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veneratio

37 karma · joined November 2, 2011

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veneratio··on YAML, JSON, JSONB, and Rails
We use YAML, now JSON, for some of our flexibly defined data. Porting it to JSONB in Rails was filled with some interesting lessons.
veneratio··on Unprecedented demand for software engineers will redefine hiring forever
A bit of an over the top title, but (disclaimer: I work at Karat) the main thesis is really interesting. Essentially, it's cool to be part of a new specialty (hiring) being born out of an industry I've worked in for a little while now (tech).
veneratio··on Supreme Court asked to nullify the Google trademark
Google (as I've experienced it) is filled with normal, generally friendly folks. A few small jokes, but no cultural ousting. While I don't work in search (big company, many products), even the folks I know there recognize we need different tools for our job and sometimes Google search just isn't the way to go. I suspect if it were a more specialized company (say Tableau) then using a another company's tool for daily work might be frowned upon.
veneratio··on Supreme Court asked to nullify the Google trademark
I also do this, but that's because I work at Google and got tired of explaining to coworkers why I don't usually like the results from our search engine! Also, "I duckduckgoed that" doesn't roll off of the tongue very well.
veneratio··on Keeping track of technical debt in source code
Tagging TODOs is really useful. I can always look at source control, but that's more effort than seeing a name or bug number. At Google our linters are actually configured to create errors for any TODO/FIXME that isn't immediately followed by a user id or bug number: e.g. TODO(12345) or TODO(myname). I thought it was a little annoying at first, but over time I've realized how much faster it is to have that additional context.
veneratio··on Ask HN: Interview tomorrow – How to learn whether an org is “healthy”?
This is an awesome question. What sort of responses have you seen from this? Do most folks have a quick answer or do you get some thought? As an interviewer, I'm not sure I would ever expect a question like this.
veneratio··on Why Python Is Slow: Looking Under the Hood
Ah I thought I had seen this before.
veneratio··on Amazon Echo
I think the real place this device will shine is in "homely" environments: kitchens (music and getting questions answered while you cook?), study areas for your kids, maybe even hobby rooms. It's definitely a bit on the steep side, but knowing Amazon, I wouldn't be surprised if the $99 sticks around longer than a "limited time" and the $199 becomes a thing of the past early next year.
veneratio··on Amazon.com is down
Pretty ugly.
veneratio··on Six months with Meteor: Why the future of the web is real-time
I just started toying around with them recently, and I have the same feelings as you. In general, it seems like Derby's choice of using straight up npm makes it a bit more inter-orperable. Other than that I haven't dived in far enough.
veneratio··on Node v0.10.0 (Stable)
My first brush with Node was in a class. We chose to try it for a game only about 5 months after Node's initial release. It was cool and fun to work with but ultimately a bit rough. After a year's break, I can now say I love Node. I'm glad your return was just as encouraging.
veneratio··on Open letter to Yahoo's Marisa Mayer
It took me a few paragraphs to gather that, but this just means it was really well done. I appreciated the "PS" components especially. I think they made the parody aspect most clear (other than the pop culture references).
veneratio··on Saving the Hackathon
What I like best about this post is the underlying message you can almost miss. Yeah the hackathons are important; we should save them; software engineers need a place to get collaborative together; and making "simply pretty" apps isn't all that awesome. The message getting to me, however, is that software engineers may not be all that great at requirements gathering. We work out improvements to almost every part of our workflow all of the time (e.g. new languages, ides, postures, etc.), but when was the last innovation for requirements gathering?

If there's a major bottleneck in the process, it's probably the disconnect between client and developer. Not that I'm saying this is an easy problem. It certainly isn't. Perhaps we need a bit more focus on this issue than how to create nicer interfaces, though.

veneratio··on YouCompleteMe, a Fast, As-You-Type, Fuzzy-Search Code Completion Engine for Vim
I like it quite a bit, and I think it's a bit better than the other options (a few of which I've tried). My only question remaining is why can't the others be updated and improved? Maybe someone with a bit more knowledge of the "culture and history" can explain. Great piece of software, though!
veneratio··on Pixel-Based Websites: Resources, Tutorials, And Examples
I was just looking for something like this. The breadth of uses for pixel art is great to see in this piece, especially when favicons came up right after the gaming tutorials. I'm no artist, but this stuff looks fun.
veneratio··on Why our online startup releases a print product, and how we do it.
This is refreshing. The value of print gets lost too often, but here it finds a very nice home. I'm impressed with the process to create the actual print book with so many vendors in it. I expect there is a market for auto-generating magazine-like publications from a database of some sort. Very cool.
veneratio··on The innovations of Internet Explorer
That was refreshing. It's good to remember the good points of anything, especially something we may not like. This lesson applies very well to the computing industry's rapid advancement and tendency to outdate technology.
veneratio··on How to crawl a quarter billion webpages in 40 hours
Wow that was informative. I appreciated the author's responsibility the most. Rather than make this a daring adventure or fanciful notion, Nielsen approached the activity with a genuine interest in creating something awesome, not just from the angle of power, though. Great post.
veneratio··on GitHub for Windows
This is good to see some better abstraction for non-experts. While I much prefer the command line interface, guis are a phenomenal way to introduce someone to the "better way". Now we just need good guis!
veneratio··on Facebook Stops You From Posting ‘Irrelevant Or Inappropriate’ Comments
Having just finished a general AI course, this was fascinating and a great example of why to be careful with automation.
veneratio··on One more way MS will engage with the open source and standards communities
Now this is a very good thing. Any effort is at least a start, and they can't really make their relationship any worse.
veneratio··on An Introduction to the Theory of Computation - Eitan Gurari
Awesome! I'll have to pour over this as my summer project before the actual class next fall. Thanks!
veneratio··on The fake chemical compound Isaac Asimov invented to punk science writers
I once liked his work (Foundation mostly), but I have a newfound level of sheer awe knowing he held a Ph.D. Best author on my shelf, maybe.
veneratio··on Abstract algebra for developers and people who hate math
As a As a current student in Abstract Algebra, this was really refreshingly simple to look at . Thanks fro a greatly simplified teaser to show other people!
veneratio··on Fedora considers moving all binaries to /usr/bin/
While I'm new to the discussion, I agree with you spitfire. But at least this is a step towards something simpler. The current file structure for most distributions is downright confusing to even moderately competent users.