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  Why we don’t hire .NET programmers

Skip my post and read this one instead.  It says the same thing, but less offensively.  (Or, rather, more offensively to Facebook and Google employees, less offensive to .NET developers, though the underlying message is the same.) Tuesday midnight edit: After >500 comments, >1000 tweets, and >1000 Facebook likes, I’m closing comments on this thread so we can all get back to work.  The very last comment takes the cake, however, and is a fitting close.  Th...

   ASP.NET,High level,Low flexibility,Weakness     2011-12-20 08:43:28

  A Different Kind of Technical Interview

Everyone who's been programming professionally for a while knows the standard format of the technical interview. You go in, there's a whiteboard in the room, and you write code on it to answer questions.Everyone also has the same basic complaints about these interviews. In a normal work environment, you have access to an API or search engine, but at a whiteboard you don't. Whiteboard questions generally don't include much in the way of overall design, and they're typically limited to simple algo...

   Interview,Programming,Methods,Pairing     2011-06-04 07:56:21

  GO AHEAD, SELL MY DATA

More and more I see articles popping up that bash social networks for "violating" our privacy and selling our information to advertisers. Inevitably, Facebook has been at the center of many of these "scandals". Today on HN I came across this interviewwith Disconnect co-founder Casey Oppenheim and I just don't get it.In it, he bashes Facebook (and other online advertisers) for using our information in order to serve up targeted ads. He points out that many of the " “free” service...

   Social network,Facebook,Privacy,Data,Ads     2011-10-19 14:12:08

  How key-based cache expiration works

There are only two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation and naming things — Phil Karlton Doing cache invalidation by hand is an incredibly frustrating and error-prone process. You’re very likely to forget a spot and let stale data get served. That’s enough to turn most people off russian-doll caching structures, like the one we’re using for Basecamp Next. Thankfully there’s a better way. A much better way. It’s called key-based cac...

   Cache,Expiration,Key-base cache,Work     2012-02-20 05:32:40

  What Level Programmer Are You?

Everybody's talking about how programming is the skill that we all are going to need. [Except those folks who might feel that most programming could be turned into wizard-like tools. Insert long discussion about Strong AI.] But what's a programmer? Is the guy who set up his own Apache Web Server a programmer? How about the guy who created a complex Excel spreadsheet? The guy who made his own RPG level? Minecraft players? When we say "Everybody is going to have to know programming" what, e...

   Programmer,Skill,Level,Criteria     2012-02-08 10:07:41

  How I Became a Programmer

I posted a very brief response to a post on HackerNews yesterday challenging the notion that 8 weeks of guided tutelage on Ruby on Rails is not going to produce someone who you might consider a "junior RoR developer." It did not garner many upvotes so I figured that like most conversation on the Internet it faded into the general ambient chatter. Imagine my surprise when I woke up to couple handfuls' worth of emails from around the world asking me what I did, how I did it, an...

   Programmer,Advice,Method,Study     2011-11-24 09:14:50

  We’re working our young people too hard

Yesterday, I shared an anecdote involving a school I once attended with a list. This anecdote eventually became the basis for a blog post. Traffic was fairly normal for the first few hours until it found its way onto hackernews.Then it exploded.The comments on both the original blog post and the post on hackernews filled almost immediately with opinionated hackers, teachers and students sharing similar experiences, discussing the problem and figuring out what should be done about it.Repeate...

   Education,Science,Teacher,Student,Exam     2011-11-17 08:38:01

  Find max subarray of an array

In computer science, the maximum subarray problem is the task of finding the contiguous subarray within a one-dimensional array of numbers (containing at least one positive number) which has the largest sum. For example, for the sequence of values −2, 1, −3, 4, −1, 2, 1, −5, 4; the contiguous subarray with the largest sum is 4, −1, 2, 1, with sum 6. The problem was first posed by Ulf Grenander of Brown University in 1977,...

   Max Subarray, Divide and conquer,Kadane     2013-04-22 11:50:35

  Pair Programming Stereotypes

Over the last couple of years, I’ve done a lot of pair programming. Pair programming inside my team, at customer sites, in coding dojos and in my open source projects. Pair programming is really a great and effective experience when performed by an pair of developers knowing how to pair program. Unfortunately, you cannot just put two developers in front of a single computer and expect them to perform perfectly from the start. Pair programming has to be learned. Both developers need to...

   Code programming,Pair gramming,Sterotype     2012-02-29 05:09:14

  Microsoft is transforming XBox into a PC controlled by expressions

According to the Voice of China "News Coverage" report. When Apple products are changing  the world, the original computer giant Microsoft is also quietly looking for their new foothold in the field of electronics. This time the breakthrough is from its game console Xbox.Xbox was originally a single function console, there are signs that Microsoft may be planning for the Xbox into the computer with new functions. The selling point of this new product lies in its function of communic...

   Microsoft,XBox,New PC,China     2012-04-01 06:57:04

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