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Xyik

189 karma · joined August 1, 2012

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Xyik··on The voice from our Nest camera threatened to steal our baby
Its in google / Nest's best interest to put in common place security measures like MFA or notifications like detecting an unknown device accessing the camera. If I'm paying this much $ for a product, i don't want to have to deal with having to understand the 100 different ways it could be compromised and having to deal with that.
Xyik··on Common Mistakes When Hiring Software Engineers
The issue is not so much white boarding as that is a broad term like others have mentioned. Using a whiteboard is a common part of many jobs. But it is not often that we have to write 100% correct code that compiles on whiteboards quickly.

What whiteboards should be testing for is problem solving, and whether a candidate can use a whiteboard to illustrate, communicate and collaborate towards solving a problem.

So if the question becomes whether or not problem solving should be evaluated, i think the answer is obviously yes, and algorithms have a place here. However, algorithms should not be the ONLY way to evaluate this attribute.

Xyik··on Please do not attempt to simplify this code
I believe code design is ultimately subjective. Unlike other metrics like performance which can be easily and definitively measured, you can't easily measure 'good' code. The definition of 'good' changes based on the context of the code base and function the code is trying to achieve. In this case, choices like having giant functions and files is definitely subjective.
Xyik··on Please do not attempt to simplify this code
Love this thread. I see this a lot, where engineers blindly follow best practices and have urges to re-factor code when its not necessary. Big files are not necessarily bad and I love that a lot of the comments are with me on this. Having to open several tabs and remembering where you are in the stack can be hard once there are more than a couple of frames / function calls in. There is a lot of benefit to keeping logic in 1 file or 1 function, and there is a time and a place for writing really granular DRY code. As with all engineering, there are always trade-offs to every decision and I think its about time we put to rest some of the traditional rules of thumbs and 'code smells' new engineers learn and adhere to like a bible.
Xyik··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (October 2018)
wish.com | San Francisco, CA | Data Analyst / Data Engineer - User Acquisition | Full Time |

- SQL / Hive / Presto - Looker / Tableau - Excel - Experience with large data sets - Python or R is a plus - Comfortable interpreting and analyzing data to make and present decisions through a data-driven process such as designing and interpreting A/B test results

https://jobs.lever.co/wish/993b5845-0e4e-4278-8230-447bbb0fa...

Xyik··on Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users
Its sad that everytime there is a post about Facebook the comments are extremely toxic and negative, and don't really even discuss the article itself. I would argue that 80% of all tech companies are doing close to 0 in making the world a 'better place'.
Xyik··on Is try..catch really useful?
I think try catch is fine with some documentation or commenting around why the developer chose to do so instead of specific handling for all the different possible exceptions.
Xyik··on Convincing engineers to join your team
Why shouldn't people optimize for the number? At the end of the day, people change, and being optimistic or excited about the job today doesn't mean they'll feel that way 4 years from now. Money on the other hand, is quantifiable and can be saved up, its a much more flexible resource to optimize for than immediate happiness.
Xyik··on Avoid Else, Return Early (2013)
this is so true, and my experience exactly.

one thing i do disagree with is commenting, there is a time in a place and its hard to derive on a rule on exactly where, when and how, but well placed comments are VERY important and can save developers a ton of time.

Xyik··on Instacart has raised another $200M at a $4.2B valuation
competition is a good thing, it encourages all competing parties to strive for a better product.

from an investment point of view, its a bit similar to Lyft vs Uber ... pretty much the exact same business, but there is always room to eat market share.

Xyik··on P&G Cuts More Than $100M in ‘Largely Ineffective’ Digital Ads
I work on an engineering growth team that focuses on large-scale digital advertising and can say it does work, for the right business, in the right context. You need a proper analytics team, engineering team, and experience to do it right. Most people who buy online ads have no idea what they are doing.
Xyik··on Alex Honnold Scales El Capitan Without Ropes, and the Climbing World Reels
when you climb high grades the rock becomes extremely difficult to navigate and 'grip'. The common example is stacking 2-3 credit cards on top of each other and looking at the edge from the top - thats the size of the rock people are holding onto and stepping on with all their weight. In some cases you won't even have a flat piece of rock to step on, imagine climbing a brick wall. Asides from the difficulty, there are obvious elements such as high winds when you're at that altitude, mist, rain, wildlife, etc.
Xyik··on Facebook’s code quality problem (2015)
The issue is that its much easier to critique and call out issues than solving them. Most of the time, the individuals involved are aware of the issues already - critique is only valuable once the criticizer has made an effort to truly understand the problem and what's already been done / being done.
Xyik··on A Low-Cost Solution to Traffic
apparently japan is really good at this.
Xyik··on Zenefits cuts nearly 50% of workforce
can you explain a bit about how preferred shares wipe out employee options? thats only in the scenario the company exits for far fewer than its current valuation?
Xyik··on Microsoft Appoints Kevin Scott as CTO
pretty much every big company in silicon valley is known for their engineering talent, since top talent just moves around from company to company (e.g: lots of ex-googlers, ex-facebook, etc).
Xyik··on Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless
It's really easy to get ads wrong. The wrong placement, objective, bid amount, bid strategy, targeting, creative, incorrect tracking, poor landing page, etc can all waste your money.

But just from looking at the home page of the site you were advertising I'm not surprised your ads had poor performance. At a glance, I can't tell what exactly i'm 'Starting today' and I doubt your ad creative would be much better, so most people who click are probably curious and have low intent. If you want high CTRs its easy to 'optimize for clicks' and use a catchy ad copy or image, but then obviously you'll have low conversion. Not to mention 'optimizing for clicks' on display networks obviously runs into issues with bots.

Xyik··on Estimated losses would make Snapchat the most unprofitable social media IPO
surprisingly however, video as a medium has exploded recently and with the advent of 'live' and popularity of stories on instagram, Snapchat is in a good spot.
Xyik··on Estimated losses would make Snapchat the most unprofitable social media IPO
i find it hard to believe that it could do worse than Twitter.
Xyik··on Wavelength, published by Asana
I'm actually super confused by what this is.
Xyik··on What I learned from spending 3 months applying to jobs after a coding bootcamp
Anecdotal, from the small sample size I've seen from working in Silicon Valley.
Xyik··on What I learned from spending 3 months applying to jobs after a coding bootcamp
Many 22 year olds with a CS degree have been coding since they were 12.
Xyik··on Why's that company so big? I could do that in a weekend
Glad to see some sanity for once and people that realize building 'trivial' apps like Twitter and Uber are not feasible 'in a weekend'. Just making sure the app is secure takes months, and security becomes more complex as features are added. Pretty much every feature you add to the app can explode the complexity exponentially.

e.g: a sorted timeline if strings is easy, but add the simple feature of 'retweeting' and being able to 'unretweet' for example and things quickly become more complex.

Xyik··on Twitter: It is too late for it to become the giant people expected
Because running the ads team at Twitter alone would take 75 people.
Xyik··on How we unnecessarily burned 20k with Facebook Ads
This is basic advertising. Google search ads and referral will bring in higher quality users because search is trigger/intent-based and referrals come from a more trustworthy source (usually), vs. FB ads that basically blast everyone. Even if you narrow down your audience on FB with interest targeting and proper demographic targeting, it may not help since many users just 'like' everything. Consider the supply and demand as well, the less competition on FB the cheaper your advertising is. Perhaps competitor also realized FB was the wrong way to go and stopped advertising on FB, that means more auctions for you to win and cheaper users. Of course, that doesn't mean higher quality users.
Xyik··on Twitch could be a $20B company within Amazon
interesting, but as others have pointed out, it doesn't show us anything we can form conclusions from. It's just an interesting coincidence or correlation.
Xyik··on Cortana: The spy in Windows 10
> Not until you press return

Maybe true for HN, but not necessarily true for other sites like google search / FB search. It's common practice to send all keystrokes to the server to speed up searches.

Xyik··on Streetfoto founder Ken Walton arrested at gunpoint
I don't see why there can't be a public website for civilians to submit cases like this. Obviously there will be complex legal/moral issues, but there needs to be a way to put a spotlight on police who misuse power, as well as reward the few non-corrupt ones left. If they serve the public, why should the public not be aware of what they are doing? Twitter and Facebook are fine, but not good enough. If anything they are evidence that a way to catalog and aggregate police data would be in high demand.
Xyik··on Streetfoto founder Ken Walton arrested at gunpoint
It's time to disrupt police states, hopefully there are start-ups already on it.
Xyik··on I Don’t Care How Well You Code, Understand Your Compensation
Let's be honest, the only reason companies aren't transparent about these things is because of investor/founder greed. Whether or not the numbers are 'fair' isn't even relevant until employees fully understand their compensation. It's basically like how landlords in SF take advantage of the housing market by unnecessarily raising rent to absurd levels just because they can - it's the same with investors. They have the money so they try and scalp those who need it under the guise of taking on risk. In reality, if an investor lost the 10M he/she invested in a company, it probably wouldn't change their life at all.
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