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ah88

34 karma · joined October 14, 2016

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ah88··on Ask HN: What subscription services are worth paying for IT professional
JetBrains, O’Reilly subscription
ah88··on Ask HN: If TDD is so great, why is it so uncommon in the industry?
Having worked on teams that do it well, and on teams that don't, it's because people were never taught the right approach. They tend to write bad tests making the experience frustrating.
ah88··on Ask HN: What books have you read that have changed your life?
Definitely The Happiness Advantage. It’s about how we keep moving goalposts on what makes us happy and how to stop that. TedTalk from a long time ago: https://youtu.be/GXy__kBVq1M
ah88··on Ask HN: Current Rates for Software Development
Midwest. Was hiring entry-level consultants from a reputable company for about $100/hr. Never saw rates for the lower-tier shops but I’d guess it’s about $70-80/hr for low quality engineer. This is how much we were paying companies, heard their engineers cut was about 25-50% of that.
ah88··on Ask HN:How many calories can non-athlete burn in one shot without been exhausted
I regularly burn 800-900 calories an hour during HIIT workouts. Typically I’m worn out and very hungry throughout the day.

Most I’ve burned was 1500/1600 calories riding a bike with moderate intensity but didn’t feel that bad after.

ah88··on Plans to shift aviation from magnetic navigation to true navigation
The FAA is also maintaining a core set of ground navigational based stations (VOR) in case of GPS failures. It’s the COBOL of the aviation industry :) There are occasionally parts of the sky that have GPS outages due to military activity anyway.
ah88··on Plans to shift aviation from magnetic navigation to true navigation
CFI here. It’s not a big deal in most of the country but the Pacific Northwest does have variation of about 20 degrees. It can make a difference when calculating takeoff and landing data as winds are true but runways are magnetic.
ah88··on Ask HN: Are you satisfied with your current bank? What will make you change?
Yes with a local bank. No fees for basic account services, mobile app is decent with remote deposit capability, local branches for the difficult things like cash deposit and the money stays in my community.
ah88··on Ask HN: What are the best 'self organized' teams you have seen?
When a director pulled two engineers together, gave them the problem and told them they had until the end of the year to make it happen. Ended up hiring an external consultant to help get stuff done. Delivered 3 months early. Team was very small, 2 engineers dedicated 100%, one dedicated 50%, an intern, part-time product manager and part-time tester who knew the domain well. Most fun team I've ever been on. Interesting what happens when you give people a problem and get out of their way.
ah88··on Ask HN: What's your favourite way to relax?
Being a new parent, I realized this is one thing I have failed at in my 20s with my parents. Should have definitely called them more often, even if it's just for a few minutes here and there.
ah88··on Ask HN: How do I get fit and healthy as a software engineer?
OrangeTheory fitness. It’s fun, great for any shape and you’ll be motivated because you pay for it. I had the BeachBody app but got bored of working out at home alone. I used to be in shape prior to Covid wfh. Used
ah88··on Ask HN: What's the most rewarding investment you've made in your career?
Any specific resources that took you to the advanced level?
ah88··on Ask HN: What huge mistake did you make early in your career?
Not going to to a software engineering heavy organization. Instead I went to a place where we had to justify using Java 8 instead of Java 7.
ah88··on Facebook Reports First Quarter 2021 Results [pdf]
They have been focusing on selling other products besides ads so curious how much of that revenue growth is from ads vs other products.
ah88··on Ask HN: Devs, is your team using story points to estimate work? Why/Why not?
Last few teams did not but current team does. I can see it helpful if you’re shipping a customer-facing app, you need rough lead time on internal training (customer service), sales for competitive purposes and product for customer expectations.
ah88··on Ask HN: How to Reconcile SOX Segregation of Duties with DevOps?
One way is to isolate the applications that actually need SOX compliance and have separation of duties for those. The ones that don't need to follow SOX compliance don't need those controls.
ah88··on FAA safety engineer goes public to slam agency’s oversight of Boeing’s 737 Max
It's common practice to change procedures instead of certification.

I flew an airplane that was getting ready to be retired after it's been in service for ~30 years and we had a lot of emergency procedures and memory items (items that pilots have to memorize) that were add over the years after various incidents.

The 737 MAX wasn't necessarily an unsafe airplane, it's pilots were not made aware of how everything worked, which led to the two crashes.

ah88··on What tech stack should learn to create this SaaS website?
Good response, just a side note: there are much simpler and cheaper hosting options than EC2. Consider Heroku, AWS Elsastic Beanstalk, probably others.
ah88··on Airpods Max Sucked for Me
Somewhat surprised at the number of negative experiences. I've had them for ~3 weeks and can't believe I didn't buy them sooner. I did go from a wired headset to these for work and they're a game changer. Battery life is excellent. Noise cancelling is great. Yes, it seems to pair to the closest device but pairing is a couple of clicks away.
ah88··on What Silicon Valley gets about engineers that traditional companies do not
That sounds not great. Two years into your career you need a better experience and great mentors. Get any job that is writing code. What's great is that you're only two years in, I see people like this 10 years into their career. They get laid off and can't find a job because they don't have any skills others value;
ah88··on Facebook senior software engineer interview
I like their interview process (minus the leetcode grind that’s been happening lately). They focus on fundamentals and core CS knowledge. Other company interviews, like mine, focus on knowledge or current trends, which change over time.
ah88··on AWS Cognito is having issues and health dashboards are still green
Not Amazon but at an HR/leader meeting our HR disclosed 45% of people on PIPs end up staying with the company.
ah88··on Ask HN: Have you had mostly good or bad experiences in Pair Programming?
Mostly pair programming for about 7 years now. It's not a silver bullet and don't overdo it but it definitely has advantages. I like it but don't love it.

People dislike it when they pair on a story that's trivial or both parties know exactly what needs to be done. I've also found that people haven't taken the time to look at different strategies of pairing.

ah88··on Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads
That's my current setup. TV with the network connection disabled running Apple TV.