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How to reduce sloppy mistakes? | idlewords: Try setting yourself a mental challenge of having a subroutine/code snippet work the first time you run it. Start very small. You'll be surprised at how hard this is, and trying this repeatedly can build good habits of reasoning about code. |
How to reduce sloppy mistakes? | californiaguy: You just need the following: proper editor, proper debugger, years of painful experience. |
How to reduce sloppy mistakes? | wooby: Write tests before you code, and spend more time planning software with pen and paper before you actually write it. If you're having doubts about your abilities or solutions and work as part of a team, ping team members or friends. |
How to reduce sloppy mistakes? | gaika: Don't use a debugger - think when something doesn't work. The feedback you get by thinking about your own code teaches you much faster than anything you get with compile/run/debug cycle."I think that without a debugger, you don't get into that mindset where you know how it behaves, and then you fix it from there... |
How to reduce sloppy mistakes? | agmiklas: I carefully read my patches before I commit them. Probably sounds pretty obvious, but I find that I can catch most problems by simply running "git diff" and then carefully and slowly reading through the output.This is especially true when I'm editing existing code rather than checking in new functionality. ... |
Any good free HTML/CSS templates for a Web app administration GUI? | ctingom: http://themeforest.net/category/site-templates/admin-skins |
How to reduce sloppy mistakes? | warwick: Using a statically typed language might also help, as the compiler can catch a lot of really stupid errors. |
How to reduce sloppy mistakes? | daleharvey: tests tests testsI use a little tool that runs unit tests on compilation, when Im doing something new that unit tests works well with, I write a bunch of tests and just code until I have 100% tests passing. |
How to reduce sloppy mistakes? | pj: I like to write my code in my head before I write it with code. Try to imagine all your code and then the code you are going to write and then run through it in your mind. Think of some special cases in your mind. Suppose you are writing a function that accepts a parameter. Okay, so go write it in your head and... |
How to reduce sloppy mistakes? | edw519: ...the number of sloppy mistakes I make is still way too high...Compared to what?You may not have a problem.Sometimes "code, mistake, fix, code, mistake, fix, code, mistake, fix,..." is faster than "code it perfectly once".For me it usually is. I'd rather crank stuff out quickly and fix it than drive myself nu... |
SICP says "Program == Language Evaluator" What does this mean? | christopherdone: I believe SICP's definition of a language involves these: means of simple data, means of combination and means of abstraction. Numbers, strings, data structures/objects are the simple data as you would find in any program. Functions and variables are means of abstraction. And what those functions and v... |
What would you love to work on? | mrlyc: Safety-critical software. I've done some work on air traffic control systems and medical equipment and enjoyed it. |
How to reduce sloppy mistakes? | rabidgnat: “The road to wisdom?
Well, it's plain and simple to express:
Err and err and err again
but less and less and less.”
~ Piet HeinIn other news, I try to check my answers by deriving them two ways. If they agree, then I at least have a good defense :). If I'm working on something that can only be reached one w... |
How to reduce sloppy mistakes? | pg: Making fewer mistakes isn't the only solution. You can also make them cost less.For example, I make a lot more typing mistakes typing into text editors than I used to do when typing on a typewriter. But I type net faster, by a lot, because fixing mistakes is so easy.There are several ways to make mistakes cost le... |
How to reduce sloppy mistakes? | MaysonL: Code review. Even if you don't have someone to review it, you can pretend to explain it to someone else, a line at a time.Error logging. When you make a mistake, and find it, document it, with as much of the reason why you made the mistake as you understand. Keep a diary of these for a few months, and you'll b... |
What would you love to work on? | spitfire: Aircraft. In particular from the start to finish of designing a light two seater aircraft.I think we could improve safety a lot with modern glass displays. For example, we have the weather report from XM, and we have the pilot's flight plan on computer. Why not warn them if this flight would be dangerous (or ... |
How to reduce sloppy mistakes? | diiq: I'd say even more F5s (assuming that's how you compile/run). There's nothing wrong with using the computer to catch a missing semicolon or parenthesis. If it takes you 20 minutes to find the error, maybe it's because you haven't been running your code often enough, rather than the reverse.Coding is debugging just... |
What would you love to work on? | diiq: Printmaking. It's meticulous, and I am not --- it stretches me, and makes me feel like I'm working. I love holding all the technical details in mind (how much ink, how much acid, how much light, this is toxic, that is flammable) while still maintaining the vision, trying to give an emotional, intellectual, physic... |
How to reduce sloppy mistakes? | gdp: Try to consider all possibilities for failure and all inputs or contingencies. If you are still coding and don't want to interrupt your "flow" to go write an error handler, just put an assertion or a comment or something that will force you to go back and write it before you compile. That way you'll know when th... |
What would you love to work on? | jodrellblank: I don't know what I'd love to work on.If you'd asked me a few years ago, the job I described then would be almost indistinguishable to the job I have now. But I don't enjoy it and feel:a) I know this is a good job and I ought to be able to love it, there's something wrong with me.b) If I feel this way abo... |
What would you love to work on? | bmelton: Comic books. If I had my druthers, I would somehow be working in comic books. At some point in my life, I had a good deal of artistic talent, though the years I spent goofing off in puberty seem to have killed it entirely.It's something of a dying art form, as most print-based things are, but also seem to ha... |
How to reduce sloppy mistakes? | icey: This sounds like a symptom of typing too much and thinking too little.This may be a little old fashioned of me, but any time I try to solve a problem that isn't immediately obvious, I write it down on paper first (or whiteboard it).If you can't hold the solution in your head and visualize it, then you should try ... |
How to reduce sloppy mistakes? | jodrellblank: Speculation: Based on the principal that you can't improve what you don't measure (or, what you measure you improve), you could keep a log of the sloppy mistakes you make. After a while, maybe patterns will emerge and you can attack 'mistyping numbers' separately from 'missing cases in a switch block' and... |
What would you love to work on? | profquail: If I ever had enough money, I'd love to start my own software non-profit, like the Mozilla Foundation. There's so many small bits of software that really make a difference in everyone's day-to-day life (whether you're an average Joe or a hardcore hacker) that don't ever get fully developed because there's no... |
How to reduce sloppy mistakes? | lallysingh: Two parts:1) ASSERT. Catch the mistakes while they're still dumb.2) Take advantage of your type checker to catch mistakes. |
How to reduce sloppy mistakes? | 10ren: Code a little bit at a time. If there's a bug, you know it was due to what you just added. |
How to reduce sloppy mistakes? | thisisnotmyname: I've found that copious use of assert statements has done wonders for reducing the amount of time I spend debugging. Its a good idea to use enough assert statements that when there's a problem it is reported immediately instead of propagating and causing weird symptoms that you have to track down. At... |
What would you love to work on? | lallysingh: Formal methods for proving timeliness, correctness, etc. Preferably in tools that mechanically verify those properties. |
What would you love to work on? | philh: What frustrates me most* is hardware. I'd love to be able to work in a context where I can do something about its deficiencies.* In terms of intensity: not frequency and maybe not averaged. The idea of being able to fix the software I use makes it more bearable, even if I rarely take advantage of that. |
What would you love to work on? | ivanstojic: I'm (technically speaking) working as a PHP and Common Lisp developer for my own startup.I'd love to do more Lisp, or in another universe, I'd love to work on engines and wish that I knew more about their design, power, efficiency... |
What would you love to work on? | edw519: I am working on exactly what I want.I have worked on business systems in many companies (mostly enterprise) and learned quite a bit. But the biggest thing I learned is that companies rarely have the applications software that they really need to compete.I am building an environment and applications that I wish... |
What would you love to work on? | DanielBMarkham: Incoming training manager at an expensive brothel chain.Seriously though, seems like this question gets asked about every two weeks around here.I love flying airplanes. From the first time I sat in a cockpit I knew that I would rather fly than anything else. But I also knew that making a career out of f... |
How Much Money is Enough... What's your Number? | alaskamiller: Enough for a house, a car, and some leftover to take care of my family. Everything after that I think is just greed. With those needs taken care of you have all the time in the world to work on another hit. |
How to reduce sloppy mistakes? | whughes: In addition to the methods suggested here, make sure you're taking care of yourself. Eat well, get enough sleep and exercise, and so on. |
How Much Money is Enough... What's your Number? | cunard-n: Congratulations, elsewhen. Good luck. |
How Much Money is Enough... What's your Number? | jonmc12: Also known as the 'F-U Number'. Ask yourself how much you need to live the rest of your life the way you want.For me, I don't need much in the way of luxuries, but would want enough money to secure my own interests regardless of whats going on around me (ie a war or something). |
How Much Money is Enough... What's your Number? | weaksauce: I would probably sell under one of the following scenarios:1. When you are bored of what you are working on and a sale would net you enough money to live for enough time to startup one or more new venture(s) that you are interested in.2. Not bored of the venture but think that in the immediate future your bu... |
What would you love to work on? | cturner: If I had enough money to meet my current goals sorted out I'd study to be an osteopath at a good school. It's a lot like hacking, and it directly helps people who are debilitated in a way with which I identify. |
How Much Money is Enough... What's your Number? | mattmaroon: Is there any way to continue on but also take cash off of the table? Maybe sell half of the business to alleviate risk but still have some shot at the upside in the event none of the minor risks pan out. |
How Much Money is Enough... What's your Number? | oldgregg: If you're asking the question then it's quite possible that no amount will ever be enough. |
How Much Money is Enough... What's your Number? | quizbiz: How much money is it worth to you? Consider the value. |
How Much Money is Enough... What's your Number? | vaksel: For me personally, the goal is close to $4 million after taxes etc. That's a large enough number to be able to live off interest. So you can do nothing while you think about your next idea. |
How Much Money is Enough... What's your Number? | dennisgorelik: The sale should be done if it is mutually beneficial.
For example, if the buyer has skills or technology to scale the business up faster than original founder -- then the price might be set in such a way that it would be better for both buyer to buy and for the founder to sell.
Another good reason -- if ... |
How to reduce sloppy mistakes? | leif: Everyone's going to say "test driven development" or "think before you write" but honestly, the only thing that has ever truly worked for me is pair coding. Just have a buddy sit over your shoulder and watch you work.It's a bit like the integrity mechanism of developing two copies of the same software, done by t... |
When did you take greater control over your life? | leif: Five years ago. Incidentally, almost exactly five years before "Ask HN random crap" started getting old. |
How Much Money is Enough... What's your Number? | mjgoins: Biggie was right. Mo' money, mo' problems. I'm sticking with a slightly below-average income, and living simply.Happiness is elusive, and in no way linked to money.(I think I might be the most un-YCHN person on YCHN) |
How Much Money is Enough... What's your Number? | runningskull: $10 million after taxes and I never work again. Invest half in various ventures and live comfortably off the interest from the other half. |
How to reduce sloppy mistakes? | fireandfury: Before you hit compile, look at the key lines of code that you just wrote and think about exactly what you expect them to do. Then compile and run the code. Don't rush to compile. It'll take longer in the long run. Also, it's less enjoyable to program that way. I prefer a careful, focused style where every... |
How to reduce sloppy mistakes? | nkohari: Automated testing is the only way to improve the baseline quality of your code. It's painful to do in the beginning, but think about it like exercise -- once you make it part of your routine, you'll be healthier overall. |
When did you take greater control over your life? | nostrademons: Ask HN: Have you stopped beating your wife yet? ;-)FWIW, I do drive a stick shift, and I've always driven a stick shift (so, close to 10 years now...) I learned to drive on one. I think my stall-count was 5 on the first day and 37 on the second day, and I only got the car moving about twice on the secon... |
How Much Money is Enough... What's your Number? | mindhacker: http://www.omnisio.com/startupschool08/david-heinemeier-hans...I agree with David that no amount will ever keep programmers from programming. So instead of sweating out 14+ hours a day in hope that you can retire in 5 years, why not live your life as you go. |
How Much Money is Enough... What's your Number? | noodle: i have two levels: anything money, and nothing money.$500k-$1m is my anything money. its enough money to allow me to do anything i want, but not enough for me to do nothing. i'd still have to work, but i could effectively make money by almost any means, i could do part-time work or take a really low-paying b... |
Anyone moved outside of the US to bootstrap your business? | ojbyrne: Probably easier, and comparable in costs, to move to the rural midwest - e.g. South Dakota. Or Detroit. |
What would you love to work on? | modeless: Computer vision for autonomous robots.I've done a lot of 3D graphics and I think working on the inverse could be fun too. I think a lot of progress is going to be made quickly now that 3D depth-sensing cameras are becoming available. Most interesting to me are self-driving cars (e.g. the DARPA Grand Challen... |
How Much Money is Enough... What's your Number? | jhancock: I had 80% of my own company in the 90s. My outside investors were limited enough that I could sell when I wanted. I walked away from $20M buyouts twice. 2 years later, things became unstable and then just fell apart. I kept pouring funds in to save it for another 3 years until I was too financially cripple... |
Anyone moved outside of the US to bootstrap your business? | patio11: You may want to bend the ear of these guys:http://www.expatsoftware.comI have lived abroad for the last couple of years. It is a wonderful experience. There are much, muuuuuuuuuuch easier ways of reducing your burn rate, if that is what matters to you. One simple one is taking your fluent command of the Eng... |
How Much Money is Enough... What's your Number? | pkrumins: $1M |
Anyone moved outside of the US to bootstrap your business? | lionheart: The way I see it, there's really no need to move out of the country to reduce your burn rate. I'm 99% sure that the inevitable culture shock and myriad other issues that come with living in a new country cancel out any benefit you get in terms of cost of living.If you move out of the bay area and live like a... |
Anyone moved outside of the US to bootstrap your business? | ArcticCelt: To anyone interested to learn the cost of living in different places, I live in Montreal (Canada) and think it's a god damn cheap place to live. I pay $405 for a spacious 3 1/2 with parking (+$45 electric bill). There is plenty of entertainment in this city too. Also as a Canadian I don't have to worry abou... |
Anyone moved outside of the US to bootstrap your business? | brown: I'm currently operating in Manila. Low cost of living. Extremely cheap local labor (hiring system admins for about USD$5k per year). People speak English well. Very American-ized environment, so minimal culture shock. There's a growing call center culture here, so bandwidth is pretty reliable. VC community... |
How Much Money is Enough... What's your Number? | timdellinger: A few thoughts:1. The rule of thumb I've always heard is that $2 million in the bank lets you live off the interest with a salary of $50k/year. Which is all that anyone really needs. $4 million for $100k/year, etc. These are the standard "I'm set for life" numbers, as long as you don't do silly things ... |
Anyone moved outside of the US to bootstrap your business? | rjurney: Yes. I moved to Goa to prototype a process-flow document organization system for attorneys, for my first startup. The plan was to... get clients and then build the full deal in Bagnalore. I talked about it... here: http://www.hackerne.ws/item?id=518075 The 'paper' on the product is here: http://lucision.co... |
Hot & Useful software skills for novice converts? | gte910h: Tell them to use the python plugin to SPSS to analyze things they already know. Use it to learn to do things like pull data off websites, etc.(SPSS is a statistical package used highly in economics and biological sciences) |
How Much Money is Enough... What's your Number? | hikari17: I would like to look back on the sale of our startup with the feeling that the buyer and I could sit on a entrepreneurial conference panel together and talk in a warm, genuine way about having come to terms that were fair to both of us. So for me, "n" would depend to some extent on who the acquirer was (and w... |
Anyone moved outside of the US to bootstrap your business? | YuriNiyazov: The balsamiq guy did; he went back to Italy, but he's a native Italian, so ymmv |
How Much Money is Enough... What's your Number? | steve_mobs: 10 million. i can easily get a 10% return investing every year and 10% return on 10 million is more than enough to live on every year. |
What would you love to work on? | jonnytran: Writing interpreters using functional programming.I'm actually doing this now -- writing interpreters for DSLs using Clojure at my current job at Health Market Science. Even though it blends in with all the other companies as another lame Java shop, I have actually had the opportunity to work on very intere... |
When did you take greater control over your life? | pasbesoin: I painted myself into a black hole of frustration. The situation was bound to fall apart, and it did about a year ago. Unfortunately, not at my initiative.I am hoping that this is the time when I take control. Better late than never.(In some ways, I've always taken control. In never being satisfied with ... |
How Much Money is Enough... What's your Number? | jimboyoungblood: If everything you said is true (profitable, doubling each year, no end in sight), I think you'd be crazy to sell in the current market. Since the goal is to reduce risk, why not just sell a partial stake in your company?With interest from multiple buyers, you can probably get a lot more than the 5x if ... |
Anyone moved outside of the US to bootstrap your business? | lsc: the SF bay area has enormous quality of life advantages for the common nerd, when compared to anywhere else I've lived.(granted, which only includes other parts of the US.) - but just on a personal level, being a nerd is a very lonely thing most places, and that loneliness gets distracting after a while. In the ... |
Anyone moved outside of the US to bootstrap your business? | codyrobbins: I live in Honolulu and New York City, so I'm not qualified to give advice regarding choosing domiciles with cost of living in mind =)But I do always see ads in the Wall Street Journal enjoining people to move their businesses to Moldova for a variety of attractive reasons — low cost of living being one of ... |
Anyone moved outside of the US to bootstrap your business? | rgrieselhuber: I moved to Japan, not because the cost of living is lower (though it is in some cases) but because of the opportunities I saw here. |
When did you take greater control over your life? | yannis: One of my own 'AHA' moments was when I discovered that you can't. Yes you can never take control over your life. You need to relax and go with the flow. We all think that we are controlling our lives, but consider this, suppose time is a river and your life can be represented by you sitting on a small boat. You... |
Anyone moved outside of the US to bootstrap your business? | OmarIsmail: I would imagine that one of the least expensive and most practical places to start a business is your parents' house. Some people may not have that luxury but for those that do it's a major cost and time savings. |
Anyone moved outside of the US to bootstrap your business? | andyjdavis: Im currently living in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Low cost of living. Nice relaxed environment for when youre not working.I was previously living in Australia. Made a decent living from consulting work which may have been one of the reasons the product side of the business didn't do terribly well. Once I was... |
Anyone moved outside of the US to bootstrap your business? | alexbosworth: I'm in Beijing for fun and frugality - it hits on #1 but it is getting more expensiveMany many things here are an order of magnitude cheaper than they are in the states |
What would you love to work on? | aufreak: Life is tooooo big to get stuck working on only one thing :P |
How Much Money is Enough... What's your Number? | akd: The very fact that this question has been asked demonstrates the reason that the biggest companies are founded by people who are truly "not in it for the money."Most of the numbers here are under $10 million. Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Michael Dell, Mark Zuckerberg, could have all sold their companies very early and ... |
How Much Money is Enough... What's your Number? | staunch: $4 million after taxes is minimum I'd sell for in that position. I'd aim for $12 million after taxes, if possible. Anything over that is gravy and not worth taken much risk for. |
Anyone moved outside of the US to bootstrap your business? | mahmud: Time Zone differences and crappy internet access will mess you up. I don't mind hacking until 4AM, but it gets to ya when you need to be on the phone that late when everybody in your apartment building is asleep. After long exhausting business phone calls I feel like I need to leave the house and go for a drink... |
Anyone moved outside of the US to bootstrap your business? | yeti: Based in Hong Kong which is a much lower cost base than US for engineers/designers, and we have a US based remote intern who helps with doing focus groups etcWorking out ok so far |
Anyone moved outside of the US to bootstrap your business? | abalashov: Don't need to; Georgia is quite cheap. Even Atlanta is quite cheap compared to almost every other American city, especially the first-rate one, with very sane real estate prices except in areas like Buckhead.But, if that's too much, head over to a college town like Athens. Can easily get a 2 or 3-bedroom ... |
What would you love to work on? | aerique: I'd love to work on putting an autonomous robot on an interstellar body. |
What would you love to work on? | korch: I'd love to work on a generalized recommendation engine. After spending a fair amount of time tinkering on the Netflix prize, I now see countless sites and apps are in need of generalized recommendations--on the scale of being another layer we need on top of the web. And the topic pretty quickly drops you into t... |
Anyone moved outside of the US to bootstrap your business? | maneesh: Yea, I was doing freelance programming for 1.5 yrs (moving on now to work on SEO stuff==> no more clients), I moved to Buenos Aires/Brazil to geoarbitrage, made a ton of money in relative standards and lived like a king on a relatively meager US salary. This year, off to India, Thailand, Vietnam, South Africa... |
When did you take greater control over your life? | bayareaguy: I'm alive twenty five but I've still got no control. |
Anyone moved outside of the US to bootstrap your business? | pageman: "... Manila, Manila ... I keep coming back to Manila ..." back here doing startups after trying out Rangoon, Kabul and Dubai :) |
Anyone moved outside of the US to bootstrap your business? | akd: You can live in a shared apartment in East Palo Alto, cook all your food at home, buy a used car, and select free entertainment options. No need for drastic actions. |
When did you take greater control over your life? | jacquesm: When my kid was born. That was a pretty good wake up call. I was 28 at the time and up to that point just taking whatever gig that I could get. Lots of money one part of the year, dirt poor another, it didn't really matter.The extra responsibility helped me to focus quite nicely. |
moving to US | jacquesm: Funny, a little ways below is a thread about people moving out of the US in order to start a startup so they can decrease their cost of living...http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=751742 |
Best technical kindle books | bkudria: How well do tech books hold up on the Kindle? If there is code, does it display OK? I realize there is no syntax coloring, which is a major downside for me, but I guess for small amounts of code it might be OK. How about diagrams?I imagine anything with large amounts of code won't do well in this format. Highe... |
moving to US | makmanalp: I've only heard of mid to large sized companies sponsoring H1Bs, but startups rarely. Maybe they don't have time for the red tape? |
Best technical kindle books | Zev: I've got an original Kindle, not the DX. Most of the time when converting a doc, it comes out readable enough. Its not perfect, but, readable.However, pragprog offers kindle editions of most of their books. These are all perfectly formatted for reading. And usually very useful to read. |
moving to US | keyist: This image enumerates all the possibilities: http://www.reason.com/images/07cf533ddb1d06350cf1ddb5942ef5a...Chances are that you'll have to go the H1B route. Which ain't pretty, because most employers automatically ignore job applications with those dreaded letters.You'll save yourself a bunch of time and trou... |
moving to US | swombat: If I were you I'd take advantage of the fact that you're in India to start a local start-up. As others mentioned, your costs will be lower. Not only that, but you may be able to spot opportunities which have already been filled in the US, and "port" those solutions to India successfully.At the very least, you ... |
How Much Money is Enough... What's your Number? | jacquesm: Risk mitigation is usually done best by splitting your bet.In other words, sell a part of your business to limit your exposure, keep the rest. If in the future it goes down the tubes completely you will not have lost all. If it continues to go up split your risk again. And so on. |
What would you love to work on? | neuromanta: I'm working on a game in PyGame right now. It has a cyberpunk theme, and a little spirituality in the story. Of course it's open source.
I also work on an another open source project, with my friends. It's a localization tool. |
moving to US | patio11: If I were you, I'd stay exactly where I was, open a small business selling software on the Internet to rich Westerners, quit my dayjob as soon as I covered my previous salary, and then expand your little sideline into something as big as you want to go.You may feel you are not founder material yet. Break that... |
How Much Money is Enough... What's your Number? | pclark: $300M. |
Which tech blog do you follow? | uggedal: I don't follow any blogs like TechCruch, but here are my favorites (mostly UI, Web, and Python related):http://feeds2.feedburner.com/al3xhttp://www.azarask.in/blog/feed/http://bokardo.com/feed/atom/http://feeds2.feedburner.com/chrismahonhttp://diveintomark.org/feed/http://feeds2.feedburner.com/garrettdimoncomh... |
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