hkarthik

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421.
by hkarthik 13y ago
No calendar is a pretty big downside. I would venture to say this is even more important to me than staying on Gmail now. Especially with shared calendars between myself and my spouse.
422.
by hkarthik 13y ago
I've been working from home for 2 years now. My wife also works from home. We each have separate physical spaces in our home dedicated as offices for us. As a developer, here are my tips: * Go to meet ups in your area more often to co
423.
by hkarthik 13y ago
I recently found out that Swingline never originally made a red stapler, but started making them in 2002 (3 years after Office Space was released) because they got so many requests for it after the movie was released. Story linked here: ht
424.
by hkarthik 13y ago
I was in almost the exact situation as you about a year ago. I had an offer in hand from a well known company in Palo Alto to join one of their innovation labs. From a career standpoint, it would have been a game changer. However, like your
425.
by hkarthik 13y ago
My advice in this situation would be to talk to the founder and ask them to hire someone else and let this guy go. If they won't, you should probably just quit. You will be carrying this individual for a long time, and it may take a th
426.
by hkarthik 13y ago
It's difficult to discover libraries, and we need a good delivery system for linking shipped binaries from these sources. The next step would be true dependency management to manage version dependencies between multiple libraries. Righ
427.
by hkarthik 13y ago
Go is still missing a key component needed to make it a real breakout language for web application backends: a central repository for open source libraries. The mainstream web development languages like Python, Ruby, and Javascript have thi
428.
by hkarthik 13y ago
Java is a general purpose language that frankly doesn't do any single thing well compared to today's alternatives. It still has value as a general purpose, "jack of all trades" language but this is becoming less relevant
429.
by hkarthik 13y ago
Oh you're not alone. I dislike Java as well, but there's no denying the power of the JVM and the ecosystem around it. If you really dig into it and look at it as a polyglot platform with choices like Groovy, Clojure, JRuby, and Sc
430.
by hkarthik 13y ago
I agree, he could easily be using a JVM-based stack to get the same or better efficiency out of his 1-server configuration. Also there's some clearly naivety when bragging about his "low cost" $200/month setup. His SQL S
431.
by hkarthik 13y ago
Correct, I didn't mean to imply these were 1 person businesses with a single A/C repair person doing all the work. To reach $1 mil or more in revenue, these businesses use 1099 contractors or corp-to-corp sub-contracts to meet the
432.
by hkarthik 13y ago
Most of the people I know doing this are involved heavily in local commerce. Think real estate, insurance, construction, and skilled labor companies (plumbing, A/C repair, landscaping).
433.
by hkarthik 13y ago
I think many of the HN readers just don't use Windows. I personally stopped using it for anything but PC gaming about 3 years ago. This may be changing with Azure, but it feels like Windows is still the minimum bar needed to gain entry
434.
by hkarthik 13y ago
I think there is a natural tendency for developers over time to evolve from being contributors to being leaders. Leadership may not carry a management title. A leader may simply be a senior person who does the following: 1) Knows and unders
435.
by hkarthik 13y ago
Aside from functionality and complexity, frameworks can offer consistency and reliability. The latter two are very important when trying to create large applications rapidly with larger teams.
436.
by hkarthik 13y ago
> I would like to add a script language to my skillset and increase my employability. Adding a scripting language to your skill set will increase your employability, but primarily with smaller companies and startups. You can probably lan
437.
by hkarthik 13y ago
Ha! I guess my negative bent around becoming a PM bled through. I have considered going into a PM role as a future career move but the reality of it usually depresses me into sticking with engineering. It is pretty depressing that in most s
438.
by hkarthik 13y ago
It's a tough transition, but I've seen it done in a few ways: 1) Internally apply for a Product Management job. Expect to have put in at least 3 years within the company and make sure you know the business domain better than most
439.
by hkarthik 13y ago
This post boggles me. I'll save you a lot of hard lessons by telling you what to do. 1. Don't quit your day job. If it's easy enough to finish and study during the day, then don't quit it until after you make enough to d
440.
by hkarthik 13y ago
If you're already asking where you think your career will be in 3, 5, or 10 years in relationship to a single employer, you're probably asking the wrong question. Employers no longer care about your career. Any career growth you e
441.
by hkarthik 13y ago
The benefit of Uptano would be that their boxes are dedicated so you'd potentially get more horse power, which is always appreciated when you're running a Ruby app. I think you made the right choice with paying for hosted CI. The
442.
by hkarthik 13y ago
Great post! I am curious whether you could move all these boxes to Uptano and save even more now. What are you doing for CI?
443.
by hkarthik 13y ago
For some people, working at a startup is synonymous to working crazy hours for a few years and getting a big payout in the end. This is the compressed schedule that PG talks about in his essay. In such startups, there are multiple people (i
444.
by hkarthik 13y ago
This sounds like a great company, but I think that in the VC-funded US startup ecosystem, this would be negatively described as a "lifestyle business". Which is sad, because I would love to build a business like this. However I th
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by hkarthik 13y ago
This is a common problem that UI professionals often refer to as "Mystery Meat Navigation". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery_meat_navigation It was pretty common during the 90s when screen resolutions we
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by hkarthik 13y ago
Pay attention to what's going on with the leadership of the startup and the direction of the business. Some cuts to benefits, food stocking, etc should be expected if you're seeing a major shift in direction. They may have to hunk
447.
by hkarthik 13y ago
This is awesome. One of the primary reasons many people had to setup an LLC or something similar to ship a paid app was because you couldn't easily transfer later for tax purposes. Glad to see they removed this!
448.
by hkarthik 13y ago
It maybe a bit outdated, but you can check out the net tuts tutorial here: http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/ruby/singing-with-sinatra/ To understand Sinatra, it's best to start with understanding Rack.
449.
by hkarthik 13y ago
My suggestion would be to go with Sinatra over Rails initially. You could potentially go with Node/Express instead, but picking up async javascript simultaneously may be a bit of a burden. Actually if you know Python, Flask may be the
450.
by hkarthik 13y ago
That's the easy way out, and in my experience, far more likely to produce "the residue" type of employees mentioned in the article who sticks around due to "golden handcuffs."

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