Top posts
Every blog post that took off on Hacker News, ranked by the votes of its best submission. 6,086 posts.
Tips for reviewing code you don’t like
Here are 10 tips to keep in mind when reviewing code submissions that, for whatever reason, you (as a project maintainer) do not like.
Hell is other people: performance management at Big Tech
The lofty theory and the sordid reality of "perf".
The bar for success in our industry is too low
This weekend the New York Times published a piece called Using ‘Free’ to Turn a Profit. The piece focused on Evernote, a web-based and smart-phone based application for taking notes, snapping pictures, and storing stuff you want to remember later. The following critique isn’t about Evernote (…
Start your meetings at 5 minutes past
I work as an Engineering Manager at Google, and my teams practice a simple habit - we book all meetings to start at five minutes past the hour (or half hour). This works better than trying to finish five minutes early. Meetings often don't finish on time, and the impact is highest with back-to-back meetings.…
The road to success is paved with rejection letters
Let's get this out of the way up front. I'm a successful academic. I have one of the best jobs in academia (Max Planck director). I've been able to do work that I care about, with great colleagues and students, and it's been recognized by my community. I'm white, male, and straight. I was raised by educated, caring…
What makes us Red Hat
Open source software is, in fact, eating the world. It is a de facto model for innovation, and technology as we know it would look vastly different without it. On a few occasions, over the past several years, software industry observers have asked whether there will ever be another Red Hat. Others have speculated that…
Retiring Python as a Teaching Language
It's not about technology for its own sake. It's about being able to implement your ideas.
Against Best Practices
I have come to believe that by and large “best practices” are doing more harm than good. Not necessarily because they’re bad advice as such, but because they’re mostly pounded by either 1) various types of zealots, idiots, and assholes who abuse these kind of “best practices” as an argument from authority, or 2)…
Don’t hire top talent; hire for weaknesses
Design your hiring process to find the right people to strengthen your teams' weaknesses, rather than trying to find the best people. Instead of "how can we find the smartest people?" think about "how can we find the people who will make our team stronger?"
Planning and Managing Layoffs
How you handle a layoff, how you communicate it to the people impacted, and how you manage and lead throughout the process really matters. It takes careful thought and planning, but it may be the most important planning you ever do as a leader.
Arvind has died
Arvind, a longtime MIT professor and leading scholar in computer architecture and programming languages, has died at 77. He transformed research in computer architectures and parallel computing, enabling faster and more efficient computation.
It's Time to Start Writing (2019)
A blog by Alex Nixon on programming and software
AI coding tools can reduce productivity
Study Shows That Even Experienced Developers Dramatically Overestimate Gains
I have officially retired from Emacs
This past Tuesday I typed C-x C-c in Emacs for the last time after 20 years of daily use. Though nearly half that time was gradually retiring it, switching to modal editing, then to Vim. Emacs is a platform, and I’d grown accustomed to its applications, especially those I built myself. There was no particular hurry…
How to Boost Self Esteem and Stop Procrastinating
Cognitive exercises to shift your self-image and overcome procrastination through evidence-based reframing.
75% of Software Engineers Faced Retaliation Last Time They Reported Wrongdoing
53% of software engineers have suspected wrongdoing at work with ~145,000 software engineers in the UK having experienced retaliation the last time they reported it to their employers. For those who didn't report unethical behaviour, fear of retaliation from management was reported as the top reason (59%).
Systems Thinking
A blog about software development and programming.
Sleeping through the technical interview (2022)
Xe Iaso's personal website.
Subverting the software interview (2021)
Writing code for online games, particularly for mobile or web-based slot games like this one , involves a mix of advanced graphics rendering, real-time networking, security implementations, and intricate game logic. Developers need to balance between performance optimization, cross-platform compatibility, and the…
Senior Developers Are Getting Rejected for Jobs
Some really great software developers have been passed...
A shift in developer culture is impacting innovation and creativity
From tinkerers to metric seekers: How the shift in developer culture is impacting innovation and creativity.