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dustineichler's comments

dustineichler | 14 years ago | on: Awful Recruiters

If you're a consultant, you'll interface with recruiters a lot. I did. Of course your wife is ~right, it's a sound argument... BUT no job, however many opportunities are on your doorstep are any measure of security. eg - life preserver.

dustineichler | 14 years ago | on: Awful Recruiters

Until someone changes the payment model for 3rd party recruiters especially, I'll always cheer lists like this on. No matter what a recruiter may tell you, they'll never have your interest at heart if there's a commission to be made. The incentives are wrong for you, wrong for companies too.

dustineichler | 14 years ago | on: Why Objective-C is Hard

I'm going to disagree. Objective-C is an ASNI C derivative language. Programming for me at least isn't knowing the syntaxual elements of a language but leveraging paradigms I know to exist from one language to the next. Objective-C while looks different, is really no different than most languages. It definitely shouldn't be your first language, maybe not even your 2nd choice, but if you have a conceptional knowledge of programming languages and you're keen on diving into the deep end, there's enough resources out there you're not going to drown. I love Objective-C for many reasons, but then again I equate programmatic choice to personalities. If that makes sense. Point being, don't be deterred. iOS SDK is something else all together, but like anything worth learning, learn by doing.

What you should probably decide for yourself is if this article makes it seem harder than it is. His conclusion about Automatic Reference Counting is on the money, but that's about it.

"When learning Objective-C, it's not just a language or a framework or a runtime or a compiler, it's all of these things". No is not. These are different.

If anyone is considering learning this language, there's a bunch of unsolved problems that frequently include writing new libraries.

Cheers.

dustineichler | 14 years ago | on: How to Hire a Programmer

This is some truth, "If you're a small company you need to look at the outliers first since that where you're likely to find overlooked talent".

It's amateur hour if you're not hiring for culture first and foremost. I think that was Jeff's main point.

dustineichler | 14 years ago | on: How to Hire a Programmer

The audition project is pretty unheard of. It's time consuming on both ends especially if it's a week or more. What's more common is the 4 hour assignment, which annoys me to no end anyways.

dustineichler | 14 years ago | on: Pair Programming Considered Harmful?

I'm glad you said that, but setups like yours are the exception not the rule. Last I was there, PL has the same. I'd mostly agree too it's a rewarding experience, but it needs to do done right. If you half ass the setup, it gets frustrating quickly.

dustineichler | 14 years ago | on: Pair Programming Considered Harmful?

This [redacted] pisses me off, I'm sorry. Jon writes well, but I read the New Yorker article on "Group Think" which he references... in TechCrunch. I'm as shocked as you are. It's speaks well of individual creative process and how brainstorming and really other processes are bull crap. Technically speaking. If you think back, before Agile and other methodologies came along, developers were doing more with less than I'd consider any of us are doing now. For the most part. Pairing works, no doubt but I _hate_ how institutionalized it's become. I'd work at Pivotal if I could, but they pair 100% of the time. I consider myself an introvert, for the most part too. Pairing is painful if it's not organic. The article is inconsiderate article because it's speaks nothing to the fact that our profession was built on the backs of people who are socially awkward and enjoy privacy if not a certain level of autonomy.

dustineichler | 14 years ago | on: Ask HN: How can you stand to live in San Francisco given the crime?

Because the good out weighs the bad... how does anyone live in the suburbs assuming this was a loaded question.

Crime is everywhere, you can stick your head in the sand and pretend it doesn't exist or you can enjoy your life. I lived in a containment zone in SF where the cops intentionally pushed criminal activity towards a 2 block radius. It was trade off to live in a prime location. SF is dirtier than it is dangerous if you're smart about it. What got annoying fast was the amount of dog poop on the side walk(s). The end.

dustineichler | 14 years ago | on: What I learnt pretending to be a programmer

This is a problem.

ie- Can't be productive in another language... Finds Rails, thinks he/she is a genius. Anyone can consider himself or herself a professional artist, but that doesn’t make it so.

I'm trying to fight being mean, but Ffff!!

dustineichler | 14 years ago | on: Google at GitHub

"But many of us are also fans of GitHub, and recognize that there is a great community of developers there (particularly in the ruby community)", that's an interesting comment. Does Google care about Ruby?
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