drig's comments

drig | 10 years ago | on: Why Homejoy Failed

I've used Handy with very varying results. I ended up ditching them because I couldn't get the same cleaner regularly. To use Handy, I would have to take the day off every time I wanted a cleaning, so that I could meet and vet the new cleaner.

One time, a new cleaner showed up, but I wasn't home. She didn't have the key, and so she couldn't clean. I asked for a refund and never got it.

drig | 10 years ago | on: Ask HN: Are you working on a Reddit replacement? What is it?

There have been some posts on this thread saying that reddit is losing users for bad reasons. The users want to make hiring decisions, or approve of hate boards. That might be true, but there's one damn good reason to leave.

https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/3byaei/reddit_alt...

The CEO went on reddit to explain her decision. It comes down to "the software is bad, and we'll release better software". She did not acknowledge her mistakes. Nor did she explain why she reacted before the fix was ready. Instead, she blamed it on the developers.

This is cowardly and self-serving. If reddit is in the hands of a person with no loyalty to her customers, they're going out of business. If Pao is still CEO by Monday night, reddit is done.

I'm moving on.

drig | 10 years ago | on: Make hard coding your default choice

I always use an in-between system. My configuration library allows me to set a default, if the parameter is not found in the config file. I always set a reasonable default, and then only override if necessary. This keeps the configuration files small, keeps the default value with the code, but allows you maximum flexibility, just in case.

drig | 11 years ago | on: Ask HN: Tricks to integrate late coding session in current workflow?

Let me turn this question around a little. I'm a manager of a software development department. I have a coder who works best at night. I got upset with him for falling asleep at his desk. Not once, but many times. He tells me "I'm up all night working".

To make this situation worse, our office is very over-crowded. It's hard for me to see how anyone gets anything done.

But, we have meetings the devs need to be at. Project scoping, standups with the stakeholders, etc. Plus, major architecture decisions are made in person. So, we have a pretty strict "work from home only twice per week" rule.

How do I let this developer work when he is at his best, without excluding him from critical decisions? And, how do I encourage him to work at his best, without encouraging the lower-performing members to see it as an opportunity to slack off?

drig | 11 years ago | on: But Where Do People Work in This Office?

You really think that your productivity has risen more than 10% every year? Do you have any numbers to back that up? I know you use a ticket tracking system. You can add up all your completed story points, by year, pretty easily. If you're really getting 10% better every year, consistently, it should be easy to ask for a bigger raise.

My experience is that developers don't increase their value as fast as they increase their pay.

drig | 11 years ago | on: Farewell, Dr. Dobb's

Not a question, just saying thanks. Your articles in the 1990s on VGA's modeX were the basis for a long-time obsession of mine: writing VGA graphic drivers to support better ways to display fractals. My college senior thesis was based on it.

Since then, Dr. Dobbs has been the shining example of highly technical material.

Thank you for everything your magazine meant.

drig | 11 years ago | on: Ask HN: Why doesn't your team ship?

Huh. I started off laughing at this comment. But, I work for an organic grocery company. Kitchen stocked with fruit, salad, healthy nut butters, etc. We ship frequently. I wonder if there is something to this.

drig | 11 years ago | on: Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (August 2014)

Boulder tends to have more startups. TechStars is there, and so a lot of small companies are spawned from there. Denver has more established companies, including a lot in healthcare. Fort Collins is a smaller city, and I'm not as familiar with the job situation there. But, it seems to me to be kind of in-between. Smaller companies, but not so many new startups.

drig | 12 years ago | on: Amon.cx: New Server monitoring beta to compare with New Relic

I came here to say the same thing. NewRelic is actually pretty bad at saying "your server is down". But, it's incredible at saying "Your landing page is loading slowly because the time it takes to load your data from MySQL is slow. Oh, and here's the offending query." Different things.

drig | 12 years ago | on: Rap Genius Traffic Has Dropped By Over 80%

My feeling is that Google is acting like a monopoly. It's wrong that a private company is able to exert this much power over others, even if the others are being shady.

drig | 12 years ago | on: Sorry, RSA, I'm just not buying it

I worked for RSA back in the 1990s. Back then at least, the sales staff's pay was based heavily on commission. It has a sliding structure that meant that people who sold more got a higher percentage. $10m might not have been a lot to EMC, but to the sales guy it probably meant over $50k, maybe over $100k. That one sale alone would have blasted him/her past the quota and bumped up the commission percentage.

drig | 12 years ago | on: A CNN Viewer Has Questions for Mike Rowe

Yeah, I'm with you. I just wish it wasn't portrayed as such a partisan, negative thing. Which is frustrating because that's how he leads.

I wish he could have just said "we have an untapped well of jobs which sit between unskilled jobs and highly skilled tech jobs. Someone has to run all these new computers. If you go to a trade school, you can get a good job in less time and with no debt."

Heck, liberals and Democrats should be psyched for this message. Because: 1) people who graduate from trade schools join unions 2) green energy production needs these skills more than older oil companies do. Sun doesn't turn itself into electricity. 3) this sort of training is usually close to urban centers, which means more business for blue-leaning cities

drig | 12 years ago | on: A CNN Viewer Has Questions for Mike Rowe

I kind of choked on his message of tolerance. We says we should stop talking about how we disagree, then he goes on a tirade against all the lazy, spoiled, stupid people. "We shouldn't disagree on party, but, if you don't agree with me and the GOP, you're a stupid, lazy slob!"

He writes very well, but he's still spouting right-wing, pseudo-libertarian nonsense.

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