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F_J_Hon Show HN: My saturday project. For when your co-founders can't 'Draw Something'.

There's no need for that. Why do you feel you need to be sarcastic and rude?

F_J_Hon The Ruby on Rails Tutorial, now with Twitter's Bootstrap

Can anyone recommend a similar tutorial covering one of the python web frameworks? (i.e. complete ecosystem - git, testing, deployment)

F_J_Hon Redis 2.6 is near

Would love to start playing with Redis but have limited time to do so. To save me some time, has anyone found some good tutorials?

F_J_Hon The town is no longer friendly for business

As far as I know, I don't personally know anyone who:

- has AIDS or is HIV+

- is being restricted from enjoying a freedom due to religious dogma

- who has been a rape victim

- who has been bullied in school for being gay

- who has been discriminated against because of their race

- who has been abused as a child

However, I have no doubt whatsoever that there are many, many people out there (even in my city), who have suffered in one of these ways. And I'm grateful that there are those who support causes even when they don't know anyone personally effected.

*Edit - typo

F_J_Hon Just Fucking Sell

“You are either building, selling or leaving.”

I like pithy witticisms like this - reminds me of something business guru Peter Drucker said:

"Because the purpose of business is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two--and only two--basic functions: marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs."

F_J_Hon Power in Numbers

Best quote in the article:

“You live your life prospectively and tell your story retrospectively, so it looks like everything is converging.”

Sometimes it is easy to get discouraged when you look at the success of others, especially when what they have done looks like (and often is presented as) a carefully executed plan. More often than not, it was a "bumbling along" that only looks coherent in hindsight. It's amazing how many discoveries were surprising side effects uncovered during the pursuit of something entirely different.

So, don't worry if you feel like you don't have a perfect execution plan for your vision. Just keep moving forward, and one day you will be able to explain to your biographer how, against a tide of conventional wisdom, you knew exactly what you were doing all along. ;-)

F_J_Hon GoDaddy is scrambling to do damage control

Thinking about moving my domains - any suggestions on the best alternative?

Update: For what it's worth, here's a reddit link that lists a number of alternatives:

http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/no1ux/reddit_if_o...

F_J_Hon CNN Reports Diaspora's Ilya Zhitomirskiy Committed Suicide

That, and perhaps follow Andy Warhol`s advice:

Don't pay any attention to what they write about you. Just measure it in inches.

F_J_Hon Why do Programmers get paid less than Project Managers or Business Analysts?

"if management is easier and pays more, why don't more programmers choose management?"

Um...they are completely different skill sets.

F_J_Hon Why do Programmers get paid less than Project Managers or Business Analysts?

Even though you felt you went to more meetings and therefore had a "broader view of the business", perhaps the project managers also attended meetings that you were not involved in, which gave them insights you could not have possibly known? For example, maybe during weekly PM meetings where all PMs gave an update of the projects they were managing, your PM also developed a strong sense of what was going on in the business? Maybe the PMs attended meetings where the corporate strategy was discussed, which you did not attend?

Not recognizing that others may have vantage points that were unknown to me was a tough lesson to learn, but an important one. It's difficult to speculate on what someone else may know or not know.

F_J_Hon How Entrepreneurs Can Create Their Own Luck

What a great post. Being Canadian, something didn't sit right with me with the Gretzky quote. I think the corrected version "skate to where the puck is going to be" is likely what the author meant. Here are two of Gretzky's actual quotes:

"A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be."

and

"I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been."

Another one of my favorite Gretzky quotes - "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take."

F_J_Hon A Sister’s Eulogy for Steve Jobs

True class is knowing when to voice an opinion and when to remain quiet, no matter how much truth you feel your words hold. I've had to learn that the hard way.

F_J_Hon A Sister’s Eulogy for Steve Jobs

"INTO the midst of things" things could be very fitting as well, depending on your thoughts on the after life. Some choose to believe we join a party already in full swing...

F_J_Hon Ask HN: Getting back into the working world with a negative track record

Another suggestion to consider. Try not to use "but" because it is a flag that you are about to discount what you just said. Here's an alternative to the above, where you simply replace "but" with "and". (Also note saying why you like something really helps too.)

"Yes, I like that because it would help with X, and have you have you considered the cost?"

Usually "but" can be replaced with "and" fairly smoothly. However, if not, you can do something like:

"Yes, I like that because it would help with X. I wonder how much it would cost, both for the licenses and for the effort?"

F_J_Hon Paul Graham Will Bring Office Hours Back To Disrupt SF, Sign Up Now

Is this a "must attend" event?

F_J_Hon Premature Scaling Kills Startups

One of my favorite Drucker quotes:

There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all. - P. Drucker

F_J_Hon The man you want to be does not matter

"We become that with which we busy our minds."

Don't know who said it, but I love it. And I think it's a good tl;dr for this post.

F_J_Hon Mythbusters: Stored Procedures Edition

I think one needs to be careful of the reasoning that goes something like "X makes it easy for people to do things poorly, which makes my job harder, and therefore X is bad." I've heard the same argument against PHP. "PHP is so easy to use that anyone can hack together crap, which is difficult to maintain. Therefore, PHP is bad."

I love this quote:

UNIX was not designed to stop people from doing stupid things, because that would also stop them from doing clever things. - D. Gwyn

F_J_Hon Mythbusters: Stored Procedures Edition

I believe it's Oracle SQL Developer:

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/developer-tools/sql-develo...

F_J_Hon First, Let's Shoot All the Philosophers

From the article: This is a key point to understand: philosophy, as a discipline, does not provide answers.

Well, notwithstanding the fact that it certainly provides some answers, philosophy is more oriented towards learning how to come up with answers, and more importantly, learning how to recognize if the answer you’ve come up with is right or wrong. I have forgotten much of what my first year philosophy professor said, but one thing that has always stuck with me was his opinion that “If we didn’t have philosophers, we’d still be burning witches.”

That philosophy is useless because it in not practical is the same sort of thinking as expressed by reluctant students taking algebra and pre-calculus: Why do we need to know this stuff? It’s not like I will use it in everyday life. True, for the most part, many things you learn in a math course you will not need to live your everyday life. However, learning these things teaches you how to think, how to reason, and that answers can be derived by methodically applying known principles to discover the unknown. Athletes perform many exercises in the gym using motions and machines they will never encounter in their respective sport, but the point is of course these exercises help to make the body stronger and build endurance. The same principle applies to philosophy.

To me, the spirit of philosophy is asking “why” when everyone just accepts, much like the student in this anecdote:

One day when I was a junior medical student, a very important Boston surgeon visited the school and delivered a great treatise on a large number of patients who had undergone successful operations for vascular reconstruction. At the end of the lecture, a young student at the back of the room timidly asked, “Do you have any controls?” Well, the great surgeon drew himself up to his full height, hit the desk, and said, “Do you mean did I not operate on half of the patients?” The hall grew very quiet then. The voice at the back of the room very hesitantly replied, “Yes, that’s what I had in mind.” Then the visitor’s fist really came down as he thundered, “Of course not. That would have doomed half of them to their death.” God, it was quiet then, and one could scarcely hear the small voice ask, “Which half?” -Dr. E. E. Peacock, Jr

F_J_Hon You should probably quit your job

I think the point is:

"Master, then why bother?". "Before you will hate it. After you will love it."

F_J_Hon Libraries vs Frameworks

A mistake I’ve seen in the past is that these types of decisions (i.e. which framework or library, should I even use a framework, etc.) are made for technical reasons rather than business reasons. What are your goals? Are you building an app for yourself as a hobbyist? Are you building an app to sell? Are you building a business around your app?

You need a house. You can:

- design your own

- build from someone else's plans and make mods as you see fit ( recognizing that too many mods may compromise the overall plan.)

- buy a prefab “kit” home that you assemble

- buy a mobile home trailer

What should you do? It depends:

- Do you need something right away?

- Do you want to win architectural awards and hopefully be profiled in a “beautiful home” magazine?

- Do you want your home to be mobile?

All in all, I’ve found that each decision has its trade offs. Pick your poison. You will always find reasons why you should have maybe gone another route. “Too bad we didn’t use framework X. It makes problem Y so much easier to deal with.” Oh? And what about problem A, B, and C?

My B2B Company started with MS Access. It got us our MVP very quickly, and our first clients. A good technical decision? No. A good business decision? Well, it worked out pretty well for me.. If I were starting again, (in the B2B space in which I am most familiar), I would probably go with Oracle’s Application Express, with which I could very rapidly build a functioning prototype and even run the business on for the first (perhaps long) while.

One of my favorite pieces of wisdom from Steve Blank is “Most often, business don’t fail due to a lack of technology but due to a lack of customers”.

“The speed of a non-working program is irrelevant.” - S. Heller (in "Efficient C/C++ Programming")

F_J_Hon What I learned today: Startup culture

There are some great themes expressed here, but I would tread carefully.

After growing a company from 4 people to 50 people, I've learned that shaping culture is a lot like shaping the personalities of your children. You can strongly influence as much as possible, lead by example, etc., but in the end, they will be who they will be.

As has been reiterated ad nauseum, it is really difficult to assess someone's personality through the hiring process, no matter which latest and greatest interviewing techniques you use. And, each person will contribute to molding your culture in very subtle ways. Yes, you can shape the big things, like corporate vision, etc., but in the end the culture is the sum total of the personalities involved, and it takes on a life of its own. And, if you try to shape it too much, you'll end up hiring people just like you, and then the real problems will start...

Also, as a former Enron employee, as I read through the “culture foundations” listed by the author, it struck me that these were exactly the culture foundations that CEO Jeff Skilling espoused, especially “meritocracy” and the “survival of the fittest”. It didn’t work out so well. I have never worked in such a competitive place, and as many former Enron employees have mentioned in books, documentaries, etc., the competitive environment was very counter productive in that it totally destroyed teamwork; everyone was out for themselves. The only place where it maybe worked was with the traders, but even then they would screw each other (and thus the company) in a heartbeat to get a deal done that would benefit them personally.

Be careful with this advice.

F_J_Hon Stephen Wolfram On Starting a Long-Term Company

Agreed. I remember hearing a quote when his search engine, WolframAlpha, came out: "I wonder which will become self aware first. WolframAlpha or Wolfram, Stephen".

F_J_Hon Thoughtback - Program Your Mind

My mom couldn't do what you are suggesting. She could use ThoughtBack though. Maybe that is what you are missing?

F_J_Hon Bored People Quit

Disclaimer: The following is not related to the topic but is instead a rant inspired by reading the article.

A good article, but it is unfortunate that it starts by categorically slamming all authors who write about employee motivation and retention:

It’s written by folks who actively use words like motivation and retention and generally don’t have a clue about the daily necessity of keeping your team professionally content because they’ve either never done the work or have forgotten how it’s done.

Why is this necessary? I find it nauseating. In fact, when I read or hear someone who basically states “everyone is stupid but me, and all who have come before me have been doing it wrong” in their opening spiel, it’s a good sign to me that the speaker/author has some blind spots and may not be considering all perspectives.

Maybe one reason I find it so nauseating is because I have suffered from this myself, and I’m still tempted at times to point out where others have failed and where I’m so much smarter. (After all, “we judge most harshly in others that which we are most guilty of ourselves” – can’t remember who said that.) It wasn’t until a close mentor confronted me on it, and basically taught me that life goes a lot better when you don’t walk around thinking you are smarter than everyone else. Biggest reason? It shows. You may think you are hiding it, but your face may be wearing a subtle smirk while others are talking, and they can see in your eyes that you aren’t listening but instead are formulating a rebuttal.

Steve Blank teaches this same concept (i.e. don’t think you are smarter than everyone else) in some of his blogs, although more related to sales. And good articles like this on the importance of humility reinforce this for me:

http://blogs.hbr.org/tjan/2011/07/why-some-people-have-all-t...

In a Fortune article on “the best advice I ever got”, the CEO of Pepsi, Indra Nooyi said the best advice she ever received was from her father, who taught her to “always assume positive intent” which I have found gets you a lot further than “assume everyone is an idiot”, which has been the stance of many programmers I have met. (Fortune article link: http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2008/fortune/0804/gallery.bes...),

I’ve heard it said that “people don’t quit their jobs, they quit their manager”. Maybe in IT we are boring people by ceasing every opportunity to show our underlings how smart we are…

*Edit: Typos

F_J_Hon I Did What I Loved and Nearly Destroyed Myself

Destroyed yourself? Sounds like you recovered. Plus:

“Once you have traveled, the voyage never ends, but is played out over and over again in the quiestest chambers. The mind can never break off from the journey.” – Pat Conroy

F_J_Hon Rule of Consulting: You can’t stop people from sticking beans up their nose

I remember reading a J.K. Rowling quote from one of the Potter books that goes something like "...people find it far easier to forgive others for being wrong than being right." I've learned that "they" probably won't come to you the "next time around".

I've also learned to appreciate some further advice I received and desperately needed to hear: convincing someone of something takes a lot more than emphatically stating a logical argument.

F_J_Hon Why Most IT Departments Are Modeled After a DMV

This is a well known problem - Joel has a great post on how procedures can kill creativity in his "Big Macs and the Naked Chef" post: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000024.html

Slides 40 to 56 of the following NetFlix presentation could be a solution. Instead of adding more processes and procedures, hire good people who are effective at managing complexity:

http://techcrunch.com/2009/08/05/other-companies-should-have...

F_J_Hon How to value your company for sale (Part 1)

tldr: Different buyers will value your company differently for different reasons, and understanding what specifically a buyer values will help you negotiate better.

I suspect the members of the HN community who are at the point of selling their businesses understand this fairly well.

At then end of the day, before someone within a buyer organization (which are typically larger, fairly structured companies) will have to put together a business case, and as with any business case, it will need to include financials, multiples, valuations, etc. - the CFO will have to be convinced it is a good deal. (Unless you are Facebook, Groupon, airbnb, etc. of course, but note that the majority of exits are not of this size and so valuations will not be as "frothy" (see slide #4 of Mark Suster’s recent presentation http://www.theequitykicker.com/2011/06/17/mark-suster-gettin... ) Most businesses sold in the US are not anywhere near as sexy as the latest "Tech Crunch reviewed" or YCombinator startup and the reasons for acquisitions tend to be less driven by speculation and therefore financials, multiples etc. will be more examined more carefully. So, understanding the multiples that exist in your industry is very important.

If you are looking to sell your company, one of the best ways to ensure you are getting the best price is by going through a competitive auction process, which are typically led by an M & A firm or Investment Bank. (Boutique firms exist for smaller companies that have not yet achieved the oft desired "2 and 10"). Yes, they will take their cut, but typically you will get a higher price than if you shop it yourself to a few buyers who you think will be interested. Following the "market it yourself" approach may cause you to overlook a buyer who is not obvious to you, but who would be very interested in your business for reasons you never thought of and therefore would be willing to pay what it takes to acquire it. (I have experienced this first hand.)

When all is said and done, your business is worth what someone is willing to pay for it. Going through a competitive auction, especially if marketed properly to large buyer audience, will ensure you get the highest price, regardless of the buyer’s motive for the acquisition, (which you could only speculate on anyway.)