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Joke aside, I highly recommend watching this talk about Comcast's HTML based APIs: http://www.infoq.com/presentations/web-api-html http://www.infoq.com/presenta

Joke aside, I highly recommend watching this talk about Comcast's HTML based APIs: http://www.infoq.com/presentations/web-api-html http://www.infoq.com/presentations/web-api-html .

exelius 12y ago
In my interactions with them, I would say that Comcast has some very smart, very capable people working for them who really get technology in the HN sense. They care about doing things the right way, because everything they build has to be instantly scalable. They understand that the world doesn't revolve around them, and they need to use open standards where they exist. They even contribute back to a great many open source projects. Unfortunately, the customer support part of the company does not share this quality. But don't punish the developers for it. But should you ever meet a Comcast employee at a technical conference, realize that they hate the evil Comcast machine as much as you do. But they're working from the inside to try to make things better -- at least as much as they can as a developer.
- chimeracoder 12y ago
  > But should you ever meet a Comcast employee at a technical conference, realize that they hate the evil Comcast machine as much as you do. But they're working from the inside to try to make things better -- at least as much as they can as a developer. I'd extend this to the customer support people as well (at least the ones who actually interact with customers). At a company like Comcast, customer support people rarely have much autonomy, if any at all. They're forced to read from a very narrow script, are penalized heavily for deviating from the script, and are also penalized heavily if they underperform even when using the script. They're not paid terribly well, and since it's relatively unskilled labour, they often don't have very good alternative job choices (unlike developers in today's market). I hate Time Warner as much as any of their customers should, though it's always good to keep in mind the separation between the company as a whole and the individuals within the company. The ones who are actually responsible for all of the reasons we hate Comcast/Time Warner are the ones that we're likely never to speak with, and that's no accident - they go out of their way to avoid talking to any customers[0]. [0] Because, unlike most startups, they don't have to worry about building a product people want to use - their customers have no choice.
- Yhippa 12y ago
  What are the merits of Comcast that one would work there to try to make things better?
  - guelo 12y ago
    They have by far the largest coax cable network.
  - exelius 12y ago
    The same as any other programming job? Well, except the pay and benefits are pretty good from what I hear.

Joke aside, I highly recommend watching this talk about Comcast's HTML based APIs: http://www.infoq.com/presentations/web-api-html http://www.infoq.com/presentations/web-api-html .

exelius 12y ago

In my interactions with them, I would say that Comcast has some very smart, very capable people working for them who really get technology in the HN sense. They care about doing things the right way, because everything they build has to be instantly scalable. They understand that the world doesn't revolve around them, and they need to use open standards where they exist. They even contribute back to a great many open source projects. Unfortunately, the customer support part of the company does not share this quality. But don't punish the developers for it. But should you ever meet a Comcast employee at a technical conference, realize that they hate the evil Comcast machine as much as you do. But they're working from the inside to try to make things better -- at least as much as they can as a developer.

chimeracoder 12y ago
> But should you ever meet a Comcast employee at a technical conference, realize that they hate the evil Comcast machine as much as you do. But they're working from the inside to try to make things better -- at least as much as they can as a developer. I'd extend this to the customer support people as well (at least the ones who actually interact with customers). At a company like Comcast, customer support people rarely have much autonomy, if any at all. They're forced to read from a very narrow script, are penalized heavily for deviating from the script, and are also penalized heavily if they underperform even when using the script. They're not paid terribly well, and since it's relatively unskilled labour, they often don't have very good alternative job choices (unlike developers in today's market). I hate Time Warner as much as any of their customers should, though it's always good to keep in mind the separation between the company as a whole and the individuals within the company. The ones who are actually responsible for all of the reasons we hate Comcast/Time Warner are the ones that we're likely never to speak with, and that's no accident - they go out of their way to avoid talking to any customers[0]. [0] Because, unlike most startups, they don't have to worry about building a product people want to use - their customers have no choice.
Yhippa 12y ago
What are the merits of Comcast that one would work there to try to make things better?
- guelo 12y ago
  They have by far the largest coax cable network.
- exelius 12y ago
  The same as any other programming job? Well, except the pay and benefits are pretty good from what I hear.