KiwiCoder

Disney Research has done some interesting work on touch screens for the visually impaired.

http://www.olivierbau.com/teslatouch.php

One of the side benefits of this kind of tech -- for everyone, not just visually impaired -- is being able to experience otherwise untouchable objects (camera takes an image, you touch the screen instead of the object).

Source code https://gist.github.com/EdGuiness/8387313

The trouble is that VCS pain points are far from universal. Everyone has their own experience, for better or worse, and will have a view on what's important based on their personal experience (or lack of experience).

In other words, arguing for a model (mainline or trunk) without first setting a context is pointless.

For instance, consider the needs of a very large team versus a very small team. Consider a team that releases often versus a team that releases infrequently. Consider a team releasing multiple projects according to a roadmap versus a team releasing a single project on an ad hoc basis.

The variations are many, and so too are the strategies for managing source code.

"... millions long for immortality who don't know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon." - Susan Ertz

I think the chart in this post makes more sense if you ignore the word "safety" on the Y-axis.

There's no harm in brushing up on CS 101 questions, but I wish more candidates spent time preparing for questions about code quality.

It's the other way round - if a company is committed to a path of fairness but has inherited an unfair legacy of salary disparity (this can happen in many ways and is not always because of overt unfairness) then transparency can make it harder for the company to fix the problem.

Transparency forces fairness assuming you can afford to fix the discrepancies in an acceptable amount of time.

If you can't fix discrepancies in an acceptable amount of time then full transparency forces something unpleasant, and in this context it is potentially unhelpful to everyone.

Transparency makes sense in the right context, but adding this qualification makes the suggestion less controversial, and therefore less noteworthy, since almost anything can make sense in the right context.

One of the contexts in which full transparency is less appropriate is where a business has a legacy of inconsistent approaches to hiring and remuneration, meaning that person A is paid significantly more or less than person B, even though both do the same job at the same level. We might all agree this isn't fair, but at the same time it isn't necessarily something that is easily fixed. A business might simply not be able to afford to fix salary disparity in one hit. Transparency in this context might do more harm than good because it brings the disparity to the fore gives it a focus it would not otherwise have. It reduces the options available to the company that wants to fix this disparity, in particular it reduces the timeframe in which the disparity might be removed.

In fact, this is my recommendation for fixing a problem of salary disparity; institute a policy toward salary adjustment that makes it clear that discrepancies will over time tend to be eliminated. You can be fully open about this policy without disclosing individual salaries, and you can adjust the timeframe to fit your business context. If you're cash-poor you can take longer to fix the problem.

In other words, we should be transparent about the approach to setting and adjusting salaries, but the situation with individual salaries is more complicated.

I solve 3 problems;

1. Charities don't do software development because they can't afford it.

2. Programmers who want to volunteer end up using skills other than programming (like IT support).

3. New programmers cannot get real-world experience because they don't have the necessary real-world experience to land a job

To clarify - the hard part is not the destruction of data you know about, it's the identification of data on devices you don't know about, or forget.

Computers with hard disks are obvious, but also consider mobile phones, tablets, games devices (that increasingly ask for sensitive information), PVRs, and so on.

There may be a point, if we haven't already reached it, where I can't dispose of a toaster without worrying about how to wipe its memory.

I used to be cavalier about HDD disposal, and then one day I helped a friend recover some files from their apparently dead HDD. We did not recover the files but we did find unencrypted passwords to email accounts and other sensitive information that he had forgotten about.

So while I trust device/disk wiping tools are effective, I'm much less trusting of my own memory about the files on any given storage device. Moreover, and perhaps more importantly it's rarely possible to guarantee that software is consistently doing the right thing with your sensitive data.

Therefore my rule is now to donate unwanted hardware but never to donate or dispose of storage devices without being certain the data is unrecoverable. This is a harder problem than it might at first appear.

Secure disposal of hardware is a problem growing worse in proportion to the number of devices we allow (or by inaction permit) to manage our personal data.

This is to say, lurkers can be just as thoughtful, as intelligent, and just as competent as those up on stage.

Keep in mind that most of the jobs you will see on job boards are posted by recruiting agents on behalf of typical large companies, hence Java and .NET.

If you don't want to join a MegaCorp then you need to look elsewhere - the 'who's hiring' thread for Nov is here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6653437

You could apply speculatively to companies close to you (where are you based?) but this is a hard road to travel alone.

I'm kind of in the recruitment business so hit me up if you want a second opinion at any point. My contact details are in my profile.

There is a point in the life of many introverts where they look at all the fun the extroverts seem to be having and wonder if they might have some of that kind of fun too.

Not sure this would be as effective if I stood around puffing on a pencil. I don't know, I've never smoked except once when I was 11.

I tend to introversion, and networking in a room filled with people wears me out faster than just about anything else.

So, given that my social energy is limited, here's what I do:

* Have a concrete goal for each event, things like: small talk with 5 random people, elevator pitch to Jane, get contact details to follow up with Jim and Mo, etc.

* Step out of unproductive/negative chats asap - "excuse me, I need to make a call/ check email / catch Bob before he leaves"

* For longer events, take regular smoke breaks (even though I don't smoke)

* Leave (politely) as soon as goals are achieved or as soon as I'm worn out

There's really just one answer to this - Lastpass with two-factor auth. Enterprise features described here: https://lastpass.com/enterprise/enterprise-features/

Replace Lastpass with any other secure password manager, and use any 2F auth you prefer, but that's the bog standard way to secure your passwords.

It sounds like you need to focus your job-hunting efforts on charitable organisations. Phone those orgs and ask to speak with the people in charge of software development.

In the meantime you could volunteer as a programmer - it's a niche that is growing rapidly.

http://socialcoder.org (UK based but international)

Disclosure: I run it

Congratulations - I know the feeling of finally, finally, finishing. It's great.

This is the answer that made most sense to me - I'll attempt to paraphrase;

The net benefit of basic income for an individual tends to zero (percent) as the individual's income rises.

Guaranteed minimum income is based on need, basic income is based on citizenship.

I'd not heard of the basic income concept until now so my reaction might be naive, but what benefit could possibly justify the collection and redistribution of a fixed amount of cash to everyone, regardless of their situation?

For example, if 1 person in 10 is thirsty, what benefit derives from giving water to all 10 versus the 1 - isn't that simply a wasteful distribution of resources?

Even in the extreme case where a blind distribution of resource would save a life I cannot see it being superior to a distribution based on actual need.

I agree - and your comment gives me an idea for a series of posts on this exact subject.

Code review ranks just behind design review in value (cost/time savings). In fact code reviews are so beneficial that if I was working on a solo project I would either pay for them to be done or review the code myself after a suitable cooling off period, depending on what I was working on.

On the other hand, I have also witnessed sloppy, lazy code reviews that catch nothing except the occasional typo. This amounts to an unjustifiable waste of time. Fortunately, it is easy to tell a good code reviews from bad by tracking defect discovery and digging into review comments as needed.

One thing that code review catches that nothing else does is code that is poorly written but functional (i.e. passing tests).

The example I always trot out is

    for ( int i=0 ; i < this.MyControl.TabPages.Count ; i++ )
    {
       this.MyControl.TabPages.Remove ( this.MyControl.TabPages[i] );
       i--;
    }

This code works according to spec, passes all the tests, but is bordering on unmaintainable. At best it's a WTF.

(Written up here: http://cvmountain.com/2011/09/whats-wrong-with-this-code-rea...)

Yes, I've thought about that exact idea probably more than it deserves, but I'm trying to err on the side of not appearing spammy while simultaneously keeping the "book now" button always in easy reach.

I hear you! :-(

Content (text only) mirrored here: http://pastebin.com/aFPtzPpD

I put a persistent nav bar at the top of my latest site (http://bosscheck.me) so that potential customers are always looking at a "book now" option. Shallow and obvious, perhaps, but my assumption is that this is optimal for conversion.

Coding's demise is both inevitable (for certain types of coding) and improbable (for other types). The debate hinges on how you define coding.

I wrote about this when Visual Studio LightSwitch promised "CODING OPTIONAL" (verbatim, from the installation splash screen):

http://cvmountain.com/2011/10/programming-without-coding/

An excerpt from my 2011 post -

The dream endures, but why?

One reason could be a lack of trust.

Successful software needs constant maintenance. As a software product becomes harder and more costly to maintain (as most do) the boss who doesn't quite trust his team will be tempted to look for alternatives that appear more trustworthy.

This basic lack of trust becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy as communication breaks down and the team and the boss begin to work in opposition. The boss is now a prime target for being sold the idea that software development can be very nearly automated. It’s not a logical process, it’s an emotional one.

In other cases the boss simply lacks the necessary understanding. They might think that programming is actually an unskilled or semi-skilled profession, where the programmer simply memorises a quirky list of words and symbols and then types them in according to a specification written by someone in marketing.

All this raises the question of what it means to program a computer.