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How to communicate effectively as a developer
Some tactical and strategic tips for writing effectively as a software developer.
Top posts
Every blog post that took off on Hacker News, ranked by the votes of its best submission. 4,747 posts.
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On Coding, Ego and Attention
My thoughts on coding, ego and attention. How I learned to get out of my own way by learning about this link between ego and attention.
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Asked to do something illegal at work? Here's what these software engineers did
At FTX, Frank, and Pollen, software engineers were asked to do something potentially illegal, or to go along with what looked like fraud. They obliged in two out of three cases, landed in hot water, and now face jail time. A reminder why it’s never a good idea to go along with such requests.
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How I estimate work
There’s a kind of polite fiction at the heart of the software industry. It goes something like this: Estimating how long software projects will take is very…
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Professional maintainers: a wake-up call
Open Source software runs the Internet, and by extension the economy. This is an undisputed fact about reality in 2021. And yet, the role of Open Source maintainer has failed to mature from a hobby into a proper profession.
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Apple is threatening to terminate my developer account with no clear reason
UPDATE June 18, 2020 at 10:24 PM EST: I have made contact with a human at Apple after they reached to me via Resolution Center. We are working on solving the issues, and while I have not been told “yes, your account will not be terminated”, I believe in good faith we will work something out. Yes, the issue was my…
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I am (not) a failure: Lessons learned from six failed startup attempts
A while back I wrote : I've had many, many failures in my life. (Hm, maybe I should write a blog post about that.) This is that post. I'm ...
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I ignore the spotlight as a staff engineer
An alternate path for Staff+ engineers that optimizes for systems over spotlights and stewardship over fungibility.
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Signs that it's time to leave a company
When the company stops growing, when the founder moves on, when HR is calling the shots, when the executives care more about real estate…
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Career Development: What It Means to Be a Manager, Director, or VP (2015)
It’s no secret that I’m not a fan of big-company HR practices. I’m more of the First Break all the Rules type. Despite my general skepticism of many standard practices, we still do annual performance reviews at my company, though I’m thinking seriously of dropping
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A bunch of programming advice I'd give to myself 15 years ago
I finally have the feeling that I’m a decent programmer, so I thought it would be fun to write some advice with the idea of “what would have gotten me to this point faster?” I’m not claiming this is great advice for everyone, just that it would have been good advice for me. If you (or your team) are shooting…
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Want an unfair advantage in your tech career? Consume content for other roles
Learning about roles you work with can provide a meaningful competitive advantage in the modern tech world
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Advantages of incompetent management
What constitutes managerial competence? As a vague starting point for an answer, we could say that competent management sets achievable objectives and then achieves them, by organizing and incentivizing the necessary work.
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'Ugh fields', or why you can’t even bear to think about that task
Have you ever had a long-overdue task — a task which isn’t so bad in itself — but which you can’t even bring yourself to think about?
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How to ask for help from people who don't know you
Pradyumna's site
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What every computer science major should know (2011)
Given the expansive growth in the field, it's become challenging to discern what belongs in a modern computer science degree.
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How I Made $70k Self-Publishing a Book about Ruby on Rails
Did I mention how awesome it is to live 30 minutes from a ski lift?In March of 2016, I launched a course called The Complete Guide to Rails Performance. Sinc...
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Xi-Editor Retrospective
A bit more than four years ago I started the xi-editor project. Now I have placed it on the back burner (though there is still some activity from the open source community). The original goal was to deliver a very high quality editing experience. To this end, the project spent a rather large number of “novelty…
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On Being Indispensable
It took far too long for it to click in my brain that I was stuck. There was no career path. Sure my title changed, pay went up, but my day-to-day never changed. I was so busy collaborating with dozens of people across all departments, that it felt like I was growing. I wasn’t.
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Software engineering salaries come from one of three budgets
Software engineering salaries come from one of 3 budgets. Which budget pays your salary shapes your day-to-day and influences your career trajectory
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What Makes a Senior Software Developer?
The notion of a "senior" developer is extremely subjective. How can we define it better?
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Scrum is fragile, not Agile
As the title suggests, this post is about two different aspects of Scrum. The first part deals with Scrum not being Agile and the second part is about Scrum being fragile.
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You can do it alone
I’m Ryan Carson, and I’ve been a Founder CEO for 20 years, building, scaling and selling three companies.
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20 years working on the same software product
I released version 1 of my table seating planning software, PerfectTablePlan, in February 2005. 20 years ago this month. It was a different world. A world of Windows, shareware and CDs. A lot has c…
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Takeaways from coaching CEOs, founders and VCs
I went through my calendar recently to count all the clients I worked with in 2019 as part of my coaching practice. The answer: 101 powerful and extraordinary individuals. Wow, I was blown away, I had no idea that it would be this many. The kinds of people I had and continue to have the […]