rpwilcox

26 ms·

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by rpwilcox 15y ago
THANK YOU THANK YOU!
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by rpwilcox 15y ago
I'm not sure a high end range makes sense without sitting down with the client and spending time on creating an Agile product backlog. (With a product backlog then we can start getting a vague scope). I've actually revised my standard "pote
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by rpwilcox 15y ago
I think starting with an hourly rate is uninformative. For example, if a client's budget is low I might grab a RAD tool to get the job done (while letting the client know that this decision might hinder flexibility in the future.). "You wan
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by rpwilcox 15y ago
I have a policy in which I don't estimate jobs where my gut says will take more than 40 hours worth of work. Beyond that it's Agile style iteration work. I think this has two advantages: I don't put that much time into "no real business h
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by rpwilcox 15y ago
I've been thinking about revising my tactics some, to try to get a potential client to spill what kind of budget they have to work with before I even start thinking about anything else. It certainly helps sometimes in picking out project in
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by rpwilcox 15y ago
Amen about the lead qualification. I just had this happen today: I spent a few hours on an email for a potential client whose project sounds like 3-6 man-months of work. Now, does he really have that kind of dough laying around (ie: angel
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by rpwilcox 15y ago
Hey, cool, a nice looking Kanban board! (The ones I've seen to date have either been pretty ugly, or too many features for what I want. This one looks just right)
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by rpwilcox 15y ago
Nice. Even had some things that were surprising to me, as a big Firefly nerd (although, really, who isn't? ;) )
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by rpwilcox 15y ago
For more crazy rocket CI fun: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MK1p7Nz5c9s (Wherein guys on a project I worked on had an Atlassian Bamboo CI server hooked up to the USB rocket launcher)
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by rpwilcox 15y ago
Nice idea. I especially like the <40 hour jobs only - makes estimating much easier. Also, the $100 fee for projects to enter weeds out the low-ball projects that want 12 hours of work for $50.
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by rpwilcox 15y ago
I almost feel like saying, "If you would do your job for free, quit", just to be flamebait-ey. Hewever, I think there's a level of professionalism that comes with getting paid (ie: you feel bad slacking off reading HN), but if you're work
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by rpwilcox 15y ago
I love me some Dvorak. (Although I have a similar problem: it's really hard to pair program with 1 QWERTY use and 1 Dvorak user.)
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by rpwilcox 15y ago
Awesome, glad I could help! Puppet is really nice, once you see a few examples of how it works
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by rpwilcox 15y ago
Absolutely. I love Vagrant. Last night one of my virtual machines flaked out, and because everything was managed with Puppet , I just deleted the VM and told vagrant to recreate. 10 minutes later I was back in business like nothing happene
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by rpwilcox 15y ago
Went expecting a whiny article, but it's actually pretty good (mentioning telecommuting and a few local things you can do to get yourself in contact with the right people for your job). +1
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by rpwilcox 15y ago
Agreed - the idea of retraining "wrench turning" jobs to be computer programmers is, in my mind, optimistic. Because every startup wants at least a BS in some tech related field (so a 4 year barrier to entry)... in addition to the fact that
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by rpwilcox 15y ago
Thank you for bringing up the cotton gin, etc. I was thinking that when I read the article.
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by rpwilcox 15y ago
I think the author went about it the totally wrong way for a startup. (Although, maybe typical). Instead of picking up a mockup tool, or using HTML/CSS to create a simple mobile web version (or a native app using PhoneGap), he goes asking o
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by rpwilcox 15y ago
For the first two I use Kanban: I have one bin for "On Radar" (people I need to send proposals to, etc), and "Followup". The card for each person has their email address and when I should follow up with them
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by rpwilcox 15y ago
SEEKING WORK (mostly RUBY, iOS, Python) (REMOTE) Ruby on Rails developer for 3 years (mostly large, internal Rails sites). Before that developed desktop apps on the Mac for 5 years (using C++, some Cocoa, some Pascal). I have about 1 day wo
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by rpwilcox 15y ago
It's an interesting idea, albeit maybe a crowded field (in 2011). Startups that come to mind that do that same thing include: Desks Near Me ( http://desksnear.me/ ) and Kodesk ( http://kodesk.com/ ).
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by rpwilcox 15y ago
I'd guess a fair number of people on HN are freelancers. (Myself included). For the last year or so I've written articles for a Macintosh technical magazine: MacTech ( http://www.mactech.com/ ) on this topic (the Consultant Cowboy series, i
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by rpwilcox 15y ago
Right, but if there's high turnover there's got to be an underlaying cause. (Which maybe the business itself doesn't know). Maybe they don't pay enough, or have too many deathmarch projects, or office politics gets in the way too often, or
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by rpwilcox 15y ago
Interesting to know that Hawking writes in TeX... which only makes sense (he is a serious mathematician after all...)
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by rpwilcox 15y ago
The software craftsmanship / hacker dojo people would argue your point that about needing to repeat over and over again. Example: I probably need to sit down and actually practice , over and over again, certain Regex concepts, because I ne
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by rpwilcox 15y ago
Yes yes yes: 4. Don’t give me any bullshit homework. I have a thousands of lines of open source software, created over 8 years of doing open source work... it really does feel like a waste of time when a potential employeer asks me to
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by rpwilcox 16y ago
Hey HN, this is a new site I've made to help teams do daily standup meetings (or "scrums"), when not everyone can be in the same room or even on the phone together. I'm very interested in feedback, comments, suggestions, etc! Just intereste
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Scrum Status: Easy "Scrums" for distributed/mobile teams(scrumstatus.appspot.com)
3 points by rpwilcox 16y ago|1 comments