tom_b

40 ms·

301.
by tom_b 16y ago
This job listing maybe isn't the best example, but presume you have some highly sought after skill set. Why not take temp programming gigs where you can sell that skill for some multiple of the pay you could get as a FTE?
302.
by tom_b 16y ago
I've noticed traditional job listing for a senior dev often include mentorship and guidance for other devs on a project. For companies with a traditional (non-remote) team, perhaps a significant part of the senior dev extra value is though
303.
by tom_b 16y ago
Interesting question, made more interesting to me since no answers suggest using a multi-paradigm programming language.
304.
by tom_b 16y ago
I'm interested in combining the memory palace and peg techniques, specifically for sw dev. Assuming you understand the fundamentals, I think there is a subset of any programming language, data structures, and algorithms for the programming
305.
by tom_b 16y ago
I like "Your Memory : How It Works and How to Improve It" by Higbee in addition to the Foer book. It is a little more pragmatic and thorough in description of the techniques discussed in "Moonwalking with Einstein."
306.
by tom_b 16y ago
I believe you are presuming that all those super intelligent people are hacking on high frequency trading algos because of the big $$$ being made for it. I think hacking on those things would be great fun. Others might as well. I do like t
307.
by tom_b 16y ago
Be polite to cops. But, never hurts to remain aware that part of their job is to help turn arrests into convictions. Think of it as a customer conversion metric. Nothing wrong with not talking to them without the advice of an attorney.
308.
by tom_b 16y ago
I have a family member working directly in the manufacture/production of DVD/Blueray media (movies and games). The company is actively telling employees the facility will shutdown at some point in the future. While the timeline is not spec
309.
by tom_b 16y ago
FTA: "By applying a little more category theory we can show how a single abstraction, monads and monad comprehensions, can be used as a unified query language for both SQL and coSQL." So just added to my reading list: Grust, T. 2003. Monad
310.
by tom_b 16y ago
Nice slides (linked from the article). Since I'm MySQL ignorant, you say: "the code wasn't sure if a row would already exist in the table, so it would issue a DELETE just in case followed by an INSERT with the correct data" I come from a ba
311.
by tom_b 16y ago
Can't speak to YC's experience, but I attended a historically black college/university (referred to as HBCUs) and knew a number of top-notch African-American CS students/hackers while I was there. At one point, out of 7 or 8 undergrads in a
312.
by tom_b 16y ago
Hey, there are even old boring people walking around on campus who are users . . . heck, even in Carrboro If it wasn't a HIPPA issue, we might be using Dropbox for more internal projects here Love, love, love dropbox. You undergrad at Si
313.
by tom_b 16y ago
This. My personal experience (which includes a lovely meniscus blowout during squats) is that even given perfect form, once you get up to heavy weights (2x-3x bodyweight for deads and squats) you are starting to push the limits of your body
314.
by tom_b 16y ago
I think you do have a resume and it's a rather extensive one. Your comments here and back on JoelOnSoftware forums are extensive and you keep a very active presence visible with your blog. Better yet, you document work/business and results
315.
by tom_b 16y ago
HPC is a rather specific subset of the programming world. My experience is that a lot of pure HPC code is researchy/research lab driven. If you have an undergrad degree (of any type) already, you could look around for a MS program with an
316.
by tom_b 16y ago
Hi fogus, beat me to the punch with the submission. This article made me laugh just because lately I've been thinking about how I miss the harsh directness of C. I'm slowly deciding that my resume should have the following line: Languages:
317.
by tom_b 16y ago
I'm currently reading and preparing to work through C Interfaces and Implementations based on your recommendation - so thanks. At first blush, I like it very much and wish to tie it more closely to a more modern C reference that is the suc
318.
by tom_b 16y ago
I work with electronic medical records on the research side, integrating clinical patient data with medical research and clinical trials. However, I work with a large teaching hospital rather than small practices. A home run offering for o
319.
by tom_b 16y ago
What Dropbox does is eliminate the programmer from the equation. You don't need your IT staff to do any special setup or to follow a special process. I think the truth is business users don't want to work with you - they just want their da
320.
by tom_b 16y ago
In the past three years, I have made significant career decisions based on the insurance costs and coverage of the employer. In one case, I turned down what was clearly a great hacking gig with a hacker whose work I really respected. The r
321.
by tom_b 16y ago
:-) I remember using Morton Order for memory layout of dense matrix operations. Very handy and much better than row or column major order. At the time, I was using this for wavelet operations. Some of the nastiest C code I ever wrote from
322.
by tom_b 16y ago
Agreed. I have seen several "integrative" degree programs that attempt to combine business skills and some other program and the end result is always that the deeper, tougher (and thus, maybe more immersive coursework?) falls by the waysid
323.
by tom_b 16y ago
Fascinating. Don't dig for gold, sell pickaxes. Congratulations, I have no idea if this will work out longterm, but I find it to be a creative idea. Reminds me of the Heroku/AWS/GAE play on hosting apps, but applied to the customer suppor
324.
by tom_b 16y ago
From the article: "The management world has tried to develop software engineering processes that allow people to be plugged into them like interchangeable components. < . . . > To my mind, the hallmark of the interchangeable compo
325.
by tom_b 16y ago
Shining my tptacek light re: Applied Cryptography http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=639786 Thomas recommends Practical Cryptography instead.
326.
by tom_b 16y ago
I have a lot of experience with DB2 distributed, a few years of MS SQL Server, and the last 4 or so have been mostly hacking SQL (and PL/SQL) in Oracle-land. #2 above just feels so true to me. I would modify it to also say, "Nobody ever lo
327.
by tom_b 16y ago
This. I've done (1) nested sets, (2) recursive CTEs, and (3)the magic Oracle fairy dust of CONNECT BY and STARTS WITH. (1) and (2) seem to make my coworkers (and bosses) eyes' glaze over. I think they like (3) because they don't have to wo
328.
by tom_b 16y ago
don't dismiss it out of hand - I worked for about 20 months at a big financial corp and got a good laugh most days checking myself out in the corporate uniform . . . it's not so bad, but it is funny if you come from a place where flip-flops
329.
by tom_b 16y ago
Check out books by Stephen Few (he is a Tufte fan). Few's books are very easily read and help develop your intuition for good "businessy " infographics.
330.
by tom_b 16y ago
Lisp macros remind me of dynamically generating SQL statements. If you've ever built a string in T-SQL or PL/SQL and then exec'd it, you're probably much closer to being productive with macros than you think. Of course, this is probably bec

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