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nickynix

8 karma · joined November 28, 2013

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nickynix··on Front Page Subreddits Go Private in Response to Firing of Reddit Admin
You should read "Atlas Shrugged". These moderators built the community they wanted to thrive; they work for the community they desire. They are not slaves to the masses. If others want to create their own communities, then so be it. But the moderators that have closed their subreddits do so because they are their communities, even if Reddit controls the platform on which they live.
nickynix··on Ask HN: Why does HN seem oblivious to race pertinent issues like Charleston?
Why? Charleston is a social issue. HN serves the technical niche. There is nothing wrong with leaving SJW topics to a more general audience.

Women in tech is social in nature, but it is still relevant to tech due to the platform being discussed. Charleston is completely different: it was a crazy, racist man with a gun.

nickynix··on Lang-8: For learning foreign languages
Although it seems like a potentially useful tool, I am disappointed by the lack of information available on the main page. There is no reference to names of the languages that are available for studying, only a reference to the count.
nickynix··on Programming is terrible – Lessons learned from a life wasted (2013) [video]
Experience has a lot to do with productivity, understanding, and the ability to come up with simple, elegant, and maintainable designs. The "22 years old, fresh out of school" programmer is more pointed at the inexperienced individual rather than age itself. I would say the same comments could apply equally to 38-year old programmers that just started work after graduating from a hacker school. The fact is, when so many problems are merely iterations of previous ones, how can you ignore the wisdom of people that have been doing the same work for 20-30 years? It's ludicrous to believe that the contributions coming from a fresh grad with no practical experience will be on par with the quality of the solutions from programmers much more experienced.
nickynix··on FreeBSD Kernel Internals Evening Course Taught by a Core Commiter
This seems like a great opportunity to learn more about FreeBSD, but for an individual, the price is steep. I even looked at the videos for purchase and they surprisingly cost the same amount as the in-person course. Can anybody attest to the value the course provides?
nickynix··on Do you think this iOS Game idea will be fun? I do
It looks generic and already claims to adopt the freemium model. It almost looks like something Ray Wenderlich (a great blog, by the way) would have made to teach people how to develop a game for iOS.

However, I could be wrong. The gameplay could be completely unique, but there is no demo video to demonstrate that fact; all we have to rely on is the author's word.

It doesn't look like something I would pay for, especially given that it is still in the design stage. It might work as a paid-tutorial if all the code is released (gameplay code, assets, detailed tutorials, IAP code, etc.), but in its current state it looks like a Chinese-developed clone.

nickynix··on OpenBSD needs a VAX donated
Ok, I found the donation page and will make a donation to this effect.
nickynix··on OpenBSD needs a VAX donated
How much would such a system cost? I did a Google search and found that the machine is pretty old, but I am unaware of whether that is due to a special requirement of which I have no knowledge. If I do a direct donation through openbsd.org, could I specify that the money be used to this purpose?
nickynix··on The reason India doesn’t have enough awesome developers
In my experience, this article seems to be accurate. To clarify, I've been working in India as a lead developer for around nine months now. I will be here another three months at the least before returning to the US.

The hiring practices around here for developers is standard for most jobs in the US (from what I'm told). Students from top schools get recruited right from the university if they have good grades.

However, as you may guess, grades aren't always an indicator of quality. Of the seven developers that had been hired since the time I was hired, only around three have any code quality. I've seen front-end developers struggle writing simple Javascript. A backend developer with supposedly three years of experience as a lead can barely write coherent Java, always scouring stackoverflow to find snippets. That same developer also had tried to steal code from me and claim it as his own. It was a git-deployment tool, and given that he never learned to use Git, I was immediately suspicious. Looking through the repository he had created, most of it was copy-and-pasted code with the author attribution overwritten with his name. Thank god for the logs at that moment!

To clarify, I have also seen some excellent developers here. They work extremely fast, and so their work-ethic is enviable; exceed expectations and then work at east on the next features given. They rapidly implement changes in UI and features at a pace I no doubt could not do.

Overall, I agree with this article's point. Maybe myself and the author are wrong, and I just have a bias based on my experience.

nickynix··on It’s hard to get a job
It's a nice story, but I couldn't connect it with the "It's hard to get a job" mantra. Could anybody explain?