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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... |
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 ... |
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 ... |
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 a... |
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 n... |
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'... |
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: Ma... |
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 o... |
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 th... |
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 ... |
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 to... |
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 wh... |
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 ... |
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 a... |
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 a... |
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 ... |
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... |
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... |
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 ... |
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 indisput... |
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... |
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 ... |
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 pr... |
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 i... |
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 publ... |
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 mu... |
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 ... |
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 ... |
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 matt... |
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 spen... |
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 ... |
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 - Y... |
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 skil... |
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 ... |
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.com... |
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 o... |
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 be... |
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 differentiator... |
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... |
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, s... |
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. ... |
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 compi... |
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 (... |
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 picki... |
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, th... |
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 l... |
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 o... |
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 2... |
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.Upg... |
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 ou... |
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... |
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