I can only speak from my American experience, working as a software engineer for ~12 years in NYC. I am 33 years old--I never feel too old for this. My non-tech co-workers and engineering peers respect me very much. I…
My main point is that the JVM manages memory better than ruby. Its dead easy to benchmark it yourself by writing a pair of tiny programs. As I said, the JVM will use up all the memory it can. You can probably tweak…
I've heard good things about Play, but we've chosen to go with Spring MVC because we didn't need the full stack -- we have a lot of existing Java ORM-ish code and a bunch of existing JSP functionality which we wanted to…
On my team such remarks cost a dollar. The JVM generally does very well in terms of memory use compared to many languages. It's easy to test: write an a small program in both languages that creates boatloads of objects…
I've worked in ruby, python, java, and most recently, scala -- on both small and large projects. Tangled hairballs and hidden runtime exceptions can happen anywhere. I've just seen less of it with Java. I think this is…
I also thought that was a weird comment. But In my experience a big team benefits from a compiled, statically typed language like Java (better yet, Scala). Perhaps that's what the author meant.
To use your analogy, I don't think Brad is saying to wear shorts outside during a blizzard. He's saying that if it's a sunny day, you shouldn't wear earmuffs just cause it's unseasonably warm and may or may not snow…
Well maybe it was my mistake to generalize (and say "much"). And by develop, I meant develop, test, support, and maintain over a wide range of phones and capabilities. These issues may be more or less pronounced based…
Mr. Wilson's numbers leave out some key realities about Android as it stands as a smartphone platform. First of all, Android is much harder to develop for than the iPhone. This is because the Android ecosystem is so…
I agree. Cable news is horrendous. On the other hand, the photos of the tsunami devestation published by the Boston Globe alone tell a story that is deeper and richer than anything else I've seen or read on the matter.
It makes sense that the post on women founders wouldn't be similarly flagged if the difference is related to comfort level. Comfort comes from trust and exposure, among other things, and I'd say that most white men have…
You're right, a lot of things take years of experience to learn, which is why solving a difficult problem is not the only way I evaluate a candidate. I definitely look at their previous experiences. But someone who is…
I've recently been on the other side, trying to interview and hire people. It's difficult. My primary concerns are: Is the candidate going to be competent and capable of solving difficult problems and contributing to…
It depends on what you do, but if you're a freelancer, finding your own clients, managing your own projects, and paying for your own social security and benefits, then 100/hr is fair for a good programmer in NYC. It is…
i would prefer to always use Linux, but my company gives all the engineers Macs, so that's what I now use. I miss Linux deeply, but maintaining two dev environments, not to mention context switching wrt key commands,…
Re: good vs. bad clients -- I commented on part 1, basically saying that being friendly helps me find work, but it also means my clients are friendly/casual which can lead to time wastage. It's like the opposite of the…
Thanks for the tips. Perhaps I could raise my rates, but I think I lose money more by a) not properly estimating timelines and b) becoming idle while waiting for client feedback/help/etc. As I said, I'm only 6 mo. into…
I've only been freelancing for 6 mo. but I have about 10 years of experience as a software developer in the same market. Right now I'm totally saturated with work and it's come entirely through contacts -- I haven't…
Another quick comment about doctors and pay (because I had this conversation the other day w/ a young doctor). Doctors are incentivized to prescribe costly tests. They get paid more w/ every test/procedure, and tests…
For point # 3, it's actually even worse than that. These days, the best doctors also do a fellowship after residency. It's slightly less ridiculous than a residency, but it's another 2-4 years of being underpaid tacked…
"I turned these and other activities into necessary and weekly scheduled tasks.." I hope you scheduled some time to be spontaneous.
Ironically, many NYC public schools have Snapple machines (I think the city has a deal w/ the company) with all sorts of sweet beverage enticements. The older students often go to MacDonalds, which seem to thrive in…
It is probably out of scope for the article, or maybe too much on the opinion side, but the Flash developer experience is pretty horrendous. There are too many ways to mix UI created code, time-line/movie clip stuff,…
The Way of Zen is great. The paradoxes of Zen are fun if you're a programmer-type.
There are a lot of good suggestions here. Reading religion and philosophy definitely helps. A good way to get into that is to find a writer you like (can be anyone) then find out who their influences were. I've enjoyed…
I can only speak from my American experience, working as a software engineer for ~12 years in NYC. I am 33 years old--I never feel too old for this. My non-tech co-workers and engineering peers respect me very much. I…
My main point is that the JVM manages memory better than ruby. Its dead easy to benchmark it yourself by writing a pair of tiny programs. As I said, the JVM will use up all the memory it can. You can probably tweak…
I've heard good things about Play, but we've chosen to go with Spring MVC because we didn't need the full stack -- we have a lot of existing Java ORM-ish code and a bunch of existing JSP functionality which we wanted to…
On my team such remarks cost a dollar. The JVM generally does very well in terms of memory use compared to many languages. It's easy to test: write an a small program in both languages that creates boatloads of objects…
I've worked in ruby, python, java, and most recently, scala -- on both small and large projects. Tangled hairballs and hidden runtime exceptions can happen anywhere. I've just seen less of it with Java. I think this is…
I also thought that was a weird comment. But In my experience a big team benefits from a compiled, statically typed language like Java (better yet, Scala). Perhaps that's what the author meant.
To use your analogy, I don't think Brad is saying to wear shorts outside during a blizzard. He's saying that if it's a sunny day, you shouldn't wear earmuffs just cause it's unseasonably warm and may or may not snow…
Well maybe it was my mistake to generalize (and say "much"). And by develop, I meant develop, test, support, and maintain over a wide range of phones and capabilities. These issues may be more or less pronounced based…
Mr. Wilson's numbers leave out some key realities about Android as it stands as a smartphone platform. First of all, Android is much harder to develop for than the iPhone. This is because the Android ecosystem is so…
I agree. Cable news is horrendous. On the other hand, the photos of the tsunami devestation published by the Boston Globe alone tell a story that is deeper and richer than anything else I've seen or read on the matter.
It makes sense that the post on women founders wouldn't be similarly flagged if the difference is related to comfort level. Comfort comes from trust and exposure, among other things, and I'd say that most white men have…
You're right, a lot of things take years of experience to learn, which is why solving a difficult problem is not the only way I evaluate a candidate. I definitely look at their previous experiences. But someone who is…
I've recently been on the other side, trying to interview and hire people. It's difficult. My primary concerns are: Is the candidate going to be competent and capable of solving difficult problems and contributing to…
It depends on what you do, but if you're a freelancer, finding your own clients, managing your own projects, and paying for your own social security and benefits, then 100/hr is fair for a good programmer in NYC. It is…
i would prefer to always use Linux, but my company gives all the engineers Macs, so that's what I now use. I miss Linux deeply, but maintaining two dev environments, not to mention context switching wrt key commands,…
Re: good vs. bad clients -- I commented on part 1, basically saying that being friendly helps me find work, but it also means my clients are friendly/casual which can lead to time wastage. It's like the opposite of the…
Thanks for the tips. Perhaps I could raise my rates, but I think I lose money more by a) not properly estimating timelines and b) becoming idle while waiting for client feedback/help/etc. As I said, I'm only 6 mo. into…
I've only been freelancing for 6 mo. but I have about 10 years of experience as a software developer in the same market. Right now I'm totally saturated with work and it's come entirely through contacts -- I haven't…
Another quick comment about doctors and pay (because I had this conversation the other day w/ a young doctor). Doctors are incentivized to prescribe costly tests. They get paid more w/ every test/procedure, and tests…
For point # 3, it's actually even worse than that. These days, the best doctors also do a fellowship after residency. It's slightly less ridiculous than a residency, but it's another 2-4 years of being underpaid tacked…
"I turned these and other activities into necessary and weekly scheduled tasks.." I hope you scheduled some time to be spontaneous.
Ironically, many NYC public schools have Snapple machines (I think the city has a deal w/ the company) with all sorts of sweet beverage enticements. The older students often go to MacDonalds, which seem to thrive in…
It is probably out of scope for the article, or maybe too much on the opinion side, but the Flash developer experience is pretty horrendous. There are too many ways to mix UI created code, time-line/movie clip stuff,…
The Way of Zen is great. The paradoxes of Zen are fun if you're a programmer-type.
There are a lot of good suggestions here. Reading religion and philosophy definitely helps. A good way to get into that is to find a writer you like (can be anyone) then find out who their influences were. I've enjoyed…