161–170 of 177 posts
The Zero MQ guys seem to have some pretty good wisdom to impart. Pieter Hintjens has a free book at http://cultureandempire.com which is worth a read.
The iMatix guys have been amongst my heroes since they released Libero (state machine code generator) and built Xitami on it (both mentioned by Hintjens as "finished" projects in a comment to the linked article) back in the 90's...
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Valid point, I totally see what you mean. >>> You get the (you think...) brilliant idea phase when you're all fired up, then you get "this is really boring" phase. In my experience, there are 2 kinds of 'really boring' phase. One kind, as you mention it, is the less exciting part of the work, be it writing docs, or some edge case bugs, etc. The other kind is when you discover that you largely underestimated the compl…
I learned a lot from a beginner's art class a long time ago. The teacher threw some rope on the table and said "Here - draw this." Problem - I can't draw. I have no idea what I'm doing. I am completely terrified of making some kind of horrible messy fuck-up non-art and... To keep it short - it's all fine. I'm not Durer, and I sketched something that didn't look much like rope. But it was way better than I expected. T…
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I did something remotely similar with a guy online - we set a schedule to each launch a monetised microsite within five days and 'keep each other honest' (e.g., not get lazy and do nothing each night). The plan was that each morning we'd check in and show progress - only allocated an hour each night. The pressure would motivate us to see it through. Even though we'd never met and did everything via email, I still fou…
Curious what the site was
Each night I did a tiny portion of the work:
- research keywords and write bullet points - decide on domain, buy domain and set up hosting - extend bullets to x paragraphs per page - create site with nav and pages - launch and paste in ad code
Each evening was about an hour.
MFA sites are a bit slimy and unfulfilling so I tend to favour other side projects these days.
Am I the only one that really hates the carpenter analogy? As someone who does woodworking on the side of my programming, there's a million reasons why it's a terrible way to think about software development. The chair doesn't have supported platforms, new security issues, or the need to be updated so that people keep buying the same chair. Someone else isn't going to have to come along later to maintain the chair an…
I think something like an airplane is a much better analogy, as it is a complex system in a constant state of flux. It requires constant maintenance and has to comply with ever-changing FAA rules and regulations. It has to adapt to changing routes and distances -- it might be retrofitted to hold more fuel, or redesigned to burn less. During its lifetime, it will undergo several cabin reconfigurations, and will likely…
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If you're embarrassed by the first version of your product (i.e. suppose it's buggy, or is lacking in it's UI) then it's probably not ready to ship? There is nothing worse than shipping a half-baked product.
> There is nothing worse than shipping a half-baked product. Well, other than never shipping at all, which is, of course, the point ;)
If you're shipping respirators, cryovalves, automated replenishment systems...
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I think something like an airplane is a much better analogy, as it is a complex system in a constant state of flux. It requires constant maintenance and has to comply with ever-changing FAA rules and regulations. It has to adapt to changing routes and distances -- it might be retrofitted to hold more fuel, or redesigned to burn less. During its lifetime, it will undergo several cabin reconfigurations, and will likely…
And airplane building is one of the more relatable pastimes.
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> There is nothing worse than shipping a half-baked product. Well, other than never shipping at all, which is, of course, the point ;)
Depends on the business. If you're shipping respirators, cryovalves, automated replenishment systems...
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Ignoring seems to me like the secret weapon of the powerless. I like to confront, discuss and get things improved. But it is so hard to get incompetent managers up to speed, if they lack years of experience.
> the secret weapon of the powerless It is. I've had a few managers where everything we all tried to change change were fruitless. The only solution was to either antagonize until things got out of hand, or to ignore. > I like to confront, discuss and get things improved That's a good initial starting point. But I've also learned that there comes a time when expending any more of my own energy fighting such people is…
You have many good points. And they match my experience. I'll try with less persistence.
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Emacs does do one thing and one thing well: it runs elisp code. The image just happens to have a text editor and a bunch of other useful utilities built-in.
To expand on this, each elisp package tends to do one thing and do it well. The majority of my Emacs workflow is basically just a bunch of small, single-purpose elisp programs that get used alongside one another. Emacs looking like the antithesis of the Unix philosophy is only because the Unix nature is deeply embedded within it.
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To expand on this, each elisp package tends to do one thing and do it well. The majority of my Emacs workflow is basically just a bunch of small, single-purpose elisp programs that get used alongside one another. Emacs looking like the antithesis of the Unix philosophy is only because the Unix nature is deeply embedded within it.
That hardly describes all of them.