211
My experience with off-shoring teams and what went wrong
This is the return code blog, tech and other stuff.
New
The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 290 posts.
212
Confessions of an Unreal Engine 4 engineering firefighter
Author's Note After Release I'm really blown away by the reception of this article. It has spread far wider than I could have ever imagined. The many comments and discussions it has prompted that essentially confirm what I believe is truth by not just fellow engineers but many
213
214
215
216
217
218
The need for tooling and the need for mastering your tools
Couple months ago, a friend sent me this article about "Speed learner Max Deutsch challenging chess grandmaster Magnus Carlsen". My friend ...
219
220
Where Yegge’s Wrong
Recently, Steve Yegge published two rants, each of which has gone viral and moved the Internet conversation needle a bit. I liked both of them, thought they were generally well-argued and useful. Unfortunately, there are a few assertions of fact there that are just wrong, and may be damaging. So I thought that, first…
221
The Bitter Truth of Learning: It’s Tough, Unpleasant, and Often Pointless
Sometimes an insignificant interaction, or an excerpt from a book, is capable of provoking a life-changing insight. It might be an obvious lesson, but it feels epiphanic because it fits differently into my understanding of things. For instance…
222
223
NCEES discontinuing PE Software Engineering exam
NCEES will discontinue the Principles and Practice of Engineering (PE) Software Engineering exam after the April 2019 exam administration. Since the original offering in 2013, the exam has been administered five times, with a total population of 81 candidates. Only 19 candidates registered for the April 2018…
224
The Declining Value of a CS Master's Degree (2013)
I don’t know if it helps, but Illinois CS distinguishes the two kinds of programs with two different degrees: MS in CS for the research program, and MCS for the coursework program. Most of the MS students receive funding andtuition waivers, while I’m not sure if the MCS students are even eligible for support.
225
The health care toll today’s work culture exacts on employees
A new book examines the massive health care toll today’s work culture exacts on employees.
226
From Rails to Clojure, Then to Java, Then Back to Rails
In the past 6 years I’ve worked on web applications in Rails, Clojure, Java and back to Rails. This is an overview of these past years, the benefits of working with such different tech stacks, and also it’s drawbacks.
227
Why I Don't Sign Non-Competes
My first job out of University was in the IT department of a payment processing and debt collection company. My desk was juxtapose to a call center w...
228
229
230
A Career Cold Start Algorithm
Starting a new job can be stressful so I've developed an algorithm that has helped me get up to speed quickly.
231
232
What Happens to Us Does Not Happen to Most of You
This blog post is a personal account of sexism, harassment, and racism that I and some anonymous members of the computer architecture community have experienced. We are sharing these experiences in…
233
Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself
For the past four years, I’ve worked as a software developer at Google. On February 1st, I quit. It was because they refused to buy me a Christmas present.
234
When to bring in the heavy hitters (2017)
Three questions to ask yourself before making a senior hire
235
Let’s have no managers, instead of managers with no engineering experience
Over the course of my career as a developer I’ve been involved in a bad management situation more than once.
236
Things I Learned Managing Site Reliability (2017)
For several years I managed the 3rd line site reliability operation for many of the world’s busiest gambling sites, working for a little-known company that built and ran the core backend online software for several businesses that each at peak could take tens of millions of pounds in revenue per hour. I left a couple…
237
The Practice is not the Performance: Why project-based learning fails
Why project-based learning fails to build programming skill, and what works instead: break skills into parts and drill them with fast feedback.
238
Don’t Know What to Do with Your Life? Seek Bargains (2012)
A Career Crossroads In the early winter of 2004, I was a senior at Dartmouth College and in the fortunate position of having two good ... Read more
239
What to care about in a job
In 2014, I wrote about how I chose my first job out of college. I’ve learned a lot in the 4 years since then—here’s how I would change my criteria if I were picking a job today.
240
Commitment vs. Forecast: A Subtle But Important Change to Scrum
One of the most controversial updates to the 2011 Scrum Guide has been the removal of the term “commit” in favor of “forecast” in regards to the work selected for a Sprint. We used to say that the Development Team commits to which Product Backlog Items it will deliver by the end of the Sprint. Scrum now encourages the…