8 ms·

On Heroku and 2012

225 points by rdegges 14y ago

luigi 14y ago
Kenneth is awesome, in the true sense of the word.
jason_adleberg 14y ago
shoutout to OP for making django-skel
- rdegges 14y ago
  Shout out: confirmed. >:)
jpadvo 14y ago
> Life's not a race, but there's no speed limit either. I love this. I've been learning recently that one of my chief sources of stress is feeling pinched for time. Mainly from feeling like I'm not getting as much done as I need to (I'm a cofounder of a bootstrapped startup). But what I've discovered is that if I relax, and enjoy the feeling of progress as it happens, I can be much more excited about work. And a much happier person. And, somewhat ironically, extra motivation kicks in and I'm pretty sure I wind up getting more done. That one line from Kenneth sums up the entire glorious contradiction in a way that makes sense.
- unimpressive 14y ago
  Reminded me of this story: https://sivers.org/kimo https://sivers.org/kimo
  - jpadvo 14y ago
    Thank you -- I haven't read that story in a long time, and it is a great reminder.
zachwill 14y ago
Kenneth's a badass. The libraries he puts out are incredibly helpful.
Steveism 14y ago
As the saying goes, "If you love what you do, you'll never work a day in your life." It's great to read posts like this. Learning Python, or any modern language for that matter, can lead to a lot more in life than just web apps and server scripts. In this case it lead to 8 countries visited in a single year and countless handshakes.
olasitarska 14y ago
Wow, now I'm even more exciting to meet you Kenneth! ;)
atomical 14y ago
I don't think unlimited vacation is a good thing because it really isn't unlimited and just keeps the employee guessing as to what is appropriate.
- bjornsteffanson 14y ago
  I absolutely agree. My last and current employer both offer unlimited vacation. For whatever psychological reason, I find myself taking less vacation than I did when I was _earning_ it at my McJob for the rate of 6.33 hours every month. If you are such an employer, please consider setting a realistic expectation of what is an appropriate amount of time-off. If there really is no limit, then please consider more intensive training with regard to your company's culture .
  - shykes 14y ago
    We had a similar debate at dotCloud when the team discussed the appropriate amount of vacation. Unlimited was very tempting, but in the end we decided against it because 1) it's ambiguous and offers little guarantees, 2) it makes a lot of people suspicious ("Like AT&T unlimited?") and 3) it doesn't force people to take vacation. Number 3 was the worst. Passionate people will burn themselves out if you don't setup some sort of "vacation monitoring". We liked the idea of making that explicit: lots of vacation, and rules that force you to use them regularly. In the end we went for 2+1 weeks on the first year, and 3+2 weeks after that.
    - famousactress 14y ago
      Does 3+2 mean "3 required, optionally take 2 additional"?
      - shykes 14y ago
        Sorry, forgot to explain. 3+2 means "3 weeks accrued over the year and usable anytime, 2 weeks of company-wide break (specifically the weeks of thanksgiving and christmas)". The decision to do a company-wide break probably deserves a thread of its own. The short version is that it works great.
gbog 14y ago
> Don't spend a single moment in life doing something you don't want to do. This advice or its cousins are found in many places around here and, well, I have a bad feeling about it. Is it not the epitome of egoism? Is it possible to share a house with friends, or a spouse, or your kids, without ever "doing something you don't want to do"? And in professional life, if you are a janitor, do you "want" to clean this toilets again? If you are a coder, you will do your share of boring work because you are in a team, right? And if you are a Big Boss, do you really want to fire this poor guy who is no fit here, will be no fit in no company you can think of, and has had already his content of shit on the head? Even a painter, or a writer, or a comics guy like Mr Oatmeal have to do sometimes some things they do not "want" to do, professionally The only people who really can avoid doing anything they do not want to do for a long period of time are the movie superstars and kids of some people of power. I do not think they represent a suitable ideal of life, and I do not think they are more happy than more normal poeple, quite the opposite in fact. Then there are a few short-lived exceptions, a little slice of a life that is mostly free from hassles of any sort. I experienced this state during a few months myself: I got fired from a boring job, so I had the nice French wellfare and got 70% income for nothing. I also broke with my gf. At that time nobody counted in my life, I could and I did take risks, like getting involved in knife fight. I remember the only thing I did that I did not want to do was to take the train and join my parents to meet my grand-parents. for some important occasion. I actually had to wake up early and shave... But that's not real life, that's a short and egoistic period of my life. It has been somewhat useful in build my experience, but I'd not say I was happy. And most important is I would not make a general advice out of it. Only very few people in the world are lucky enough to find themselves with no professional or familial bounds and enough money to live free-wheeling for some month. Or maybe the split is on another line: If young Americans can claim to never do what they do not want to do, maybe it is because they use autosuggestion, also known as The Coué method* , to make themselves "want" to do what they really just "have" to do. Using autosuggestion, I could proactively "want" to clean my toddler's diapers, or smile candidly and listen to this friend's spouse, while at the same time, deep in my heart, knowing she is really the boringest person in the world and I'd rather lick the streets than listen to her blabla (but I really like this friend, would not like to lose him...) So yes, with autosuggestion, it is possible to force oneself to love to do what we hate to do, and it is most likely what many people do. But then, you'd have to balance carefully, because it is cheating, it is lying to oneself, and pushed too far it can become a poison, I guess. * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89mile_Cou%C3%A9#The_Cou.C3.A9_method http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89mile_Cou%C3%A9#The_Cou.C3...
gromi60 14y ago
"You won't remember names. Just ask." Great advice. I often forget names and the stress and/or guilt is the worst part.
fyvush82 14y ago
I don't follow this "I work for Heroku" stuff. He works for Salesforce, which Heroku is a part of, no?
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- bgentry 14y ago
  Salesforce owns Heroku, and we leverage that relationship where it makes sense. Other than that, Heroku operates independently of Salesforce, which is how both sides want it to be. We have our own office, we're keeping our brand, and we operate the business as we see fit. We're 2 years into the acquisition with no signs of that relationship changing anytime soon.
  - bengl3rt 14y ago
    A better question is, why don't some of the reasons that it's so great to work for Heroku symbiotically trickle up to the behemoth parent company?

On Heroku and 2012

225 points by rdegges 14y ago

luigi 14y ago

Kenneth is awesome, in the true sense of the word.

jason_adleberg 14y ago

shoutout to OP for making django-skel

rdegges 14y ago
Shout out: confirmed. >:)

jpadvo 14y ago

> Life's not a race, but there's no speed limit either. I love this. I've been learning recently that one of my chief sources of stress is feeling pinched for time. Mainly from feeling like I'm not getting as much done as I need to (I'm a cofounder of a bootstrapped startup). But what I've discovered is that if I relax, and enjoy the feeling of progress as it happens, I can be much more excited about work. And a much happier person. And, somewhat ironically, extra motivation kicks in and I'm pretty sure I wind up getting more done. That one line from Kenneth sums up the entire glorious contradiction in a way that makes sense.

unimpressive 14y ago
Reminded me of this story: https://sivers.org/kimo https://sivers.org/kimo
- jpadvo 14y ago
  Thank you -- I haven't read that story in a long time, and it is a great reminder.

zachwill 14y ago

Kenneth's a badass. The libraries he puts out are incredibly helpful.

Steveism 14y ago

As the saying goes, "If you love what you do, you'll never work a day in your life." It's great to read posts like this. Learning Python, or any modern language for that matter, can lead to a lot more in life than just web apps and server scripts. In this case it lead to 8 countries visited in a single year and countless handshakes.

olasitarska 14y ago

Wow, now I'm even more exciting to meet you Kenneth! ;)

atomical 14y ago

I don't think unlimited vacation is a good thing because it really isn't unlimited and just keeps the employee guessing as to what is appropriate.

bjornsteffanson 14y ago
I absolutely agree. My last and current employer both offer unlimited vacation. For whatever psychological reason, I find myself taking less vacation than I did when I was _earning_ it at my McJob for the rate of 6.33 hours every month. If you are such an employer, please consider setting a realistic expectation of what is an appropriate amount of time-off. If there really is no limit, then please consider more intensive training with regard to your company's culture .
- shykes 14y ago
  We had a similar debate at dotCloud when the team discussed the appropriate amount of vacation. Unlimited was very tempting, but in the end we decided against it because 1) it's ambiguous and offers little guarantees, 2) it makes a lot of people suspicious ("Like AT&T unlimited?") and 3) it doesn't force people to take vacation. Number 3 was the worst. Passionate people will burn themselves out if you don't setup some sort of "vacation monitoring". We liked the idea of making that explicit: lots of vacation, and rules that force you to use them regularly. In the end we went for 2+1 weeks on the first year, and 3+2 weeks after that.
  - famousactress 14y ago
    Does 3+2 mean "3 required, optionally take 2 additional"?
    - shykes 14y ago
      Sorry, forgot to explain. 3+2 means "3 weeks accrued over the year and usable anytime, 2 weeks of company-wide break (specifically the weeks of thanksgiving and christmas)". The decision to do a company-wide break probably deserves a thread of its own. The short version is that it works great.

gbog 14y ago

> Don't spend a single moment in life doing something you don't want to do. This advice or its cousins are found in many places around here and, well, I have a bad feeling about it. Is it not the epitome of egoism? Is it possible to share a house with friends, or a spouse, or your kids, without ever "doing something you don't want to do"? And in professional life, if you are a janitor, do you "want" to clean this toilets again? If you are a coder, you will do your share of boring work because you are in a team, right? And if you are a Big Boss, do you really want to fire this poor guy who is no fit here, will be no fit in no company you can think of, and has had already his content of shit on the head? Even a painter, or a writer, or a comics guy like Mr Oatmeal have to do sometimes some things they do not "want" to do, professionally The only people who really can avoid doing anything they do not want to do for a long period of time are the movie superstars and kids of some people of power. I do not think they represent a suitable ideal of life, and I do not think they are more happy than more normal poeple, quite the opposite in fact. Then there are a few short-lived exceptions, a little slice of a life that is mostly free from hassles of any sort. I experienced this state during a few months myself: I got fired from a boring job, so I had the nice French wellfare and got 70% income for nothing. I also broke with my gf. At that time nobody counted in my life, I could and I did take risks, like getting involved in knife fight. I remember the only thing I did that I did not want to do was to take the train and join my parents to meet my grand-parents. for some important occasion. I actually had to wake up early and shave... But that's not real life, that's a short and egoistic period of my life. It has been somewhat useful in build my experience, but I'd not say I was happy. And most important is I would not make a general advice out of it. Only very few people in the world are lucky enough to find themselves with no professional or familial bounds and enough money to live free-wheeling for some month. Or maybe the split is on another line: If young Americans can claim to never do what they do not want to do, maybe it is because they use autosuggestion, also known as The Coué method* , to make themselves "want" to do what they really just "have" to do. Using autosuggestion, I could proactively "want" to clean my toddler's diapers, or smile candidly and listen to this friend's spouse, while at the same time, deep in my heart, knowing she is really the boringest person in the world and I'd rather lick the streets than listen to her blabla (but I really like this friend, would not like to lose him...) So yes, with autosuggestion, it is possible to force oneself to love to do what we hate to do, and it is most likely what many people do. But then, you'd have to balance carefully, because it is cheating, it is lying to oneself, and pushed too far it can become a poison, I guess. * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89mile_Cou%C3%A9#The_Cou.C3.A9_method http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89mile_Cou%C3%A9#The_Cou.C3...

gromi60 14y ago

"You won't remember names. Just ask." Great advice. I often forget names and the stress and/or guilt is the worst part.

fyvush82 14y ago

I don't follow this "I work for Heroku" stuff. He works for Salesforce, which Heroku is a part of, no?

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
bgentry 14y ago
Salesforce owns Heroku, and we leverage that relationship where it makes sense. Other than that, Heroku operates independently of Salesforce, which is how both sides want it to be. We have our own office, we're keeping our brand, and we operate the business as we see fit. We're 2 years into the acquisition with no signs of that relationship changing anytime soon.
- bengl3rt 14y ago
  A better question is, why don't some of the reasons that it's so great to work for Heroku symbiotically trickle up to the behemoth parent company?