jdubya's comments

I have rebuilt a lot of code from scratch.

You learn a lot and hate programming...

Unless the codebase is awesome.

Ha!

Hi Stasy.

Hacker News is not a venue for handling customer support complaints.

I know you are frustrated. But you will get better help elsewhere.

You know, I sold a website that I created in 2007 that was dedicated specifically to selling contemporary art.

This is a huge untapped market that is so fucking easy to get into...

I love art. If you have a magento install and a beating heart and the willingness to talk to art dealers you can find a lot of people to work with to list inventory. Many times art dealers are quite willing to work with honest people that have tech skills.

This is a fantastic idea. Executed properly, you stand to make a considerable sum. If you care about that, that is. I do so it is typically how I evaluate value. Others might put more value on the dissemination of the art itself.

Not me.

I worked for one of the largest load balancer/application delivery controller company for a grinder of a boss on a security team there.

My job was to hack shit, find vulnerabilities and write automation for attacks that our systems could prevent. There were 4 pretty big code bases (>100k lines) that were used for the same thing. There was no inter-team effort, everyone wanted to roll their own rather than working together because the bosses had huge egos and wanted their name in the brick.

I was tasked with building a new framework!

So yeah, five different automation frameworks, one for automating attacks against devices and servers, one for smoke testing (pound the box with traffic) etc. Mind you all of this shit could be done with a single framework because many of the tasks were similar. So I created a way to build test profiles from our test plans and consolidated the code bases. I learned a shitload about dealing with existing code during this effort. It was awesome in that respect, I learned how to deal with poor management decisions - execute better than they ever did.

Long story short I refused to scrap everyone elses hard work even though my boss told me to "build it from scratch and use it for the security team only". The reason being is because starting from scratch would have incurred more technical debt than the consolidation effort took. Mind you every other department in eng could have used said framework. Anyhow, under the radar I went about consolidating the other four frameworks and I gave my boss the timeline without his knowledge of what I was doing.

Three months later every eng department was using this new framework using the tools that they were used to using for deployment and verification, just a new ui and a lot of code that was cleaned up and everyone was pretty happy with it to be honest. Everyone that actually used it that is.

My boss, who never used any of the frameworks, got pissed off that I did not build a sec. team only framework and asked me to build a version only for the security team for "security reasons". This was the proverbial straw that broke the camels back. This fucking moron wanted to satiate his own ego at the expense of my peers time, health and the company. I don't really care too much for the company but everyone I worked with was very competent and I did not want to just throw the baby out with the bathwater. That would be stupid.

Long story short, I was interviewing at places at the time and got an offer that very day so I decided to take the offer.

Moral of the story:

Don't have your engineers build 4 different automation frameworks and then ask an engineer to "rebuild" a custom version for a bullshit reason. Don't build shit from scratch unless you are learning/experimenting and at large companies, they rarely reward experimentation.

I get that this might not exactly be technical debt but 4 frameworks and the effort I had to put in to the consolidation was brutal at times. Improperly used technology, poorly deployed interface supporting services and solutions for transient failures of tests being "just reboot the test box" was too much bullshit for me.

God I fucking hated that job. I will never work for a large, well established company again if I can avoid it. My startup might be getting picked up soon by a conglomerate and I have 6 months left on my vest. If we end up at the conglomerate I am going to quit and take a few years off working.

That is my experience.

The Perseus Cluster is probably one of the most interesting galaxy clusters I have every had the privilege of studying.

Anyone interested in the universe should take a quick gander at this massive, massive scientific wonder.

New physics!

1: Not harsh. I hitch hiked here with no money and lived on Ocean Beach in SF for the first month I was here. I found a job, yes found, no nepotism or anything involved. I knew no one here.

2: There are a lot of startups here if that is what you define as startup heaven. Keep in mind that if you are starting a company you need to execute. If you are not executing and evolving your vision, no one will be interested in your shit unless they just want a paycheck and paycheck people are unreliable as hell. I have started and sold two companies here and this is what I have seen several times.

3: Good, bad, ugly... State income tax? You can make it as ugly or as awesome as you want.

4: Apartments in San Francisco are pricey. Buy vegetables in chinatown or sunset/parkside area. Chinatown is probably more convenient. Beer is good and cheap at the toronado room from 4 - 6 pm (I think)

If you are actually in Silicon Valley then I recommend ISO Beers, Bierhaus, Original Gravity and Whole Foods in Cupertino for good beer.

Beer is important.

Other than that I would say that you alone define your destiny. Fuck the tips. Just move and make shit happen. Nothing will fuck up your plans as nicely as life happening while you are planning some shit.

That is my platitude injection for the month.

It does not make me think of anything.

It is fairly obvious to me why FB believes WhatsApp is worth this extraordinary sum.

The application is inherently social. Obviously, it is a texting/sms/chat whatever you want to call it, application.

a) I read somewhere that they (WhatsApp) add 1,000,000 users a month. b) They have group chat. c) They have grown by 200% YoY iirc d) Their execution on the engineering side has been great e) The ubiquity of the application and the execution of their marketing efforts, no manner how small, have worked tremendously and they know how to replicate that effect.

If those five things are not the impetus for establishing a serious competitor to FB I do not know what is. 19bln to fend off what could become a serious competitor is a pretty sound strategic maneuver. Especially since FB revenue per user of the platform is around $4.00 - $6.00. Add 400,000,000 more users to the platform and you bolster the power of the FB brand, get more ads in front of 400mln users and expand your reach into unpenetrated markets that do not have internet access reliable enough to use facebook. App or otherwise this is a great step for the WhatsApp team. They sure didn't get it for a discount but the potential consequences of letting WhatsApp keep getting users and not addressing that directly would have been rather risky.

There is my armchair analysis.

Wait for the cliff and start a side project that will allow you to learn.

It sounds like you don't have a hand in the pot at

workplac.es by the tone of your comment.

I am not sure if you intended to sound like you just

discovered workplac.es but really you are the marketing

person Melissa right? It always irks me when people leave

positive reviews or comments on their own products. It feels so cheap...

I am sure that is not what you are meaning to do though.

I hope that you guys do well. It is best to be transparent on HN.

Just letting you know. workplac.es looks better than Glassdoor already.

I hate Glassdoor.

Please crush them.

Just do it. If there is an issue, apologize and do it a different way.

So what.

Who said that the cloud was dead in the first place?

The article title implies that you believe that the "cloud" is dead.

Too many dollars are flowing over that "cloud" for anyone to put it out to pasture.

I don't like the fact that transactions are being tapped either but implying that the cloud is dead...

Nope. Linkbait title.

Etsy's Code as Craft

Disable autoplay on the video. I always close a window if there is noise that I did not make happen through a button click, <PLAY> link etc. Regardless of the presence of the pause button, I hate "auto-noise" on web pages.

Because of that, I cannot review your startup.

Others might be able to though.

this

Feedback:

0. Why is it a great platform?

1. What kind of websites can I make? Highly dynamic sites? Static pages?

2. Any info about what is happening with the email addresses? I have no incentive for giving you my email because you have not offered me anything of value.

I looked at the page, it meant nothing.

It is as if you walked into a board room for a sales meeting saying "Hey! Look at me!" and then said nothing and left everyone in awkward silence.