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Please review my webapp: Da Button Factory - create shiny buttons | palsecam: Hello everyone out there following the button factory!First of all, thanks everyone for the big amount of -so- useful comments! It's really interesting and motivating!Some have noticed, the server has been down, overloaded. I put some rules to guarantee its disponibility, but it may still be problems (it's a very small server and I just made dirty hacks to prevent it to die miserably, I hope).I pushed a little update which corrects some of the bugs suggested:* the 'swap' button is now usable with the history* the vertical and horizontal padding are in the right order :-P* "hammering" the increment/decrement buttons is now possible* the shadow orientation now allows only east or west* the site was totally broken in IE 6/7, now it should be usable (but terribly ugly!)* the title "Da Button Factory" is now a link* links have been added to download the button or bookmark the pageFor the color pickers: I'm currently working on it. But it's a big job, and I want to make it well, so it will take a little time.For browsers issues: thanks for the reports, It's very important, and I'll investigate, but not immediately (I've no easy access to the Internet in the week, even less access to Windows).I'll certainly open a blog soon, so that interested people could follow the updates via RSS.Once again, a big thanks to everyone for the help! |
Review my startup (vivapixel.com) | thepanister: It looks interesting...
But can you please make a demo video, or make a demo version that would allow us to make a fast test without requiring creating an account?EDIT: Also consider providing users a way to transfer their photos from their current service to yours, and to share the photos through multiple platforms... such as facebook.Also consider letting users to login using their facebook account - Facebook connect.Also if you require users to sign up, then consider making a small registeration form at the front page, to accelerate the signup process, and make users feel it's easy to do.EDIT: If you are interested in learning about the user's experience, then consider adding a feedback form, that's easy to be filled. |
Review my startup (vivapixel.com) | trickjarrett: So here are my thoughts:1) You give me no reason to use you rather than Flickr or Facebook. What is the reason YOUR site is better? I'm not saying it isn't, but that needs to be on your frontpage. You have to assume your customer is going to have photos online elsewhere.2) Frontpage signup button took me to an Oops page, so I can't even register to try the service. Looks like it goes to signup.php rather than /signup3) A pet peeve. If you're going to allow me to login without authorizing my account, just log me in after I register. Why make me re-authorize myself.4) Creating an album before upload is an extra step. Allow me to create the album in the upload process, sure require it, but I want to begin uploading images right away.After playing with the site some, I still don't have an understanding what makes your site a killer site in the crowded market. What is it that makes you better than Flickr, Facebook or Myspace for my photos? |
Review my startup (vivapixel.com) | unalone: Your logo's border looks particularly thick. It doesn't look very good on such a minimalist site."Vivapixel helps you store and share your photos and videos !"There shouldn't be a space before the exclamation point. Furthermore, there shouldn't be an exclamation point at all. You're not making us excited right now, you're selling your product. It looks better if you're confident enough to stick to a period.The checkboxes look very generic. Why not use a font-specific checkbox, if you need checks at all?Bold fonts to me suggest slovenliness. Any reason you can't use a normal font thickness, and experiment with sizes to emphasize?Work on the quality of your writing. If you've got three bullet points, it helps if they're about equal in length. "Crystal clear photos & videos" is overlong and doesn't say anything: aren't all photos crystal clear online? Does crystal clear video mean HD? (I'd also tell you to hyphenate crystal-clear, but it would be better to go with another phrase entirely.) "Safe and Fast" should see the f in "Fast" lowercased. Furthermore, these aren't points you should be making. I don't think of photo sites as unsafe or slow. You bringing these up makes me wonder just how fast and safe you are. (It's like the proverbial restaurant that advertises "Our meat doesn't come from cats.")I notice all the photos up front were taken by Dave. Any chance of getting other photographers/some spoof accounts to look better? Also, for the love of Pete remove the border from that photo. Nothing adds to slightly disorienting clutter than vaguely noticeable borders around things that should remain borderless.The "create new account" button isn't clickable. Make it so I can click that button.Don't give us a tour using thumbnails on the front page. That's cluttered. If you had more going on, thumbnails would be fine, but as it is it looks pretty cluttered. Also, work on the spacing. If you've got to have thumbnails, give them some space. Don't jam text up against the photo. Again, work on spacing (between commas in the second thumbnail) and punctuation (the first thumbnail has a sentence that doesn't end in a period) and capitalization (a lot of offenders here).There are a few other things - the spacing of the top links, the links in the footer - but those are minor compared to your main problem, which is that this splash page doesn't make me want to sign up. I don't see the advantage, beyond having a cool web site URL, to using this above Flickr.Remember that a good design means convincing people they want to use you. Right now, that's not happening, and that's a problem. |
Please review my webapp: Da Button Factory - create shiny buttons | ralph: Either wrap long text to fit in fixed-width buttons, or let me specify \n and \\ to break the lines manually. |
Please review my webapp: Da Button Factory - create shiny buttons | ralph: Remember my last settings when I return to the site. Provide a `reset to defaults' button if I want sanity to return. |
Please review my webapp: Da Button Factory - create shiny buttons | dpurp: Not bad.1. On a first glance the interface is a little overwhelming, and I am not sure where to go/what to change first. Have a single column of options that can be expanded/condensed accordion style (think the Mac MS Word formatting sidebar).2. Buttons produced are only a single image. It would be nice if multiple images/sprites were created (that is, a single image file, with multiple images). The additional images would enable hover and on click capabilities, providing a user with visual feedback that the image is indeed a button, and that it is working. That being said, you may also need to include the relevant CSS necessary for a user to select the correct sprite in each situation.3. Having the Undo/Redo on the top right seems a bit unnatural. (I didn't even notice these options at first; moving them to the top left may be better?) You might also consider using the standard arrow icons for these options with a text description on the bottom or on the right4. Other people have already mentioned this, but additional fonts and a color picker would be very useful.5. The site's layout requires a fairly wide screen. When I don't have my browser window maximized, the layout gets kinda messed up (input boxes flow to the next line abandoning their label). |
Please review my webapp: Da Button Factory - create shiny buttons | thingsilearned: I've used it and found it easy and super helpful! Thanks for this! |
How long until you became "ramen profitable"? | staunch: You should make this a poll, and don't forget the "I'm still not ramen profitable" option that most people will choose :-) |
How long until you became "ramen profitable"? | tom_rath: Eleven months from empty text editor to 'ramen profitability'. Only one product was developed but about four others were considered before I focused on a clearly defined market filled with customers who were willing to pay for software.The position I started from was zero debt and about two years of comfortable living expenses saved. That turned out to be essential.Contract work was offered and was very tempting to accept, but I knew if I took it I'd find it difficult to focus on product development -- so I passed it up. Once you have a steady income (whether from a salaried job or from contracts), it's very difficult to go back to working for zero dollars per hour and an unproven idea you think might work one day. |
How long until you became "ramen profitable"? | Zarathu: Five months. |
How long until you became "ramen profitable"? | hedgehog: I left the previous startup last January (was there about five years). Between travels I did a few projects:- Contract app development.
- Wrote some graphics code for fun (real-time voxel renderer).
- Wrote a web app as an experiment (web clippings tool).What I learned: Contract development is not for me. Writing code for myself is much more satisfying, the graphics project was really a lot of fun. From the clippings app (clipng.com, it works and I use it but it could use some polish) I learned that working on your own is a lot harder than working in a team. At the same time, finding co-founders is really difficult.In January I decided to join up with a seed-stage company whose CEO I met at a networking event. They have a good business model but needed someone to take over engineering and get the product shipped. So far that's working out well from a business standpoint and it has me at ramen-sustainable cash flow. Total time to sustainable: 1 year, 2 months.Right now I have four ideas in-queue that I think would make good businesses but finding a co-founder is my first priority. If anyone reading this is in the Bay area and looking a project let me know. |
How long until you became "ramen profitable"? | EvilTrout: I worked on my project (a pretty large web game) for a year before we launched it. Money started coming in right away. We had coverage on wired.com which was a nice spike, but I only got confident enough to start withdrawing a regular salary after another 12 months.So technically 24 months, which is longer than the other posts I'm seeing here so far. |
How long until you became "ramen profitable"? | ejs: Never at the rate I am going :-/ |
How long until you became "ramen profitable"? | jnovek: Today was the first day of our first billing mo. with our first customer. Our second customer will place us clearly in the realm of "Ramen Profitability".It took four ideas, a co-founder revolving door, one false start and copious amounts of luck to get here.Altogether, 11 months so far. While working the day job. I'm constantly exhausted. |
How long until you became "ramen profitable"? | swombat: I didn't quit my job until I was ramen profitable and then some. However, the ramen profitability went away after a while. Things can grow as well as shrink. My second business is not yet ramen profitable. |
How long until you became "ramen profitable"? | axod: About a year, give or take. |
How long until you became "ramen profitable"? | gills: Not yet (+189 days). |
How long until you became "ramen profitable"? | SwellJoe: About 8 months. And another 6 months, or so, to one (modest) salary profitable (meaning: enough for one person to live normally, without money concerns). We're probably at two salary profitable today, though it's a bit weak for a Silicon Valley engineer salary, and my co-founder has a family and a mortgage (in the valley).We were actually selling software within a month or two of starting the company, as we were starting from a mature Open Source project and so didn't have a ton of code to write, so we hit the ground running pretty fast. |
How long until you became "ramen profitable"? | markessien: It took me 3 days. I entered a market with products in the $10.000 range, and sold my product for $900. I had my first sale within 3 days (actually, it was the second, the first sale was the guy who gave me the idea in the first place {because he needed it}).This was after about 4 months of work, though. |
Please review my webapp: Da Button Factory - create shiny buttons | brianculler: http://dabuttonfactory.com/edit?t=This%20is%20a%20startup%3F... |
How long until you became "ramen profitable"? | shafqat: I quit my job to work on NewsCred in July 08 (8 months ago). Hope to be Ramen profitable with 6 people in the next six months (we have a B2B side that is not apparent from our consumer website). Will definately post with details when that happens. It's tough, but no question one of the best decisions of my life. |
How long until you became "ramen profitable"? | blakeb: Started doing web app development consulting to learn the ropes shortly out of college with my cofounders in Nov 03. Started the design for buildasign.com in July 04 as one of our hopeful projects to turn into a sustainable business (a product rather than service business is what we were aiming for). Soft launch and slowly increased advertising starting June 05. Got our first manufacturing garage space in Nov 05. Paid ourselves for the first time in January 06. Things went well from there.So I was full time for 2 years before getting paid beyond a just-survivable amount from consulting and hosting. |
"Deals fall through" | thepanister: Here is the startup:
http://tinyarro.ws/
And here is the guy: http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=thoraxI hope this is the proper answer! |
Review our startup (www.chuwe.com) | hotpockets: 1. I'm not sure what the numbers in the green box indicates. Are they upvotes from users indicating that the question is a good one? Are they the number of replies? The number of views? Perhaps frequenters of social voting sites may know this but even sites like digg say "87 diggs" in the little box.2. Make the concept of the money pot more prominent. I think its the most important piece of information to display. Try to rework the layout to put it at the top, perhaps next to the logo.3. Consider asking more questions with your account, then looking up the answer online and answering it. Consider it your personal notebook of business info. I haven't thought about this rigorously, but I would at least give it thought. It would make your site seem more accurate.4. Users don't want to answer the same types of questions over and over. Consider making a startup 101 page that tries to lay out the very basics of startups that some people seem to be asking. Then users can just point people to that page. |
Please review my webapp: Da Button Factory - create shiny buttons | hotpockets: 1. Your logo is pretty plain. Maybe make your logo be one of your buttons.2. It would be cool to be able to replicate popular button styles of other companies, or at least similar to them.3. I didn't see the undo/redo links until I was done. Maybe move them somewhere else, like under the center button?4. Def need to make it easier to find colors you want. Plus more fonts like others suggested.5. Can you automatically have it generate a "button pressed down" version? |
How long until you became "ramen profitable"? | jamroom: 9 months |
"Deals fall through" | pg: I meant it's one of YC's additional mantras, not a mantra of one of the startups we funded. |
"Deals fall through" | aaroneous: I think pg is saying it's one of the mantras of YC, not that of one of their companies. |
How are url shorteners making money? | LurkingGrue: Volume? |
Authorize.net Vs Zuora Vs Aria for Subscription Billing | CalmQuiet: Arrrggghh ! I, too, hope someone else chimes in with some experience. I keep procrastinating about reading through all the reams of material from Authorize.net then debugging their user unfriendly processes to get to a functioning billing process.Their reputation for security and friendliness to the end customer seems good, so I think I'm going to have to bite the bullet, but if someone has used another system all the way through to a finished eCommerce product, I'd love to hear about customer satisfaction, etc. (or anything about relative reliability, security, etc.) |
hacker ways of fighting anxiety? | amichail: Try not worrying about falling asleep at specific times -- such worry is itself a source of anxiety.When you are tired enough, you will sleep. |
hacker ways of fighting anxiety? | mcav: Treat your anxiety like you would any coding problem:Consider your anxiety's symptoms as problems in an issue tracker. For every thing that makes you anxious, stop and think: Is this a true, valid, legitimate [health] concern? If so, address it. But if not -- if it's merely a product of your worry -- then mark that issue as "resolved", "notabug", etc.It's a logical approach: If there isn't anything medically wrong and you're just anxious about it, then take a moment and tell yourself that it's just a needless worry, and worrying about a bug doesn't fix it.The more you can allow yourself to focus on other things (i.e. becoming engrossed in a project), the easier it will be to put your anxiety aside.[I am not a doctor, etc.] |
hacker ways of fighting anxiety? | Allocator2008: I would absolutely see a therapist. You could try out a psychologist just to "talk things out with" and he/she can recommend a psychiatrist if medication is needed. It can help. I have ADD and occasionally have anxiety symptoms as well, and I've been to a few therapists so I know that therapy can really help. |
hacker ways of fighting anxiety? | pg: Exercise is what always saves me, specifically running, soccer (before hurting knee), and yoga (since hurting knee). |
How long until you became "ramen profitable"? | patio11: So you quit your job to run your own company.I did? News to my bosses. ;) I've had a day job for the entire duration.I started being consistently ramen profitable about 28 months after starting. (Last October-ish.) In February I hit my next milestone, which was "sales > salary". I'm hoping to hit "profits > salary" sometime before the end of April.I've only ever had one product. I've tried making two others in the interim, but they got put on the back burner for a variety of reasons. Someday.Stuff of interest: I don't know what you find interesting, but my blog is in my profile if you want the whole story. If you want to skip to pretty graphs see http://www.bingocardcreator.com/stats . |
hacker ways of fighting anxiety? | bbuffone: I had the exact same problem a while back. It was while working full time and creating a startup on the side. The stress of every thing resulted in the same symptoms. Every day I needed to resist the urge to go to the emergency room because I thought I was going to die of a heart attack. This lasted for about 7 months and I didn't tell anyone until eventually I couldn't take it and one night drove myself to the hospital. After a series of unpleasant tests, it was just to much stress.So what did I do to fix it?1.) Realized the deadlines and pressure I was putting on myself were self imposed and definitely didn't need to be that aggressive. One thing I have learned, all time lines and deadlines are made up (know one really knows, its just a best guess), unless there is a contract attached. Doesn't mean be lazy and slack off.2.) Better time management, context switching in life is aa expensive as it is on a computer, Set aside time for each thing.3.) Task lists, every day create a list of tasks you want to complete and cross items off when done. The sense of accomplishment creates a good feeling. Tomorrow create a new task list, don't add to the old one, this is a good way to clear the list of all the shit that doesn't matter or has changed. You are going to be behind schedule, the goals is to make progress and create milestones that can be reached.3.) Balance your life, being heads down can only last for so long. Enjoy family, friends, people on the street, talk about what you are doing, get ideas and feedback. Get a way for a weekend, see #1 shit can wait a weekend.4.) As soon as possible find someone that can start to use the software and give you feedback. It is amazing how one person giving feedback will help energize you. They will think the progress you are making is far better than you. This is because what you are doing will hopefully help them in some way.5.) Started exercising, eating better and stopped drinking Coke. Caffeine increases heart rate and only added to the problem, but I was drinking Coke to cope with the sleeping issues. Exercise is always positive, don't need to run a marathon just get out and walk around, enjoy the sun.6.) Massages, I made my wife start giving me massages and that worked really well. No wife, no worries, you can pay money for a professional. |
hacker ways of fighting anxiety? | jgalvez: Exercise helps you feel always refreshed and improves your sleeping considerably. I have finally managed to fit jogging as a daily activity and it has helped me wonders.But the key thing is marijuana. There's no better aid to concentration than getting high. Of course you can't over do it, but getting the /right high/ will make you code like there's no tomorrow.It completely relieves you of any pressure and stress and makes any problem interesting to work on. It's the only thing that will make me stare 3 hours non-stop at code without being affected by distractions and without getting tired while also actually producing and being creative. I'm not ashamed of admitting it and I'm most definitely sure I'm not alone being a stoner coder :) |
Anyone use brain drugs such as piracetam here? | jcapote: I too am curious after hearing numerous people rave about this "drug" (seems more like a supplement to me) |
hacker ways of fighting anxiety? | GrandMasterBirt: There are a couple of things I do to get away from stress. Remember you need to get away from stress, not problems. You need to solve problems, but get them out of your mind until they are needed.1) Pick up a fun sport. Sport gets the endorphins going, gets your body working, makes you think better, feel more self-confident, etc. I take Karate for fun (hell I've been white belt for 6mo since I didnt take test) but it made me so much happier that I can't even compare myself now and 6 mo ago (don't go to the stuff like Tiger Sholmans, they are all crap, go to the cheap dojos, try a few out. Ask friends if they go.) Or play some soccer, football, basketball, just make sure to push your body just hard enough to get a good workout, definately past the "oh I'm out of breath I'm sitting this one out" play till you can't move the feet. :) Just know your limits.2) Go out with friends, even if you are married, go do something completely useless with a friend.3) Just sit down and clear your mind. Know that all the problems are always there until you solve them (or until you get help) but treat yourself to 5-10 minutes of complete ignorance and tranquility. Do this as often as you need it. If you need to do 30 min of work and 10 min of R&R do it! If your boss complains then tell him calmly that if he has a better way to get some stress relief you are all for it. As a human being he will understand anxiety.4) Don't bottle it in. Talk to a spouse, a family member, a friend, a co-worker, anyone. Sometimes just letting it out can make you feel so much better. (had this happen recently, been dwelling on something for many many hrs, could not sleep, a 2 minute conversation with a co-worker just letting my feelings be known made me feel better, and in the end I just stressed over nothing. But it helped. Was not directed at the co-worker.)5) I noticed crap food also adds to stress. Eat better. I drink water and juice (rarely), eat fruits vs candy, no fast-food like mcdonalds, burger king, subeway, anything like that, eat some cooked vegetables (for flavor). I noticed diet definitely helps. And it improves your health as a bonus.6) STOP WORKING. You can't have your brain on full power 24/7. At some point it just crashes and if you keep pushing you will get bad results. Its why I can't drive for extended periods of time without rests, too much attention, too much brain power used, eventually I just start shutting down. Same with programming. I take breaks, read news, talk to co workers, get lots of work done, go home, see family. Do anything to shut your brain down for a small time. If you are working till 5am and you can quit (if you are good this economy means you have a chance to find a job) then quit. No crap job is worth your life. |
Anyone use brain drugs such as piracetam here? | smellersinc: My mom takes piracetam like aspirin. She's 61 and still learning new stuff to keep up with the advancements in her professional field. |
CTO vs. VP of Engineering | pg: Sounds to me like he's trying to push you aside. |
CTO vs. VP of Engineering | code_devil: In my company, the CTO and CEO are the co-founders. The CTO has a PHd and our revolutionary product is pretty much his brain child implemented by the tech staff under them. We also have a VP of Engineering that they hired. (a Director of Eng in their previous venture). However, the VP of Eng reports to the CEO. The CTO has his own set of staff and they basically brainstorm on new ideas. We engineers respect all of them, but the CTO is definitely placed at a higher pedestal because the bread & butter produect being his idea. But, the CTO does not deal with most of the engineering staff except a few members who are working under him for some latest ideas or our product in the R&D phase, not released to the market yet. As an analogy, the CTO is more like a College professor with a bunch of RA's under him :)I am not sure what your background in your company is. Just wanted to share what i saw in my company. |
CTO vs. VP of Engineering | dennykmiu: It sounds like from what you are describing, you are more like the VP of Engineering and less the CTO of the company. VP of Engineering should report directly to the CEO and should be responsible for the entire engineering staff, similar to the VP of Sales who also reports directly to the CEO and should be responsible for the entire sales staff. If the CEO believes that he needs a new VP of Engineering, then essentially he is telling you that he is not happy with your performance and he needs to replace you. |
Anyone use brain drugs such as piracetam here? | jambalaya: I take doses of Greens+ from time to time. I like it. I tried Piracetam and others but didn't put the effort in to identify how they affected me. |
A smarter Hacker News RSS Feed? | mcav: You could probably do that with Yahoo Pipes. I use a feed that pulls in the article's comments page (because I read comments first):http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=23159aed1a913917f... |
CTO vs. VP of Engineering | spolsky: The CEO has decided that you have technical ability but not management ability. He doesn't want to lose your nagios-installation skills but he thinks that an imaginary person whom he has not yet met or hired will be better than you at leading the tech team. He's happy to let you keep the fancy CTO title and perks so you don't lose face, or because he doesn't want a confrontation.I would guess based on your comments and the fact that you're asking this question that politics are not your strong suit. "Politics", b.t.w., is just the natural state of people working together... it can be dysfunctional or functional, but as soon as you have 3 people, you have some kind of politics.Since politics are a major component of management, you may actually be happier not doing management.In situations like this the CEO is probably overestimating his ability to find a Magical VP Technology that will magically solve all his problems (unless he has someone in mind, a buddy from a previous company, for example). Likely he will spend 6-9 months trying to find someone, finally hire someone imperfect in despair, and spend the next year or two discovering that person is incompetent, too. But now I'm really just projecting.If you don't like the CEO it may be time to move on. Life is to short to work with people you don't enjoy spending time with. |
CTO vs. VP of Engineering | jwilliams: This is a rough question - but are there areas in the tech area that you see requiring improvement? If so, what are they? Irrespective of the political state, do you see the CTO/VPeng setup redressing them? |
How many of you (coders) use marijuana? | spooneybarger: 'use'? somehow it seems so innocuous that 'use' is way to strong a word that said, not me. marijuana makes me stupid to the point i forget i have muscles. |
How many of you (coders) use marijuana? | inklesspen: Not I. Cannot stand the stench of it. |
Anyone use brain drugs such as piracetam here? | chris11: I haven't personally tried piracetam, but erowid has a good section on piracetam and other nootropics. It generally seemed from Erowid that nobody had any bad experiences unless they were also on hard drugs.Piracetem:http://www.erowid.org/smarts/piracetamNootropic Vault:http://www.erowid.org/smarts/smarts.shtml |
Anyone use brain drugs such as piracetam here? | rms: Do a majority taking neutrotransmitters feel there has been some improvement in mental condition? I suspect most people do not. If it is not unhealthy to take one neurotransmitter, how many in combination become unhealthy? I would expect the benefits of these drugs to become more apparent when they were in combination with each other but any potential negative effects could also be magnified in combination.You could fund research into what cognitive enhancement drugs did in healthy populations. Undergraduates would line up to be paid to take these drugs.There's also the underlying ethical question of dosing people with combinations of neurotransmitters. We haven't studied it yet so we don't know what the side effects are. Is animal research appropriate? Do any of these drugs work on other primates? Has anyone ever tried to teach monkeys mathematics? http://www.scribd.com/doc/13134612/Naturrecom456702a argues for more study into the area, though they use as examples drugs of much more proven ability for cognitive enhancement than piracetam. |
CTO vs. VP of Engineering | ajju: I worked in a company where the VP of Engineering didn't report to the CTO. It made some sense because the CTO mostly directed the 6 months into the future vision of the company (next features, next product). This worked ok because the CTO had a research team that reported to him and the VP of Engg had the development team reporting to him but it was not optimal.The issues we faced were:- CTO+Research team builds some amazing enhancements for the product but have to fight to get them into the next release (Dev claimed there was no time for regression testing..but next cycle there will be)- Dev team thought the research team were ivory tower elites (even though this was not the case). There were Ph.D.s and people who never went to college on the team.- Research team eventually thought they were superior (reaction to having all their input regularly ignored by dev team)In short, if your company has a legitimate need for a research or forward looking team, there may be a way to make this situation work, but not without regular political disputes and bitterness between teams. Try to find a way to have the VP report to you. |
How many of you (coders) use marijuana? | lalagrand: I agree. Up to a point, it seems to have a beneficial effect. Especially in design, perhaps not so much when it comes to data modeling and logic. |
A smarter Hacker News RSS Feed? | alecst: Isn't Hacker News already close enough to an RSS feed? It's just aggregated links, like any ordinary RSS feed would be.Plus, I don't think I would want to load several articles at once like you propose. I enjoy being able to choose which articles I want to read. |
CTO vs. VP of Engineering | sah: It's normal for the VP Eng to be a peer of the CTO and report directly to the CEO. That said, you are almost certainly being marginalized. Your CEO likely knows he needs your irreplaceable understanding of the company's technology, but otherwise wants you out of the way.Replacing you as manager is probably not going to work out well unless he already has someone good in mind. CEOs rarely understand how much difficulty they'll have identifying competent tech managers. He's in danger of finding someone who does a great job of "managing up" and a poor job of getting things done efficiently and correctly.If you can't prevent the hire, making sure you hire someone competent is probably the most significant thing you can do for the company. |
CTO vs. VP of Engineering | marhar: At my old company we called the CTO "chief termination officer". It was basically the de-staging area for tech people who had enough visibility that they didn't want to get rid of them outright. |
How many of you (coders) use marijuana? | rsayers: I havn't in a little over a year now. Current company drug tests and I enjoy a paycheck more than I enjoy getting high.That said, I do very much enjoy it and have had some "breakthroughs" related to coding projects while high. Moderation is key, it can be great for helping you think about things differently, but if you overdo it, you can certainly do more harm than good. |
hacker ways of fighting anxiety? | chris11: Exercise is great.Sleep is great. I've figured out that if I don't get enough sleep, I usually end up wasting more time than I would have got sleeping.That said, you definitely need some time off from work. I'd suggest taking off a full day (24 hr) a week from work. Do what ever you want, sleep, watch tv, play a sport, just don't do work. Tell yourself to think about work later. It's a good time to catch up on any lost sleep and de-stress. |
How many of you (coders) use marijuana? | asnyder: This should be a poll, you're unlikely to get a comment from most people on this issue.Use http://news.ycombinator.com/newpoll to create a new poll. |
hacker ways of fighting anxiety? | scorpioxy: I had no idea that this was wide spread among hackers. Although, thinking about it, it makes a lot of sense. Working in an abstract rational world and in an almost always stressful environment tends to bring this stuff out. Also, i found that people to tend to be "deep thinkers" always have these problems. Wonder why....Some great tips here. I had a similar problem, although mine was a clinical depression induced by malaria medication i had to take while on a trip to Africa. What i did was to rest for a while and then start coding whenever i feel like it. In a couple of weeks, i found that i was coding for more than 10hrs a day. That was 3 years ago. |
How many of you (coders) use marijuana? | adrianwaj: It might only be giving you the illusion of helping. Can you benchmark test yourself with and without it? |
How many of you (coders) use marijuana? | dylanz: Yeah, make this a Poll, and I might 'fess up. Did I say that? |
CTO vs. VP of Engineering | gfodor: Two cents here. Similar situation happened to myself, except I wasn't the CTO but the de-facto "lead architect" of a major project/death march that had all of the stereotypical problems you read about again and again: product mismanagement, feature creep, overzealous salesforce, and heightened expectations reaching the impossible.Much like yourself, I had been put in charge of an incredibly difficult project and somehow managed to grow a solid engineering team and build the system with them and get something out the door. 500k lines of C#, unit tests integration tests, the whole 9 yards over two years. We had finally launched (late and with much more baked in than accounted for) and started to tighten up iterations and bring in customer feedback. (Yes! We really had no customers using our system for two years during development!) I of course was under a lot of stress as feature backlogs grew and defects lists exploded because the software wasn't rolled out slowly and incrementally to clients but instead sold from day zero as if it was 100% rock solid.So, as you probably had, I had my lunch with the CEO where I was being asked (ie told) that a new VP of Engineering position was going to be pursued to fix all the horrible problems plaguing the software development team. The problems which, at least from our perspective, had little to do with us since we pulled off not one but a series of those small miracles that only happen at 4AM by yourself in the tech room. However, taxed was I and naive, so I figured hey, what the heck, maybe I'll be able to write code some more if this magical hypothetical person can swoop in and take care of all that other nasty business like "talking to the sales guys and telling them not to sell features that don't exist."So, we interviewed for this position fully unaware of what it was, exactly, we were looking for. Being young engineers if a candidate came in and had managed teams before and knew what unit tests were we were thrilled. We had no idea though what to look for, what red flags there were in hiring this person, so the third person or so who came in to talk to us ultimately was hired since it's hard to say no to someone who you don't even know how to judge. (And you can't, of course, just hire the first or second candidate that walks in the door because then you just look like you don't know what you're doing!)So soon after this new hire we began interviewing for additional developer positions, but all folks that came in to meet us for interviews were developers this new VP of Engineering worked with in the past. As it turns out, the first candidate didn't know how regular expressions worked, so I said "no hire." The second, turned out, worked with a friend of mine some years back and spent days on end simply reorganizing the file structure of their svn repository, and so again, I said "no hire."Well, they both still work there and I have long since left. Our system we worked on for years completely thrown out for yet another re-write from scratch, now to be done the "right way". The all stars on the team I helped build are all gone except one who has a family to support, all moved on to do startups or larger more innovative software companies.A long story, yes, but I'd urge you if nothing else to consider the impact a hire like this can have on your entire team, since they will now be the ones making the hiring decisions. If you cannot trust them with that (and it's hard to trust anyone with that after just a few interviews), I'd say push back as hard as you can on this particular decision and try to, as PG says, "be resourceful" and bootstrap solutions from folks already in the organization you can trust. |
How many of you (coders) use marijuana? | piramida: Only to relax. I know some architects / senior coders who can concentrate better while high, but for me remembering what you did / thought about several minutes ago is more important than unnatural thinking.Maybe it just takes more practice... |
CTO vs. VP of Engineering | vseloved: http://www.feld.com/wp/archives/2007/10/cto-vs-vp-engineerin... |
How many of you (coders) use marijuana? | Rod: I confess that I find it surprising that some people here on HN freely admit using Marijuana. Worst-case scenario, couldn't YC be subpoenaed by the feds and requested to provide each user's email and IP address?I know this sounds a bit too draconian, but didn't the last administration try to subpoena Google? |
How many of you (coders) use marijuana? | andrewljohnson: I read the article in question, and it said that marijuana didn't have much effect on "chronic" marijuana users. I suspect that if you smoke pot occasionally, it will totally destroy your programming ability while high.You need to look at this study carefully. Essentially, it says if you are a pothead, pot smoking isn't so bad for your cognitive skills. But, that isn't to say that the long term effects of pot didn't already impair you... it just means that once you are used to it, it doesn't hurt you to be smoking it.The article makes perfect sense really. There is certainly such a thing as a "high-functioning alcoholic." That doesn't mean anyone can get drunk and work well, or that alcohol helps you work. It just means alcoholics have a tolerance. |
CTO vs. VP of Engineering | acgourley: The VP need not marginalize the CTO, often he just removes tedium from the CTO. If you get a VP Eng and modify the company org chart, and at the same time your influence in the company dwindles, I don't believe it will be causation. |
How many of you (coders) use marijuana? | neoneye: This is what drugs do to you:
http://www.trinity.edu/jdunn/spiderdrugs.htm |
CTO vs. VP of Engineering | danbmil99: work on your resume dude, and start going to lots of parties. Or just suck it up and make yourself as useful and unobtrusive as possible (times be rough out there). The CEO wants to sideline you; you're not his guy. He needs someone malleable and loyal to him only.Read The Prince. |
How many of you (coders) use marijuana? | tartley: It sounds like use in moderation might make it easier to rapidly leap around the conceptual problem space, perhaps reaching apparently unrelated insights. This tallies with the stereotype of being good for creativity.At higher doses, this would be overshadowed by the negative effects (leaping too far around the problem space, into nonsensical ideas, deleterous effects on memory and motivation.)I presume an experienced user could differentiate, judge their own reactions and moderate accordingly. I don't believe I could. |
How many of you (coders) use marijuana? | rjprins: I use weed rarely nowadays, but have consumed my fair share.
The effects differ a little bit per person, but in general:Weed makes you think you're sharp and insightful, but it actually makes you really stupid and slow. You forget things constantly. Using before work is only interesting if your job is mind-numbingly dull.Some more facts:1. A single joint has about the effect of 4 glasses of alcohol, or 2-3 cups of coffee. But it's a downer instead of an upper, making you more relaxed.2. Marijuana is the Spanish name used by advertisers against the use because it sounds more foreign and dangerous.3. Propaganda in the 50s (as lobbied by alcohol producers) gave weed it's bad name.PS: I live in the Netherlands |
Implementing Test Adwords Campaign? | thepanister: Well, it depends on!
I have already done such a thing before for my startup, and here is what I did:
1- I created adwords campaign with $105 (I paid $10 only, and I had $100 adwords coupon), and I made the landing page is my startup's homepage.2- I optimized the homepage to make it ready to use for the users without having to signup. So when the users visited the homepage, they knew what they should do - it was clear to them.3- I added Google adwords' code for conversion on another page to measure if the users will reach to the point I want them to.
Google Adwords will provide you with a code that you put on the target page that you want users to reach to, and if they do, then it means for you that they acheived your target.
For example, if you ask users at the home page to signup, then you add that code at the other page that will be for completed signup.4- I found more than 90% of the people reached that target page, and I was so glad that I made something people want and would use.It was a service that I provided online. I did not make signup because I just wanted to know if users would even be interested in using this service or not, and for how long.I was so glad with the results.If you want free $50 Google Adwords coupon code, I don't mind sharing it with you. |
CTO vs. VP of Engineering | andrewf: I'm skipping over the issue of your CEO's motives - he could hate you and want you out, but assuming he doesn't..despite the fact we've always done what we said we would when we said we would.So you've got the commitment thing down: you make commitments and then stick to them. That's a reasonable baseline for reliability, but there is a whole world of value-add beyond it. The VPEng should be working to improve the company's ability to deliver product - even when the problems that need solving aren't with his direct reports.In particular, you say the front office has problems communicating their vision. Do you work to improve their flawed and/or vague requirements, or do you let them hang themselves, and point to the requirements document when they're unhappy with the end result?Longer term, have you tried to move towards more iterative processes (prototyping during requirements gathering, agile processes, etc) to reduce the damage done by poor requirements?You sound like you are happier around, and have performed better in, the technical aspects of your job than the management aspects. Your CEO may (grain-of-salt) have noticed this. He could even be trying to give you what he thinks you want.Consider that your CEO may have a management structure in mind where the process-and-timelines guy sits between him and the development team. Maybe you could have this job if you wanted it - but it would mean hiring a CTO to worry about the bigger picture, architecture, product etc. Your boss probably doesn't want to pervert the reporting structure he has in mind just so that roles in it matches what you want to do. |
How many of you (coders) use marijuana? | DanielBMarkham: Not me. I'm of the opinion that lighting things on fire and sticking them near your head to breathe just sounds like a bad idea all the way around.I'm for legalization though. The idea of outlawing a weed that does less harm than alcohol is ludicrous.I experimented a bit as a teenager. As I recall, it didn't help my analytical skills at all -- unless by analytical skills you mean finding doughnuts at 3am or being able to smile stupidly while listening to Led Zeppelin tunes.I think intoxication is a natural state of mankind, so if you like toking or drinking or running until endorphins seep out of your ears I can understand that. I just don't think any of that, no matter how good it feels, actually makes you a better coder. If anything, I think good coders learn the natural rhythms of their bodies and minds, then maximize their performance based on that.Now can it make you think you're a better coder? Sure thing, boss. |
How many of you (coders) use marijuana? | kaens: Yes, I do (although I just ended up in a new country, where I haven't figured out where to get any yet).I don't smoke a lot of it, and quantifying the benefits that I receive from smoking marijuana is a bit difficult because they're rather abstract, and (at least for me), the effects of the plant vary from use to use. They don't vary widely, but there's a decent range of effects, which has a lot to do with the strain of the plant, but I digress.When thinking about high-level design of a project that doesn't have anything put to code yet, I find that marijuana can help me visualize how things should fit together.When doing exploratory programming at a REPL, I tend to try out more new things, put feelers out in a larger portion of the libraries of whatever language I'm using. I think this is objectively measurable - I may take a stab at it in the future, but I'm unable to right now.When reading new things, or studying up on languages with unfamiliar paradigms, low doses of marijuana make it easier for me to snap my brain out of "language x" mode and into "new language y" mode.When coding things in a language that I'm very familiar with, it makes it easier to get in "the zone". Not so much with languages that I don't already know like the back of my hand.In general, I get a creativity boost from marijuana - and I'm fairly certain that it's more than a placebo.Everything is not rosy though; If I smoke too much marijuana, my anti-social tendencies tend to be more pronounced. I'll have problems speaking casually with people, and my short-term memory will be shot.I don't like smoking it with people who stare at the wall when they're high. It doesn't make me want to do that at all - it makes me want to do something creative right now. Play music, code, paint, something.But yeah. I use marijuana in moderation. I know how I feel at different dosage levels, and I know what my limits are. I also know that a lot of people who use it turn it into more of a lifestyle than a part of a life, which is rarely a good thing to do with anything. |
How many of you (coders) use marijuana? | simianstyle: Whenever I smoke marijuana I just want to eat and watch movies. So even though it's impossible to measure, for me it has an absolute negative effect in terms of coder productivity. |
CTO vs. VP of Engineering | seshagiric: The new CEO is taking away your advantage of working in a startup:
- when you were CTO, you were critical for the company. When the VP comes, you will eventually become commodity (and expandable)
- your influence in the company is being cut into half
- you will lose your flexibility (or agility) in getting things done (the process guy also now has to put his say)Talk to the founders and the new CEO. If the VP engg. makes sense have him to report to you. If not move on like Spolsky says. |
How many of you (coders) use marijuana? | simplegeek: Though I smoke Marlboro Lights but still I hate Marijuana or weed. |
How many of you (coders) use marijuana? | jawngee: I do, nearly every day.I don't drink caffeine (nor alcohol or any other types of drugs/stimulants).It does a few things for me, chief among them is that it calms my ADHD and makes it easier to focus on things, specifically the mundane boilerplate shit.My best designs/architecture have come from work sessions where I've been burning the midnight oil, to make a poor pun. I can't tell you why, other than the abstraction is infinitely easier to grok.It does make me lazy though, but in someways there are benefits to that. For instance, I work hard to find easier ways to write code.I wouldn't recommend it for anyone, but I grew up smoking weed. Also, quality plays a HUGE factor.Moderation is key. |
How many of you (coders) use marijuana? | davidw: Nope. A glass or two of 'vino rosso' with dinner, or a 'spritz' with friends once in a while. |
How many of you (coders) use marijuana? | a_toker: I created this account for privacy reasons, and I'm one of the more active/karmic people in this community. Yes, this is an oppressive culture (in the US).I'm a somewhat heavy bud smoker and a full-time developer. #define HEAVY? That's subjective, but I can comfortably go through a quarter ounce in a week, and my ideal consumption is probably 1.5 grams per day. I've known people who think a bowl a day is heavy and that an ounce a week is normal, so like I said, subjective.I oscillate between stretches of daily smoking and stretches of sobriety. Clearly, there are advantages to being sober, and I wouldn't appreciate the benefits that ganja brings if it became too regular a habit.I'm full of it, right? It's a pitiful escape, and an intoxicant couldn't possibly have any benefits, right? So allow me to enumerate them:1. Ganja truly opens your mind. Now, we all have open minds, but there's a further degree of relaxation and openness that it helps one to achieve. This allows me to grasp very abstract concepts quickly because there are fewer preconceptions and other obstacles to learning. It would've taken me far longer to grasp functional programming, I believe, without this benefit.2. Morale: After a night of boozin', you will feel like crap the next day. After a night of smoking, I feel like a million bucks in the morning. Granted, I've been an insomniac all my life, and ganja is prescribed in many places for this malady. I come in to work the next day refreshed and ready to dive into my work, and I'm undoubtedly more productive when this well-rested.3. Energy/endurance: I don't always have the patience or energy for prolonged hackage, especially when it comes to things that once frustrated me, like setting up a dedicated server. When high, I can easily wade through the tasks at hand, and next thing I know, they're done. I often come home from work feeling drained, fire up a little bowl, and am re-energized. What just a minute ago seemed unthinkable (fatigued, firing up my computer to hack on something) becomes irresistable because it's one of my true passions.So, ganja is very good for me. It may be terrible for others, so I don't offer any advice here. I have yet to encounter any ill effects thus far concerning my health, and it does _not_ at all affect my stamina in physical activity as would tobacco.I never show up at work blazed, and only partake in my free time. And if you think that stoners are lazy, on top of this full-time job I run a web development business with three employees.- 21 year-old |
How many of you (coders) use marijuana? | hairsupply: I used to, but its been just over a decade now. For me the creative effects were never realized. It just made me dumb. After my first year at university my average mark was 2.9. Then I quit pot and got 4.0 for 9 nine quarters in a row. Your mileage may vary. |
How many of you (coders) use marijuana? | mlLK: I've been an avid smoker longer than a programmer; although, these days I get high as means for keeping my left-hemisphere in check, which helps new ideas breathe, but the biggest reason I keep smoking is to forget. Forgetting is good if tend to worry to much, while psychologists typically have an entire lexicon for the word anxiety, which is more or less a state invoked from worry. Getting high helps me forget all those nouns/pronouns for a brief period and just sort of float around.These days I can make an 1/8th (~3.4 grams) last a good +2 weeks.Believe it or not though, my life long dream is to move to India, get in contact with a spiritual guru, and live in the now for as long as I can. |
How many of you (coders) use marijuana? | pavelludiq: The comments here are interesting. Weed seems to have different effects on different people(not enough data to make definite conclusions though). I've experimented with it when i was 15-16, then i stopped, and its been 3 years now and i've had maybe 4-5 joints since then. I don't know what the effects it has on programming would be, but i could guess that i would be in a more relaxed/lazy mood, and in that mood im usually very creative, but not concentrated enough to actually be productive. Im usually relaxed/lazy, so i probably wont be less productive if i start smoking again. |
How many of you (coders) use marijuana? | jawngee: Jeff Atwood apparently doesn't:http://twitter.com/codinghorror/status/1305109744 |
How many of you (coders) use marijuana? | godDLL: I use marijuana. I also use tea. And tomato juice.
I'd say it does affect your coding, to the worse. However, it makes your creative thinking and problem-solving more enjoyable, which is a good thing, and positively gives you a boost.So when I actually sit down to code something I designed prior to this, I won't use it, it makes me slow and narrows the attention scope, which makes me paranoid, which makes me go through my code a couple more times, and definitely more than needed to catch all the trivial bugs. |
How many of you (coders) use marijuana? | sanj: My brain is the organ that keeps the lights on, writes the codes, designs the presentations and pays the bills.I have no interest in messing with it.I actively avoid caffeine when the going gets tough. |
How many of you (coders) use marijuana? | privacychannel: I have used chronic for several years and as a developer I find that it provides three important benefits, and I believe that for many developers it could provide the same but with important caveats and considerations.1. It helps me get a peaceful full nights sleep, which for me is approximately 7 hours, with and clearheaded thoughts the next day2. As an aid to creativity, but about only 10% or less of the time while working. My mind is getting stronger and so I can now be directly productive while high, however I tend instead to take notes and later revisit those notes while not high for speedier production3. As an aid to learning, but perhaps only 10% or less of the time while studying. Rather I regularly review difficult material lightly while high in order to experience the benefits of heightened abstract thoughtVery important notes:-- There is a long process to the mind learning about and how to benefit from something as intoxicating as chronic. You won't know many things about it and yourself until you've had a lot of experience-- Chronic is a strong sedative, many people fall asleep easily when they are first getting experience with it-- It is very important to only smoke the female plant. The male plant has a lot of negative effects and can cause you to be groggy similar to over-drinking, and the positive effects are in my opinion not enough to warrant the negative effects-- It's very important to take notes of creative ideas, since your memory for specifics is likely to be fuzzy-- When approaching new concepts and abstracts-- If you care about your productivity and learning, wait until you've gained lots of experience before trying to accomplish or study when you're high, otherwise a lot valuable time can be wasted. With a bit of experience it because possible to learn which creative and learning experiences can be directly improved from smoking-- Use a vaporizer. It is not 100% safe as others have claimed, but it significantly reduces risks, as well as reduces all forms of odor, red eyes, etc, and the dosage can be controlled betterMy programming capability has become so significantly better from smoking, but legal and medical dangers shouldn't be taken lightly. People who already know they are susceptible to self-destructive behavior need to realize that this is a drug that can sedate you heavily and it's important to learn when you can and cannot take it due to pressing work.But as a way to improve your programming skills and learn abstract concepts (functional programming, linear algebra, and so on) and connecting the dots between fields of study its a godsend.Plus, you'll just be happier :-) |
How many of you (coders) use marijuana? | cosmo7: You have a choice in life:You can smoke dope, get stoned, start dozens of unfinished projects in Ruby or Scala or Haskell or whatever you've just read about, wear bad clothes and think you're doing something worthwhile just because you're up to date with xkcd and know how to jailbreak your iPhone.Or you can learn a real language - one with braces, as God intended - preferably C# but Java is acceptable, build a business and hang out on yachts with beautiful women covered in cocaine. It's your choice. |
How many of you (coders) use marijuana? | johnyzee: I smoked extensively for years between the ages of 16-22.To begin with it increased my creativity a lot (thinking outside the box), I came up with a lot of (objectively verified) really genius pencil art.Then, with habitual use, creativity levelled off to where it probably was before I started smoking, but, importantly, with creativity and general joy dipping noticeably in dry periods. I believe this is caused by artificially high dopamine production from the smoking, conversely resulting in lower general dopamine levels when sober.Also, I am one of those persons for whom pot impairs social interaction. I felt increasingly alienated and only felt 'normal' after two-three days of sobriety. Basically I came to enjoy sobriety more, which was the direct reason I gave it up.As far as coding is concerned, pot makes coding sessions fun and enjoyable so it probably helps you sit down at the keyboard, but I am sure it hurts the output (of the code, it may help with very high-level design). Pot makes you interested in investigating little details, but makes it difficult to keep a consistent overview of things. |
How many of you (coders) use marijuana? | Anonymous71: I've tried, but I simply can't. I sit down with a text editor and get stuck immediately. I think it's because too much of my knowledge is encoded in state-dependent learning.(Another user making a new account to answer this one anonymously. This is not a post you want to come up when someone googles your name!) |
How many of you (coders) use marijuana? | nfriedly: I've see marijuana have a very negative effect on my friends work, (whether they realized it or not) and that was enough to make me not ever try it. |
CTO vs. VP of Engineering | known: Traditionally, CTO is responsible for eliciting business requirements, designing and developing technical solution and coordinating project activities.VPE is responsible for deployment, technical support, bug fixing and coordinating marketing activities. |
How many of you (coders) use marijuana? | mannicken: * WARNING: Heavy drug material and offtopic both in one message. Don't complain if your Internet etiquette sensors blow up. *I've never smoked marijuana but I did take DXM (~1.5-2.0mg/lb) several times. Certainly, during DXM trip I would have absolutely no concentration or creativity. However, after it I found that the after-effect effectively destroys two of the great challenges to thinking:- Fear- Close-mindnessI might not have been able to go through a chapter of Intro to Algorithms because I was scared, or concentrate on a bug for five hours because of fear but after DXM I could. I guess it increased my attention span. I remember I was learning about RBT tress and noticing how I am not freaking out because I don't understand stuff at first and how my mind was a blank piece of paper where anything complex could be written.There was no frustration that usually comes when I meet a problem in the thinking process, only curiosity. That helps.Oh, and it also healed my suicidal depression so I guess not being dead helps concentration and creativity a lot. |
How many of you (coders) use marijuana? | helium: I created a poll for this for those who are worried about privacy: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=509693 |
Anyone use brain drugs such as piracetam here? | asciilifeform: Didn't seem to work particularly well for me.Do read this, though:
http://yarchive.net/med/nootropics.html |
How many of you (coders) use marijuana? | schizoBrother: This is the first time I have commented. Please don't do this: you are increasing your risk of schizophrenia by smoking dope. If you only saw what that does to people and those around them. My brother suffers from this and it is terrible for him. You can all do the searches if you want to find evidence for the increase in risk."my brain is my second favourite organ", keep it that way. |
CTO vs. VP of Engineering | psranga: You're being marginalized. But I'm not sure if you're capable of being VPE but are being passed over because the CEO wants to bring in a buddy or because you are genuinely extremely unsuited for the job.If you don't want to be marginalized, fight to get the VPE position. If you're going to get fired or further marginalized for fighting, you might as well learn now so that you'll win next time. If you get VPE, learn the skills required to be a great VPE and prove him wrong. Ask point blank for the position and find out why the CEO thinks you're unsuitable for VPE.For some reason suits think management is not learnable/teachable. You sound smart; it's quite possible you'll be able to learn the required skills.IMHO, people who think management is about "people skills" and "politics" are the clueless ones. Read up "High Output Management" by Andy Grove, a hard-core geek if ever there was one. He turned out to be an amazing manager too. Bill Gates, even harder-core nerd also turned out be an amazing manager.To my mind, management is more similar to programming than to party planning (where people skills are really required). The manager's job is to set up systems and processes which will result in maximum output. To do this, you need to be analytical, quantitative, data-driven, open to being proven wrong etc. Do you see how you've been practicing all of these skills as a techie? Do the same for a proper manager's job skills and you'll see the overlap.As an aside, I think all managers should have some individual responsibility also. Otherwise they will be tempted to create problems that can be 'solved' to justify their existence.Re: "politics is not your strong suit" comments: you're expect things to work rationally but they seem to be irrational. Being techie who's always open to the possibility that you might be wrong, you're getting a second opinion to check your conclusions. Nothing wrong with that; that's a strength. |
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