1711
Find the Hard Work You're Willing to Do (2018)
I like this passage from John Urschel Goes Pro , about the former NFL player who is pursuing a Ph.D. in math:
New
The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 4,748 posts.
1712
Monolith First (2015)
Going directly to a microservices architecture is risky, so consider building a monolithic system first. Split to microservices when, and if, you need it.
1713
1714
The Need to Remove Bad Management
I’ve talked a lot recently about bad management as a root cause of poor infrastructure, especially on Twitter. The idea, channeled through Richard Mlynarik, is that the main barrier to good U…
1715
On navigating a large codebase
A while ago, I’ve been working on a very large codebase that consisted of a few million lines of code. Large systems are usually a big mess and this one was no exception. Since this is a rather common problem in software engineering, I thought the internet would be littered with stories about this topic. There is a…
1716
Unpacking Interview Questions
A series sharing some of the questions I use when I interview for technical roles. I’ll unpack the question, when to ask it, and how to evaluate answers.
1717
Short fat engineers are undervalued
Professionals supposedly come in two shapes: either short and fat, or tall and skinny, meaning their skill set is either broad or deep.
1718
Leaving Mozilla
I don’t think any little girl grows up with the goal of “I want to be an OSS Android browser developer” and to be totally honest, even as an adult I just kin...
1719
Teaching Students How to Cheat During the Pandemic
Modification of Kobayahsi Maru for all-virtual classes
1720
Interview Frustrations
Update: Here’s the link to the HN discussion about this post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26092964
1721
1722
Stop Swiss Cheesing your calendar
(3 Min Read) Take control back over your calendar
1723
Talent Is Largely a Myth
One of the repeating motifs of recruiting in the software industry are mantras of “talent”: “We recruit the best talent”, “talent attracts talent”, “we value talent” and so on. Some companies have so called “head of talent”, “talent acquisition”, “talent development” professionals on their payroll - basically a…
1724
The Mediocre Programmer
The Mediocre Programmer is a book about the journey of becoming a better programmer. But before we can become better programmers we have to pass through being mediocre programmers. Mediocre doesn't mean a bad programmer --- far from it. It means lacking skill. As beginners we start our journey full of fresh ideas of…
1725
Resignation
Today I’m resigning from The New York Times. Those are not words I ever wanted to write. Growing up, I never even imagined that I would get the chance to live in New York City or to work in media -- let alone at the paper of record. I’m from a tiny town of a thousand people in the middle of the corn fields of…
1726
The Relentless Jeff Bezos
Jeff Bezos is retiring, and will go down as one of the great CEO’s in tech history, in part because of how he transformed Amazon into a tech company in every respect.
1727
Product Manager vs. Product Marketing Manager vs. Product Owner
Product Owner is a role you play on a Scrum team. Product Manager is the job. — Melissa Perri.
1728
Behaviours to avoid in a software architecture role
Over the years, I’ve had the opportunity to work in architecture roles alongside experienced software/technical/solution architects. Through observing others and my own trial and error,...
1729
The Focus to Say No (2011)
To realize your potential you have to focus on the things that matter. You have to say no to good opportunities so you can pursue great ones.
1730
How to increase your luck surface area (2010)
"Luck Surface Area" is a turn of phrase that popped out my mouth during a discussion episode of TechZing a few months back and is something I've been meaning to write about ever since but never got around to actually doing. However, thanks to Lance Jones who referenced the concept in a recent blog post I have finally…
1731
1732
1733
Mocks Aren't Stubs (2007)
Explaining the difference between Mock Objects and Stubs (together with other forms of Test Double). Also the difference between classical and mockist styles of unit testing.
1734
I tried to report scientific misconduct. How did it go?
This is the story of how I found what I believe to be scientific misconduct and what happened when I reported it. Science is supposed to b...
1735
Escaping the Roadmap Trap
Stop chasing your feature development plan and start crafting strategic product roadmaps
1736
Make Boring Plans
You’re probably familiar with the concept of Choose Boring Technology. If you’re not, I’ll wait for you to read the excellent blog post by…
1737
Software engineering topics I changed my mind on
At some point, I realized I would've argued the exact opposite position on a lot of topics just a few years ago.
1738
Management by metrics leads us astray
Let’s say my goal this year is to get to 10k monthly recurring revenue (MRR).
1739
When costs are nonlinear, keep it small
Batching work is more efficient … until cost rises nonlinearly with batch size. Then smaller batches are the most efficient. So don’t delay maintenance!
1740
