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What are some good biographies to read? | kingkongrevenge: I found Crazy Horse fascinating. He was this eccentric loner and then much to his dismay thousands of people started to follow him around in a time of crisis because he seemed to know what he was doing. Then he had this bizarre christ-like death. |
What are some good biographies to read? | ahsonwardak: Though I know it may not be a single biographical book, Founders at Work is a great series of short biographies/interviews. If you're more interested in any one of them, you can probably find a biography on them or even their personal blogs. |
coding challenges as part of interviews: yes or no? | jamess: Trick questions, or questions with some kind of gottcha have no place in interviews, However, simple, straightforward programming exercises are essential. I've seen people who claim to have X years of industry experience who can talk a good game, but literally can't write a switch statement without reference to the internet.I also like to ask people to peer review some code with both obvious and more subtle errors in it. That's a pretty important skill to me too. Anyway, ask them to code some fairly simple algorithm and then critique their own work. If there are several ways to solve the same problem, some more efficient than others, all the better. |
coding challenges as part of interviews: yes or no? | astrec: Programming challenges sort the wheat from the chaff - in particular those who cannot code at all, but beyond that I've rarely found them predictive of future performance. Much more important that you hire a good fit for your company. An unhappy or toxic coder can bring a startup to its knees - hire slow, fire fast and all that. |
coding challenges as part of interviews: yes or no? | aggieben: Agree with jamess, but additionally, I think interviewers that don't ask coding questions might be an indication of something negative at the company. Basic coding ability has to be one of those checkbox questions that determines your eligibility for the position, and if the interviewer doesn't ask anything technocal, it makes me wonder what kind of dumbasses I might end up working with. |
coding challenges as part of interviews: yes or no? | icey: I like them as long as pseudo-code is acceptable. I don't really care how good someone's memory is with regards to language syntax; I care about whether or not they can solve problems and think them through. |
coding challenges as part of interviews: yes or no? | jzell: If you have the sense from whiteboard discussions that the candidate understands computer science (like gets recursion) but you want to make sure they can code, why not choose a subset of a problem that you (your company) needs to solve? |
coding challenges as part of interviews: yes or no? | cconstantine: /agree with most of the people here. Coding questions have a purpose.You need to consider what you are trying to determine by asking any question. Really, what is it about the candidate you want to know? After pinning down precisely what you want to know then tailor a question to figure this out with as little peripheral stuff as possible.If you want to know if someone can generate some code in their preferred language on the spot, fine. Pick a very simple problem, like 'Write a program to display numbers in the fibinocci sequence', and explain the fib seq to them if they don't know it. I wouldn't even count points off if they make any kind of mistake that a compiler would catch as long as they know how to fix it. Have them do it on the white board.This kind of Q isn't designed to figure out how much they know of 10 different languages. It's designed to see if they can put some code down in their preferred language and have it do something useful.The biggest constraint in an interview isn't the honesty of the candidate, or even their knowledge; it's the N hour time limit. Your goal as the interviewer is to squeeze as much information about who the candidate really is in the time allowed. |
What are some good biographies to read? | calvin: I just finished reading "My Startup Life" by Ben Casnocha. It's a good introduction to the entrepreneurial world for people just starting the journey, and it has some good insights that can benefit anybody. (Book site: http://mystartuplife.com/) |
coding challenges as part of interviews: yes or no? | jarnold: I think taking some time to sit down and _read_ some code is one of the best and least used techniques during an interview. I think it's more of an indicator for job performance than writing some green-field code. After all, on the job, more time is spent reading and understanding code than writing code with no preexisting context. |
coding challenges as part of interviews: yes or no? | gcv: A trivial coding problem is essential. I've seen people with 10 years of experience in XML#Java.NETEnterprise2012 who don't understand conditionals, loops, or boolean expressions.For phone screens, I find Steve Yegge's guide a useful starting point: http://steve.yegge.googlepages.com/five-essential-phone-scre...I'm not a fan of asking candidates to reverse a string or to implement atoi or a binary search, because those have corner cases which, under interview pressure, might be too much to ask for. I just ask for an implementation of a gcd (greatest common divisor) function, in any language. I always explain the problem in detail. Only one guy (a PhD in physics) ever gave me Euclid's algorithm (section 1.1 in Knuth's AOCP Volume 1), so I don't expect it. I do expect a trivial loop, and most candidates take 15-20 minutes to come up with it, and need lots of hints.As far as I'm concerned, anyone who can't come up with a trivial loop (or recursive or tail recursive function) for something like this shouldn't be programming for a living. Maybe "developing enterprise solutions," but never programming. |
coding challenges as part of interviews: yes or no? | raganwald: My experience:Successfully pasing a code challenge is not a good predictor of future success. However, failing to pass a code challenge is a very good predictor of future failure. Furthermore, making the test harder does not make it predict future success well.Therefore, I belong to the "FizzBuzz" school: Make the test ridiculously simple. It should take no more than fifteen minutes to complete. If the person gets it obviously right, throw the result away and move on to more important quetsions. Do not try to deduce a lot of malarky about their programming style or ability from an obviously contrived problem.For example, writing:a = 5; b = 10Does not mean they don't know Ruby well, and writing:a, b = 5, 10Does not mean they are a Ruby expert. And writing:fsquare = lambda { |x| x * x }Does not mean they are a closet Bipolar Lisp Programmer. If the program works, it's a pass, move on. If there is a syntax error or some such, who cares, move on.But if they struggle... You need to investigate the reason for their difficulty with a simple problem. |
coding challenges as part of interviews: yes or no? | edw519: Necessary but not sufficient.I always give a fairly simple problem, pencil and paper, a soda, and leave them alone for 15 to 30 minutes. Before I leave the room, I make sure they clearly understand what's expected.What they do isn't important. Our discussion about what they did is. I don't care what syntax or mannerisms they use; I do care if they understand what was needed and what they did well enough to explain what they did and why they did it.Almost every time some good follow-up questions and segues ensue. What about this? What about that? I've learned more about people in the discussion after the problem than from anything else. |
tips about VCs and angels | kynikos: Think about building your product, illustrating market potential, and how you are meeting an unmet need. Once you do this, you can worry about where to get funding and VC interaction. At such an early stage, you've got a better chance getting a small amount of money from an angel investor or group of angels than a large VC. Angels also enable you to retain more control and equity. Good luck. |
tips about VCs and angels | mrtron: Perceptions are very important. I perceive this post as uneducated and immature, just because of spelling and grammar. It may be completely inaccurate, but remember you are giving anyone a polaroid shot of everything about you.It is a good question, but it has been addressed a few times on here. |
tips about VCs and angels | babul: Don't worry about investors yet. Focus on product development and value (making something people want and ideally will be passionate about).Build a prototype and go as far as you can before getting (bogged down in acquiring) investment. This will not only make it easier for you to pitch/demo something, but will clarify and refine your ideas and give others something to work with in terms of financing values etc. |
coding challenges as part of interviews: yes or no? | jaydub: If I were interviewing someone, I would be more likely to test someone's general problem solving skills, questions that illustrate how a candidate thinks and approaches a challenge. This of course becomes more subjective, but can really help identify creative talent. Who knows, you might even learn something too.
This is probably a big part of the puzzle type questions that companies like Microsoft and Google seem to favor. |
tips about VCs and angels | schtog: obv i will build my product first and then worry about investments, im just curious. |
What are some good biographies to read? | aditya: James Dyson - Against the odds (http://www.amazon.com/Against-Odds-Autobiography-James-Dyson...)Very inspiring read, especially the parts about how he kept going for almost 10 years and persevered to truly innovate in a market that had seen no innovation for a long time. |
tips about VCs and angels | mlinsey: First read up on this: http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/startupswiki/Ask_YC_Archiveand "The Startup Company Bible", a book that is particularly useful on explaining the mechanics of raising VC rounds, should you decide to go that route.As for your specific questions:"googling and clicking on nr1 works obv but where do i find the best and most trustworthy investors?"Get to know other entrepreneurs, angel investors, and other members of the startup community and ask them about their experiences raising money, and when you are ready to raise money than try to get one of them to introduce you to a firm. Getting introduced to a VC via a connection, even a very casual connection, is virtually the only way that you will have the opportunity for a first meeting, unless your site is already well-known."what kind of deals should i demand/expect?"Depends a lot on how much you have to show. If you already have a product and users, your valuation will be higher and you can get a better deal."at what stage is good to start seeking VC?"When your company absolutely needs the money and/or connections to succeed. For some ideas (probably not most web application ideas though), this may be before you even start building the product. For other ideas, this may never happen at all. People get somewhat religious in this particular debate, and I won't try to defend one particular side except to say you shouldn't be opposed to VC funding on principle because some ideas absolutely need it, but many web companies don't. You should take a long and serious look at your company to determine which category it falls under."or shouldnt i seek but let the VCs find me(ie laucnh product and if it is good people will come and VCs will come)?If launching your product and looking to get users before raising money is an option, you should take that option. There are many reasons for this, and not just "so the VC's will come to you." The most serious is that when you raise a large sum of money to execute on a certain idea, you lose flexibility in being able to change your idea. If you don't have any users yet, changes are good that your idea will need to change. If you've raised VC money, it can be difficult (but by no means impossible) to sell them on your new direction."what is normal, VCs approaching startups or startups approaching VCs?"I would say that a startup approaching a VC is many orders of magnitude more common, but a VC approaching a startup certainly happens and is much more likely to result in a deal being made."are there a lot of unsinister "sharks" in the business?"I think you mean a "sinister shark", as an unsinister shark wouldn't be anything to worry about, now would it! (Plus, the alliteration is spoiled!). But sure, there are slimy people in any business, but especially in businesses that have the opportunity to make people rich. Get to know enough people and you should be able to identify who these people are."what else to think about?"Your product! Making sure people want it, building it, growing it. This should be your primary focus.Also, and not to be too impolite about it, you should also think about using proper grammar and spelling on this site if you want people to have a good impression of you. |
coding challenges as part of interviews: yes or no? | eru: From the employees point of view: I would have no problem to do a coding test as part of an interview. |
coding challenges as part of interviews: yes or no? | sfpeter: I like to believe that I can get a pretty good understanding of someone's technical abilities by asking thorough questions about his previous experience, and maybe ask them to explain a couple of basic patterns or programming concepts to me. I remember interviewing a senior java developer who claimed 5+ years of experience and had no idea what a Singleton was. What made it worse was that even after explaining it to her, she was unable to figure out how to implement one.
Developers asked the strangest questions when interviewing other developers. I worked with a guy once who liked to ask his interviewees what the decimal value of 0xFE is. One candidate didn't know the answer so my coworker didn't think he could possibly be a good software engineer. I admit that (having done assembly coding in school) it seems odd that any software engineer wouldn't be able to figure out what FE is. But I still thought it was a bad way of testing technical skills. Would you rule out a candidate who doesn't know 0xFE ? |
What are some good biographies to read? | TrevorJ: George Washington Carver
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington_CarverEdward W. Bok
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_W._Bok |
coding challenges as part of interviews: yes or no? | sfpeter: I also worked for a company once who had several enthousiastic , seemingly bright people with somewhat limited experience come in for interviews, but they didn't make the cut because they didn't pass some coding challenges. The guy who did get hired went to a good school and was a good coder, but was way too arrogant, difficult to work with and repeatedly refused to do what his manager asked him to work on. And how did that guy interview other candidates? He screened them by their education, and when they would come in he would give them one programming challenge without asking any other questions. Nobody seemed to realize that there were big problems with the company's hiring strategies and that developers themselves were largely to blame for that. |
coding challenges as part of interviews: yes or no? | arupchak: I've always found that asking a reasonable numerical solving question where you can easily figure out the answer in your head is a good starting point to gauge programming/algorithm ability. If someone knows the solution they are trying to get at, they can focus on the program itself, as opposed to worrying about solving the problem and coming up with the algorithm. Ideally there are a few ways to solve the problem, brute-force methods or more efficient ways. It can be very difficult to test a programmer's ability in an interview, you need to focus more on seeing how the candidate thinks, how they approach problems, and whether they can admit when they do not know something. |
coding challenges as part of interviews: yes or no? | jkkramer: I use a simple coding challenge as a weeder question. It requires basic use of recursion (without explicitly saying so) -- no math, no big-O, no gotchas, just writing a simple recursive function to process a small tree. It takes decent coders a few minutes to complete. Less-than-decent coders really struggle with it.This is only a wheat/chaff separator, though. If possible, I like to see code from actual projects they've worked on to get a feel for the bigger picture (tip: open source your personal projects and obsess a bit over the code, so you have something to show off). Plus there's all the other non-code aspects to the interview. |
What are some good biographies to read? | vena903: http://www.amazon.com/Peoples-Tycoon-Henry-American-Century/...
The People's Tycoon - Henry Ford and the American Century.
He was a lot of things people didn't realize he was and wasn't a lot things people want to believe he was. |
coding challenges as part of interviews: yes or no? | tonystubblebine: This reminds me of a group of main frame programmers I knew who had been forced to become Perl web developers. About a month later they were asked to hire another Perl programmer and one of their interview questions was what's the difference between 'chomp' and 'chop' (chomp removes the final character of a string if it's a newline, chop does it regardless).They were shocked that the interviewee didn't know the answer because they considered it basic knowledge, "it's in the first chapter for gosh sake." The first chapter in this case covered differences between Perl 4 and Perl 5.In Perl 5, nobody uses 'chop', they all use 'chomp.' Many experienced Perl programmers might even have forgotten that 'chop' existed.And that's my major problem with gotcha questions, they tend to be pretty far from measuring if a person can actually write productive code. |
coding challenges as part of interviews: yes or no? | mlazur: Writing code is artwork.
You can ask the artist about the specifics of his tools, but you will never grasp his artistic ability until you see the completed artwork.
I just ask some general questions about the tools.
The tools for code writing are:
starting, constants, variables, addressing, comparing, branching and ending. |
coding challenges as part of interviews: yes or no? | neovive: I think it depends on the position and responsibilities the person will have once hired. If the programmer will be coding directly from specs without any room for "interpretation" then a coding challenge may be very applicable. If you are looking for a programmer that also understands your business and will be required to make decisions and think on their feet, the value of a coding challenge diminishes.It also depends on the time frame of the position. If you are looking to hire a programmer on a per project basis, then a solid understanding of the development language is critical. However, if you are hiring an developer for the long term, it's better to hire a smart and agile person that can contribute to the overall business as well -- which is hard to measure from a coding challenge. |
coding challenges as part of interviews: yes or no? | ig1: They're a necessity. For the simple reason that too many people lie on their CV, no matter how good their CV looks you have no-idea how much of it is accurate.Obviously there are cases where you wouldn't use it, but generally they only apply when you know someone's capable of coding anyway (i.e. due to an indisputable reputation, experience working with them, etc.).However as a predictive measure it's fairly limited in that it's a binary indicator. If someone fails then there's a fair chance they're a terrible developer, if someone passes there's a fair chance they're not a terrible developer. |
feedback on early version of tool: ECMAScript 4 - JavaScript translator | olavk: Hi, I have developed this tool which makes ECMAScript 4 (the upcoming next version of JavaScript) usable today. Or at least usable when the spec is finished.I am pretty confident in the utility of the tool, but I would really like some advice from people who have tried to market this kind of developer tools. How easy is it to sell something like this commercially, when competition like GWT is free?Also, if anyone have advice about marketing. I hear that blogging might be a good way of marketing towards developers, however time spent blogging would count from time spent developing the tool, so I wonder if it would be a sensible trade-off. |
How would you teach kids to program? | gexla: Take a look at the Mindstorm robot building kits from Lego. You can involve the kids in both the hardware and the software and let them figure out which side is most interesting. Perhaps not the absolute best way to learn programming, but it looks like a fun start. |
How to deal with patents? | michael_dorfman: Talk to a lawyer.Generally speaking, the idea can't be patented, but the implementation can be. Get a copy of the existing patent, and document how your implementation diverges. Have your lawyer see what the potential exposure is. |
How would you teach kids to program? | aitoehigie: Start with Python, its easy to understand and very versatile. when they get older, they will thank you for it. |
How would you teach kids to program? | blogimus: First I'd like to mention that I like the toys ideas mentioned here as a tactile introduction.How did you learn to program? (Seriously, I'd like to know how fellow News.YC members learned)I think for kids the most natural and fun way is to be self-taught, but have resources available to answer questions. I had an Atari 400 and eventually got bored with the games and wanted to program, so I put in the Atari Basic cartridge, looked at the graphics examples and started coding them in, then changing them, then writing my own stuff. I was completely self taught until I took a computer camp in the 7th grade and was exposed to mainframe computing and APL. That experience added to the base I had already established. The only downside to my experience is that I was exposed first to spaghetti code and did not learn to shun goto until after intro to computer science. |
Closed beta or release the product now? | dshah: I just went through this same questioning for a free tool for analyzing press releases (http://www.pressreleasegrader.com)Based on this recent experience (and past experience), I generally lean towards just getting it out there and then iterating like hell.Closed betas are nice to "control the flow", but most products don't have a "flood of traffic" problem, but a "nobody cares" problem.Make it easy for people to try it out and give feedback, and respond swiftly to the feedback. |
How to deal with patents? | bsaunder: I'd say go ahead and proceed with your idea (of course, I'm not a lawyer). People with patents, don't care about you until you have money (confirmed this with a patent troll I met recently at a convention). At that point you can either work around the patent or negotiate a license agreement.Also (and this is mentioned everywhere in these circles), what you actually launch with may be entirely different than your idea right now anyway.Don't worry about problems you don't have yet. Good to know about the up coming problems, but focus on making progress, otherwise it's just mental entertainment. |
How to deal with patents? | mooneater: Dont forget, triple damages if they can show you knew about their patent if they sue. |
How to deal with patents? | lincolnq: It's probably too late for you in this case, but in the future, it's probably a good idea never to read patents. (not legal advice) That's the policy I keep -- I don't follow links with 'patent' in the URL, because it's much worse for you if you knowingly infringe.For that matter, I don't even read paper publications out of places like Microsoft Research because of patent-related issues. Take a look at this, warning about an IBM publication: http://on-ruby.blogspot.com/2008/02/ip-police-line-do-not-cr... |
How to deal with patents? | noonespecial: Patents these days are so broad and so many that whatever your idea is, there will be a patent covering it or someone ready to claim that the one they have covers it.Make a good product, make money, then pay lawyers to sort it out for you. Its all mostly pretend now anyway. Patents really have about as much to do with ideas as Scientology has to do with science.It also seems these days that the more a company blathers about patent-pending this and proprietary that, the less actual innovation they've done. |
What self-study curriculum organizer tool do you use? | neovive: Have you considered using a spreadsheet? Maybe a Google Spreadsheet or Excel. You can use to create a list of topics and associated readings, lessons, problem sets and materials. Then create an extra column "completed" to track the status of each item. Then just filter out the completed items to see what else you need to do. It's a simple solution, but should work well. |
What self-study curriculum organizer tool do you use? | nickb: Got a Mac? Try Yojimbo or DevonThink... both are superb.http://www.devon-technologies.com/products/devonthink/
http://www.barebones.com/products/yojimbo/I've been using DevonThink for a while and it has helped me immensely with staying organized. |
What self-study curriculum organizer tool do you use? | manvsmachine: I'm not sure how it will integrate with the books you are using, but I'd suggest checking out MIT's OpenCourseware. They provide the syllabi / assignments / calendar used for all of their courses. You could probably take the corresponding classes and adapt their schedules and problem sets. I've done this for classes where I didn't find my lectures or suggested materials particularly helpful. |
What self-study curriculum organizer tool do you use? | xlnt: text files win |
Most desired programming skills in a startup? | cperciva: I want to join an ambitious startup as a programmer.No you don't. This may be what you think you want, but it's not what you really want.Why do you want to join an ambitious startup rather than creating your own?Why does the startup you join need to be ambitious?Why does it need to be a startup?For that matter, why do you want to join as a programmer rather than, say, a graphic designer?If the answer to the above questions is "because this is a route to making lots of money", then what you want is to make lots of money -- and you happen to have identified "joining an ambitious startup as a programmer" as a way to pursue that goal. Similarly, your goal might be "to change the lives of millions of users", "to become a world-famous hacker", or "to work with a bunch of really cool people".But whatever you want... well, it's almost certainly not "joining an ambitious startup as a programmer".--------Now that I've finished ranting about desires vs. routes towards satisfying those desires: The above is actually relevant to your question. The skills looked for vary dramatically from startup to startup -- a startup which is likely to make you a millionaire isn't necessarily going to be looking for the same skills as a startup which is full of really cool people. Once you've identified what you find attractive about startups, then you can start thinking about which startups currently exhibit those traits, and what skills they look for. |
Most desired programming skills in a startup? | xlnt: Being good at learning new skills quickly matters more than which skills you know now. (Unfortunately it's hard to demonstrate in an interview and everyone says they are good at learning.)However, if you focus on this, and just learn whatever specific technologies are convenient for you, then you could later spend only a short time (perhaps a week or two) learning specific skills targeted to a startup you want to apply at. |
Most desired programming skills in a startup? | makecheck: It wasn't clear to me, is Ruby the first language you've learned? How many mini-projects have you tried, to see what you're capable of? You're better off starting with such projects, than leaping into anything big.Versatility is important. Try to do many different things in your programming. Even if you don't like some problems, think about how you'd solve them.At a startup, you'd be one of few employees so you could have many different tasks given to you. If you have experience or gut feelings on how to approach several problems, you're more likely to be able to jump in and not take time flipping through manuals. |
Most desired programming skills in a startup? | pragmatic: In ANY organization these skills matter:
SQL - MOST Important - If you can fix a SQL problem (mysql, sqlserver, oracle) you ARE THE MAN.
Administration - can you rotate the log files and fix the problems? Can you assign the correct permissions to a directory in centos, redhat and windows (03, 08) server - You are "teh" man.
I can code in C++, Java, C# & Python but I get the most praise (and raise) from fixing common mis-configurations on our web servers and databases (things the "admins" don't know how to fix) and this is usually a combination of batch files, dos and or *nix shell scripting abilities.Programming is such a small part of the job, understand the OS and the DB and you own the house!!!!In the end, if you can simply read the hot fix readme files and apply them correctly, you are valuable. Hello 6 figure income!The administrator/programmer is a God among boys. |
Most desired programming skills in a startup? | DaniFong: I will first defer to cperciva's advice, but I'd like to add that the people most in demand around the bay area right now are generalist who are particularly sklled at designing and building good user interfaces for webapps. There are many talented people working at levels further from the user, and this skill is both truly in demand, and wonderful to have. |
Most desired programming skills in a startup? | dimitry: Don't be just a programmer. Be part designer, part manager, part innovator and always suggest big ideas.I think finding people who are masters of all trades (or important ones anyways), is more important than just finding rockstar programmers.Best of luck |
Most desired programming skills in a startup? | maxklein: Start with Verilog, go on to Assembler, follow that up with C, then study C++, then learn python, study HTML/CSS. Only go this route if you're pretty smart, otherwise just learn PHP. |
Most desired programming skills in a startup? | subwindow: All of them. Or, none of them.Basically, you need to be able to do everything. From graphic/ui design/css, to html, to the MVC stack, to the database, to the system administration and the networking.For a startup, being a jack of all trades is far, far more valuable than a specialist. How much use will a startup have for JUST a programmer that won't touch the database or the servers? If I'm hiring a developer who is ostensibly going to be coding in Rails all day long, their ability to do design and database work is just as important (if not more-so) than their actual experience in Rails.Take a look at the stack above, and learn more about whichever one you're least comfortable with. If you've never touched photoshop before, download their 30 day trial and at least familiarize yourself with it (good frequently-used "beginner's" task: making a transparent PNG of something like an arrow). Never set up a linux system? Clean out that old windows box and install Debian (server) and set it up as a file system.Rinse and repeat. |
What self-study curriculum organizer tool do you use? | Kinimat: I'm not sure if this is what you're after but Supermemo is a fantastic learning tool.It uses a system of spaced repetitions to significantly increase retention and memory. It's been around a long time and has been refined over many years. The creator was featured in Wired not long ago..http://www.supermemo.comUnfortunately it's windows only. |
What self-study curriculum organizer tool do you use? | fuad: +1 for MIT's OpenCourseware |
Most desired programming skills in a startup? | bjclark: You have to be able to learn anything, fast and only do things the right way, the first time. |
how did you fix problems with bad sleep? | SwellJoe: Exercise is a cure for many things, including poor sleep. Take a brisk walk in the afternoon. 20-30 minutes is fine. It's not guaranteed, I guess, but it always works for me.Also, if you're a coffee, tea or soda drinker, switch off to herbal tea or plain water after lunch. Caffeine has a 6-8 hour period of effect, with the peak effect happening at about the 4 hour mark. If you do drink things with caffeine, consider reducing or cutting them out entirely. I can drink 2-3 cups of green tea in moderation without any adverse effects, but more than one cup of black tea is too much (and one isn't quite enough, so I don't drink black tea). Coffee and sodas aren't worth it, to me, as the caffeine in coffee is a jittery spike and all the sugar in sodas makes me sleepy by lunch time (which totally throws off getting to sleep when I actually want to at night). |
How to deal with patents? | agentbleu: http://thenextweb.org/2008/05/29/the-innovation-problem-no-o...In this article I talk about how patent's are effectively nonsense for all but a very few who know how to 'work' the law who also have the fat to do so. |
how did you fix problems with bad sleep? | LogicHoleFlaw: Basic sleep hygiene is a good starting point. Sleep on a consistent schedule 7 days a week. Use your bedroom only for sleeping. Don't read, work, or study there. Avoid eating right before bedtime. Get away from bright lights, emissive display devices, and loud noises for about an hour before you go to bed. Exercise is great too, but not right before bedtime. Do note that once you start using this routine it may take 4 to 6 weeks to really see the benefits.SwellJoe's comments on caffeine and sugar are true. My doctor told me that caffeine has about a 10-hour half-life. After noon it's generally something I avoid.If you try these things (or at least a good portion of them) and you don't see any improvement it's time to start looking at health conditions rather than merely poor habits. Sleep apnea is a major cause of chronic exhaustion. Restless Leg Sydrome is another. With both of these you are constantly waking up during the night and never attain the deep sleep needed to rest.My father had sleep apnea - when he did an overnight EEG sleep study the doctors determined that he was waking up over 80 times an hour due to airway blockage. He started using a CPAP about two years ago. The CPAP is a face mask which generates positive air pressure to keep airways open. The difference was dramatic. He's much more energetic, much less grumpy, and has in general been much happier since he started using it.I personally had awful sleep for years. I was perpetually exhausted. The only way I was able to sleep was to stay awake for 24 to 36 hours and then pass out for 12 to 18 hours. I was miserable. I finally broke down my pride and went to see a sleep specialist. I implemented the sleep hygiene strategies and saw slight improvements but no major gains. I didn't have RLS or apnea, so the possible suspects were narrowing down. On a long shot we decided to try a medication called Rozerem. It's a synthesized melatonin available as a prescription. In most people the pineal gland regulates the sleep/wake cycle via the production of melatonin. As it turns out I have extremely low melatonin production, so my body never got the signal to shut down and sleep. With the introduction of melatonin in pill form about an hour before bed I was actually able to get a good night's rest. The difference was astounding. I had forgotten what being rested even felt like. Interestingly the melatonin had an immediate dramatic effect on me. It doesn't force drowsiness like a sedative does. It allows me to feel sleepy (rather than just tired or exhausted). Rozerem won't do anything for someone with normal melatonin production however. Past a certain level the body just metabolizes the extra melatonin and it is neutralized. For the same reason increasing the dosage of the medication won't have any effect.For me the combination of improved sleep hygiene and the synthesized melatonin made a dramatic difference in my quality of life. Treating my father's sleep problems made him a much happier individual. If your doctor thinks that a medication for RLS will help you attain better sleep, I highly recommend that you at least try his suggestions. There is no substitute for being well-rested and you owe it to yourself to find out what will allow you to gain a good night's sleep. |
Most desired programming skills in a startup? | gojomo: (1) breadth of system/code understanding, so you can contribute anywhere needed.(2) consilience, which I will arbitrarily redefine here to mean being able to keep the overall goal/strategy in mind even as you work on every detail. Then, you know when to cut corners and when to spend effort on key differentiators. (Or more generally: able to manage yourself once you know the mission.)(3) speed, either because you've got such total mastery of some area that you can do expert work at an amazing rate, or because you can immerse yourself in learning something new and race through demonstrable progress, niggling details and usual engineering detours/affectations be damned. (This is a variant of the PG "could you describe the person as an animal?" test.) |
how did you fix problems with bad sleep? | prakash: www.supermemo.com/articles/sleep.htm -- read this. |
how did you fix problems with bad sleep? | mattmaroon: Oh man, not the jimmy legs.http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=147536...Just don't start gambling. |
how did you fix problems with bad sleep? | ComputerGuru: I love how you assume we've "fixed" that problem :)More seriously though, I suffer from the same problem. My issue is that I can't clear my mind - so I'm lying in bed and actively thinking (verses "passively" letting my mind wander) about people, events, projects, etc. until I get bored and get back up.My only solution (more of a workaround) is to just do the same as LogicHole: stay awake for 36 hours - you'll force your body to go to sleep thereafter. |
how did you fix problems with bad sleep? | sutro: Alcohol. To quote Homer Simpson, it is the cause of and solution to all of life's problems. |
Most desired programming skills in a startup? | mattmaroon: Well, if by skill you mean fluency in a language/framework, Flex hackers are in very high demand right now. I mean, like crack in the ghetto on the first of the month type demand. |
how did you fix problems with bad sleep? | rokhayakebe: Start working out and you will sleep well whether you want it or don't. Guaranteed. |
how did you fix problems with bad sleep? | m0nty: I had a tough time sleeping last year, mainly caused by anxiety about work, and the onset of mild asthma which caused me to wheeze as I fell asleep. The wheezing would wake me up, and the anxiety would keep me awake. Incidentally, it took me four doctors to get this point across: I told them my son has asthma, so does my mother, and I have hay-fever, so maybe I had asthma too? Finally, sure enough, it was diagnosed and I was given an inhaler which fixes the symptoms. My point being - whatever your doctor says, (s)he could be wrong, and your problem might lie elsewhere.Anyway, during the three months or so of bad sleep, I often went for several days (the record being from Thursday until Sunday, ie 4 nights) without sleeping. That puts you in a strange state of mind, believe me. My first, regular doctor told me that I shouldn't worry about the sleep, since after a night I'd be so tired I could sleep through anything. Riiiight. Another doctor finally gave me sleeping pills, which were great - she even said she used them herself quite often. The only problem was getting off the pills after a few weeks, since they're addictive and coming off them causes anxiety and sleeplessness, which seems a bit circular and counter-productive...Anyway, the lessons learned, the hard way:* Doctors are fallible and overworked, just like everyone else.* Alcohol is not the answer. I tried. Sleeping alcohol off is not the same as a good night's sleep, and you'll damage yourself in other ways by over-imbibing.* Tea is better than coffee. I have one strong, tasty cup of real coffee per day (in the morning) then drink tea. I know many non-Brits complain that tea is a watery, flavourless drink, so I would refer you to George Orwell, who knew a thing or two about making a tasty cuppa: http://www.booksatoz.com/witsend/tea/orwell.htm* If you are anxious about work, relationships, money, your big project, whatever - deal with that. It's quite possibly the true cause of whatever's troubling you. Find ways to relax, especially socialising, exercising, etc.* Work out for half an hour each day. I do this and the endorphine rush is fantastic. I don't even work out particularly hard - I'm sweaty but not nauseous by the time I've finished. You'll look better, feel better, and probably sleep better too. I use a rower and a bike machine, so I can watch a DVD or listen to music if it gets boring.* Most of the crap about relaxation exercises ("tense up your toes, then relax, tense up your legs and relax", etc) is just that - utter crap which probably won't help at all.HTH. Don't just think about the immediate problem. Look for underlying causes and try your best to deal with those. And good luck. |
Most desired programming skills in a startup? | curiousgeorge: competence, initiative and reliability. |
how did you fix problems with bad sleep? | luckystrike: As others have mentioned, regular physical workout helps one get in to a good sleep schedule (apart from it's various other benefits). e.g. an hour in the gym in the morning, makes me hit the bed at a very consistent time every night. |
Most desired programming skills in a startup? | sygzzy: for loops. |
Most desired programming skills in a startup? | antirez: Best programming skill to do things from scratch (that's what startups do): instead of over-engineer get things done in a simple way. |
Most desired programming skills in a startup? | axod: Ability to learn new things quickly & Fearlessness to fly in the face of conventional wisdom.I'd say think of a cool project, a cool app you could write, and make it. That will be worth a lot more than learning any specific language. |
how did you fix problems with bad sleep? | truebosko: I try to keep a regular schedule and if I can't get sleepy I read a book. Reading puts me RIGHT to sleep.Note that reading things online (RSS Feeds, Twitter, whatever) do NOT work :) They'll probably keep you more awake. Grab a good, or boring novel if that's your schtik and read it for 20 min while in bed. Puts me right to sleep on the days I can't get tired (Or just have sex that works too) |
how did you fix problems with bad sleep? | gms: Earplugs |
how did you fix problems with bad sleep? | gruseom: I know of two things that help. One is exercise, which lots of people have mentioned here. The other is meditation. My brother-in-law suffered badly from insomnia for years and says it made the biggest difference out of all the things he tried. |
how did you fix problems with bad sleep? | aravindmc: It looks like there is some research leading to fixing sleeping problems by simply changing your eating habits. I dont personally know how easy it is to implement these ideas.http://parentingsquad.com/easy-way-to-reset-your-sleep-cycle...http://www.news-medical.net/?id=32333 |
Fink or Macports? | metachor: Both and neither. On a case-by-case basis, I will do some light google research on the experience of the mac-unix community for that particular package. Sometimes either the fink or ports release is recommended over the other, sometimes a stand-alone installer has been made, and often I just choose to compile from source. The decision is usually based on factors including latest version available (fink and ports are not always up to date), reported stability, dependencies (I might already have some of the dependencies obtained by one particular method), etc. If the choice was just between fink and ports on their merits alone, I slightly prefer ports, but that is probably a religious decision (a la vi vs emacs, etc...). |
Fink or Macports? | kngspook: I feel MacPorts has a better design conceptually, but having used it for the past few weeks, I feel the execution isn't quite there yet. I also get the feeling that the team is very slow on MacPorts.Fink uses a dpkg/apt-like system, which means binaries are pre-compiled for you. So you lose in flexibility (which is why I feel ports has a better design), but I suspect (having not used it in a while nor for long) that the team is better.There's also Gentoo Prefix which has ported Gentoo's Portage over to other OSes, including OS X. They're pretty good, but lacking in package selection. I ported over at least a dozen packages in the 2-3 weeks I used them (it's 1-3 commands in 85% of the cases). |
Fink or Macports? | kngspook: One of the problems with all these systems is that they don't identify which software components are already installed on OS X by Apple natively, and to use those for dependencies when possible. So you wind up with two Perls, two Pythons, two Rubys, etc., each with slightly different versions... |
Fink or Macports? | smoody: i just went through the process and decided on macports for setting up two machines. it worked fine for the basics (installed mysql, apache, python, git, etc). fyi: in both cases, i received an error installing py25-mysql, but re-issuing the port command a second time did the trick.one possible reason for picking macports is that there seem to be more people blogging about their experiences with it, so if you run into issues, you might be more likely to find some help online. |
Fink or Macports? | pistoriusp: I tried both and, coming from FreeBSD, I was not impressed. I decided to build everything myself and this has so-far been the best solution for me. |
Fink or Macports? | davidmathers: "MacPorts is the worst form of software configuration management on OS X, except for all the others that have been tried." -- Winston Churchill, famous Mac user |
Fink or Macports? | tptacek: MacPorts is better than Fink, but the reason this stuff all feels hinky to you is that Mac users use Mac software.You can usually just build command line tools from "configure". But anything with a UI is likely to be a disappointment. |
Fink or Macports? | febeling: MacPorts lacks a few contributers, I think. Actually, they welcome people willing to contribute and give commit rights liberally, when you're interested. The documentation on how you should apply to join sounds more buraucratic then it feels in reality. So if you use it and fix things for yourself locally, then consider joining as well by all means, we can only all benefit from it mutually.As somebody working with code all the time, I like MP's approach of compiling yourself, possibly patching memory profiling into your ruby, or whatever you might need. |
Fink or Macports? | andrewf: The lack of a single, cohesive, well supported set of packages on OS X is the reason I do a lot of development and experimentation inside another operating system inside VMWare Fusion. |
How have you used Amazon SQS successfully? | ropiku: I use it to separate and scale parts of my application.More specifically I am building a continuous integration application in Ruby and using SQS as build and result queues from which EC2 instances pick up tasks, builds them then add into the result queue. I don't need ordering and don't mind a few seconds of latency.PS: If you are interested in beta testing it please drop me a line. |
Fink or Macports? | paulsmith: You may also want to take a look at pkgsrc, which lists OS X/Darwin as a supported platform:http://www.netbsd.org/docs/software/packages.html |
how did you fix problems with bad sleep? | calvins: I sleep much better since getting a white noise machine that I have on overnight. I use the Marpac 980, which I'm very happy with: http://www.marpac.com/sound_cond.aspI got mine from Amazon for $50. |
Fink or Macports? | rufo: I've tried MacPorts, and inevitably when I update the packages I wind up creating some kind of dependency issue that causes me to just give up, scrap the /opt folder and start over again.I've just started building things from source recently. It's not hard, gives you maximum control, and is less likely to freak out if you update a given piece of software. |
Fink or Macports? | encryptio: I use a hybrid of fink unstable and manual compiles. Fink unstable keeps me with relatively up-to-date versions of most of my programs, but some (git, ghc, darcs) I compile myself and install in my ~/ins folder because the fink maintainers have abandoned those packages. |
Fink or Macports? | gcv: I used fink for a couple of years, and dropped it about a year ago. Things might have changed for the better, but when I switched to MacPorts (it was still DarwinPorts back then), fink sported packages many years out of date. Looking at the project page now, I see that its stable release still dates back to June 2006. Maybe the unstable branch has more recent packages, but I don't have the slightest desire to run anything flagged "unstable" or "testing" on my main machine. I've done that in the past, on a Debian machine, and became tired of dealing with broken libc and binlib packages.MacPorts works way, way better. Most ports I care about are up-to-date. Ubuntu packaging is nice, but, for example, its git-core package is several versions behind the one in MacPorts. It has a couple of minor annoyances with cleaning up old versions of packages, but otherwise works like a charm. |
Fink or Macports? | icky: I switched back to Ubuntu over this. (Well, this and the growing realization that I wasn't really in control of my own computer). |
Fink or Macports? | arthurk: I've been pretty happy with MacPorts.
I mostly use it for apache, git, mysql, php, postgresql, sqlite and a few other small stuff. everything works pretty fine. Django is installed from trunk. |
how did you fix problems with bad sleep? | khafra: Eugeroics. Use adrafinil when you need to be awake and alert, let the sleep take care of itself. |
Fink or Macports? | dfranke: I hated both. My short-term solution was to compile everything by hand. My long-term solution was to switch back to Linux. |
how did you fix problems with bad sleep? | icey: Nothing has improved my ability to sleep more than quitting smoking and quitting or severely limiting my caffeine intake. |
Fink or Macports? | st3fan: MacPorts is pretty decent and I use it to install all kinds of software that I need. Couple of notes though:I frequently hack the Portfiles to tweak things and add configuration options that I need. Most packages are pretty decent but some need something special that the original maintainer did not think of.Upgrading your MacPorts install does not work. Specially when packages have dependencies. It's just flakey. So what I do is simply delete /opt/* and install all the ports that I use again. Little painful but I think I don't do this more than a couple time a year or so. |
Fink or Macports? | daniel-cussen: I downloaded clisp with macports. It felt like a botched surgery: it only half worked, and I'm still recovering from the painful experience.Definitely an exception to "it just works." |
how did you fix problems with bad sleep? | chriskelley: When my girlfriend has problems (studying for the bar... talk about anxiety) I will make her play cards with me for 30-45min or we'll both read our books awhile. As others have mentioned, the key for some is to clear an anxious mind from the days activities before you try to sleep. It would be nice if our bodies has a switch, but until then... |
Django Admin Suitable For Production? | Harkins: I run a couple dozen Django apps in production. The admin interface is solid, we've only managed to find two or three oddities, mostly related to many-to-many associations. We haven't done much customization, but what we've done has worked out fine.The worst-case scenario for the Django admin panel is that you end up writing your own admin panel, which is pretty much what you'd end up doing with any other solution anyways.Blogs make for a nice project, good luck with yours. |
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