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  Open Source (Almost) Everything

When Chris and I first started working on GitHub in late 2007, we split the work into two parts. Chris worked on the Rails app and I worked on Grit, the first ever Git bindings for Ruby. After six months of development, Grit had become complete enough to power GitHub during our public launch of the site and we were faced with an interesting question:Should we open source Grit or keep it proprietary?Keeping it private would provide a higher hurdle for competing Ruby-based Git hosting sites, givin...

   Open source,Benefits,Popularity,Advertisement,Advantage     2011-11-23 07:58:15

  Three Simple Ways to Improve the Security of Your Web App

It seems like web app security has entered the public conscious recently, probably as a result of the press covering the activities of groups like Anonymous and incidents like security breaches at several CAs. Here are a couple of quick security tips to improve the security of your web apps. Think of these as low-hanging fruit, not as a substitute for thorough analysis of your app’s security. If there’s interest in this topic we can do more posts, too - let us know in the com...

   Web app,Security,X-FRAME-OPTIONS,SSL     2011-12-08 10:10:20

  A Solution to CPU-intensive Tasks in IO Loops

Back in October 2011, Ted Dziuba infamously said that Node.js is Cancer.  A provocative title to a provocative article.  The only thing it didn’t really provoke in the commentary was much thought ;)  Zing. My interpretation of the article is that Ted holds up the classic blocking-IO process-per-request (or  thread per request; same difference) model as superior.  Yet we all remember where the blocking-IO forking model got Apache in the early days.  ...

   CPU,Intensive IO loops,Solution,C++     2012-02-06 07:42:40

  Successful Web Design: It’s All About The Details

While the tools are out there for almost anyone to build a website, the most successful designs all share a few characteristics. These sites tend to be organized well, have great content and have all the design details in order. Small parts of your site, from alignment and bolding to contrast and color, can make or break the design. Taking care of the details before your project is published will ensure the page has a clean overall feel. Unorganized design and lack of attention to detail ...

   Web design,Details,Success     2012-04-16 13:38:56

  Macro vs. Micro Optimisation

So there's recently been a bit of hype about another Colebourne article: http://blog.joda.org/2011/11/real-life-scala-feedback-from-yammer.html I'd like to respond to a few points he makes. First - You should evaluate Scala and pay attention to its benefits and flaws before adopting it.  Yes, there are flaws to Scala.   Working at typesafe makes you more aware of some of them.  We're actively working to reduce/minimize/get rid of these.   In my opinion, the negat...

   Optimization,Performance,Micro,Macro,Software     2011-11-30 12:04:25

  Inside Google's recruiting machine

FORTUNE -- In the hot war for talent being fought in Silicon Valley, no company has an arsenal quite like Google's. Named Fortune's Best Company to Work For in 2012, the search giant made a record 8,067 hires last year -- boosting total headcount by a third. The thirteen-year-old firm's recruiting has an almost mythical quality about it, particularly for the two million candidates applying to work there each year. In terms of elite American institutions, getting a job at Google ranks with b...

   Google,Recruiter,Contract,Recruit machine     2012-02-25 04:50:01

  Investment Banking in China — What I’ve Learned & Unlearned

Anyone seeking to succeed in investment banking in China should live by one rule alone: it’s not who you know, but how well you know them. In China, more than any other country where I’ve worked, the professional is also the personal. Comradeship, if not friendship, is always a necessary precondition to doing business together. If you haven’t shared a meal – and more importantly, shared a few hundred laughs – you will never share a business deal. Competence, ex...

   Business,China,Relationship,Cooperation,Advice     2011-11-18 09:13:49

  The Death Of The Spec

Earlier today, my colleague Matt Burns wrote a post noting that most tablet makers may be largely failing because they’ve sold their soul to Android and are now just in the middle of a spec war, which no one can win. I’m gonna go one step further in that line of thinking: the spec is dead.There have been a few key stories from the past couple of weeks that highlight this new reality. Barnes & Noble unveiled the new Nook Tablet. Consumer Reports looked at the...

   Specification,Android,Platform,Software design     2011-11-15 08:20:22

  Strangest line of python you have ever seen

The other day @HairyFotr and @zidarsk8 were doing some codegolfing with implementations of nondeterministic finite state machineand asked me to blog their results.For those of us who often forget what all of this computer science mumbo jumbo means, here’s a quick explanation from wikipedia:In the theory of computation, a nondeterministic finite state machine or nondeterministic finite automaton (NFA) is a finite state machin...

   Python,Strange,Research,Work rationale     2011-11-19 02:05:03

  Lessons Learned while Introducing a New Programming Language

I've used a lot of languages (professionally) over the years: (off the top of my head) Cold Fusion, HTML, Javascript, php, SQL, CSS, ASP(classic & .net), C#, Ruby, Flex, Java, & Clojure. Each language has pros and cons. Being a programmer, it's easiest to discuss the cons - and in general I believe it was best said:I hate all programming languages - Matt FoemmelI think it's important to start with this in mind. At some point you're going to hate what you're advocating, so imagine h...

   Experience,New language,Tips,Risk     2012-03-05 05:13:59

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