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Top posts
Every blog post that took off on Hacker News, ranked by the votes of its best submission. 4,748 posts.
2912
How I feel quitting my own startup
I left my own startup after almost 5 years of hard work. It was a tough decision, but a necessary one.
2913
Good data scientist, bad data scientist
What separates a good Data Scientist from a bad one?
2914
How to Write Unmaintainable Code (1999)
In the interests of creating employment opportunities in the Java programming field, I am passing on these tips from the masters on how to write code that is so difficult to maintain, that the people who come after you will take years to make even the simplest changes. Further, if you follow all these rules…
2915
Personal relations as a manager
I was reminded by a discussion with a friend why, as a manager, you should be cautious about the relations you develop with the people in your team.
2916
Rim/Blackberry tales – reply all
Names and emails (even Sumit’s) have been redacted to protect the innocent and the guilty. But you know who you are. Who is Sumit B? I...
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The joys of maintenance programming (2011)
In the old days when I started programming, green programmers trying to build their skills and get experience started out doing maintenance programming. Only the old hands got to write new code. The newbies cut their teeth debugging and fixing musty old code that still worked for the business. I’ve done my share of…
2919
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Things I wish I knew the day I started Berklee
Derek Sivers official site. Thoughts on philosophy, culture, self-improvement. Author of Useful Not True, How to Live, Hell Yeah or No, Anything You Want.
2921
An Open Letter To Business People
So you have an idea for a startup? Awesome! The world needs more people like you. You’re going to have to start by finding a technical cofounder. This is hard because you’re not a programmer, so I’m going to teach you how to do it.
2922
Pursuing a Business I'll Love
Two of my businesses had record-setting months, and I’m finally building the app I’ve always wanted.
2923
Become a better programmer with programming challenges
When I went to university me and some friends spent time on practising algorithm implementations for the national programming contests that ...
2924
The longer it has taken, the longer it will take (2015)
With fat tail, I.e. power law, project times, late projects are likely to be even later,
2925
Experts often end up where they started as beginners
Experts often end up where they started as beginners. If you've never seen the word valet, you might pronounce it like VAL-it. If you realize the word has a French origin, you would pronounce it val-A. But the preferred pronunciation is actually VAL-it. Beginning musicians play by ear, to the extent that they can play
2926
Bored people quit (2011)
Much has been written about employee motivation and retention. It's written by folks who actively use words like motivation and retention and generally don't ha
2927
2928
Strategy 101: An introduction to power
If you’re interested in strategy, this post will be valuable to you. It shares the the tools that I’ve found most valuable so far.
2929
How Thomas Jefferson prepared for meetings
Here's an interesting historical anecdote from Karl Fogel's Producing Open Source Software on the value of preparing for meetings. In his multi-volume biography of Thomas Jefferson, Jefferson and His Time, Dumas Malone tells the story of how Jefferson handled the first meeting held to decide the organization of the…
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Am I really a developer or just a good Googler?
I got a very earnest and well-phrased email from a young person overseas ...
2932
Shooting down ideas is not a skill
Criticism can prevent mistakes. It can never create value. Only ideas can do that. The two are not equal contributions, and most meetings get this backwards.
2933
Decline of the Dad Job
Before I learnt to read I made sense of the world by conjuring up images in my mind, particularly for abstract concepts. I could count before I could read and had an image for each number. Many of …
2934
2935
Ship / Show / Ask: A modern branching strategy
Ship/Show/Ask is a branching strategy that helps teams wait less and ship more, without losing out on feedback.
2936
Sometimes your job is to stay the hell out of the way
I wrote a piece a long time ago about The Wolf. It's my personal take on the mythical 10x engineer, except that they aren't a myth. They exist. I've seen them.
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My 25-year engineering career retrospective
Reflecting on my engineering career and what I could have done better.
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In praise of “normal” engineers
The best engineering orgs in the world are not the ones with the most (self-pronounced) "10x engineers", they are the ones where normal engineers can show up every day, do good work, and move the business materially forward. Oh yeah -- this is also the best way to build world-class engineers.