rub' is that for anything at all serious in Web development or just software development, it is just crucial to make good use of .NET, and that is HUGE. For a long time, nearly each time you turn around, you will need to use another .NET class, and that will take you 1-3 dozen Web pages at MSDN to find, download, save, index, abstract, and read. The total of MSDN Web pages needed adds up quickly: I have over 2500 now, and it grows quickly. Just yesterday I downloaded a lot just for 'request data validation'. Before that, the topics were HtmlEncode and UriEncode. Before that, TCP/IP sockets. Before that, Windows Communications Foundation. Before that Windows 'remoting'. Before that, Windows remote procedure call. Before that, a LOT on SQL Server administration and mangement. And on and on and on. It's ENORMOUS.

Re: PG's Rarely Asked Questions

#68

Post by AaronI » Sun, Sep 18, 2011, 7:15 PM UTC

dgreensp wrote: post #40

>I never had to manage anyone in our startup, even though I was the president. The other hackers were my peers, and would have given me the raspberry if I'd tried to "manage" them. We operated by consensus. And the rest of the company reported to our experienced COO, who was also more of a peer. Operating by consensus and not valuing the role of "manager" only goes so far. It may work when you're a few people living…

Agreed. It's essentially design by committee, which may work well when there's only a handful of you, but consensus of several individuals is difficult to reach, and the obvious or safe choice is accepted with little insight or vision. Committees create divisiveness and perpetuate a loss of vision. They exist only because individuals are taught that consensus is more important than making the right decision.

Re: PG's Rarely Asked Questions

#69

Post by Samuel_Michon » Sun, Sep 18, 2011, 7:19 PM UTC

corin_ wrote: post #63

Samuel_Michon wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I've never met anyone who bridged visual art with anything tech-related" You've never met a web designer, video editor, 3D artist or graphic designer?

Yeah my bad, wasn't specific enough - I meant painters, sculpters and the like. In my head they are called "art", I have to make an active decision to think of "art" as "the arts" including other things - guess just the way I learned the vocab. as a kid. So it was already a step to edit from "art" to "visual art". Perhaps I should have gone with "static visual art that is created for the sake of being art"? As to you…

"I meant painters, sculpters and the like."

I don't believe there's a difference. All the good graphic designers I know don't only do applied design for clients, they also create "static visual art that is created for the sake of being art". On the other hand, most sculptors I know mostly create statues for banks and local governments.

Having attended art school, I can tell you there is little art free from commerce and it mostly is no good. Having some constraints actually helps the quality of the work.

Re: PG's Rarely Asked Questions

#70

Post by NY_Entrepreneur » Sun, Sep 18, 2011, 7:19 PM UTC

larrys wrote: post #66

NY_Entrepreneur wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Behind every great man is a woman"? Maybe! In the case of FDR, Ike, Patton, and McArthur, I suspect it was more their mothers than their wives! Few men have such helpful mothers! Then there is your "if the relationship is stable". Well, yes, and 'effective'! So, and especially for the huge fraction of men who don't have mothers as helpful as FDR's, how to get such a 'relationship'????!!!! May I suggest Women 101-102…

Not sure what you mean by this: "Twelve year old boys, BELIEVE this!"

The "this" was "can be a big distraction if you are trying to create something". Or, put more clearly, 12 year old boys need to understand that (1) it is getting time for them to start to take the rest of their life seriously, (2) for that seriousness, it is time for them to get into some hard work learning and doing, (3) being 'creative' eventually is important, and it is not too soon to get started, (4) for this seriousness, getting much involved with females can be a distraction from a little bit with little harm and maybe some benefit up to too much and a lot of harm.