Personally can't live without a high quality monitor. I use a single 42' Dell. It gives me the most productivity for the buck having a single space for every window, terminal and editor.
174 karma · joined July 29, 2012
Think Drew Houston deciding that magically syncing files on save without an explicit "Do you want to sync" step was a good idea. Magic doesn't happen often, but it exists in the world.
That's the incredibly frustrating thing about startups. Where to spend your time depends on the context.
At first, you're desperate to validate your product and understand your customers. Spending more time in the lab won't save much time because you have little overhead and changes can happen quickly. Prototypes don't always convey a product's value. Imagine looking at mockups of Dropbox before it was released. I'd be the skeptic saying "So I can only sync one folder? That's stupid!", yet I love Dropbox.
I think Intercom's opinion is based on mature, profitable, companies that build ambitious new products. The proportion of time invested in user research, design and prototyping costs a fraction of changes downstream. My current company is in its sixth year and we have millions of users. In the first six months, users could tweet feature requests and we'd release that week. Building new features today requires a 3-month lead just to be considered for the roadmap.
PM done right can be magical. I don't believe in Smurfs, fairies or 100x devs but I believe in 100x Project Managers.
My statement romances the mentor I'd had found. Sheepishly my ideal mentor is me with 14 years of software experience.
The point I should have made was that I focused on the technology instead of the fundamentals of software. I was obsessed with learning the tech that that existed at the time instead of learning how to craft software in general with the least amount of complexity.
I wrote a website that got 10 visits a month with Spring and Struts. I had simpler options but was pretty convinced everything had to be "enterprise grade".
Today, if you had to build it, you'd build a static site.
I learned quite a bit from these mistakes. My argument does romance the idea of a mentor that was hyper-intelligent and cared about my career.
Mistakes are always made. Mentor and mentee alike. C'est la vie.
I'm winging it like many other people in our industry. I wish I'd had two things to when I started my career.
1. A right of passage that endorsed my skills as a competent developer (or that educated me on what skills I'd yet to learn).
Something equivalent to what doctors have when they receive a medical license and become board certified.
After five years on the job, no one cares about your cute degree but the 21-year-old version of me who knew nothing and was a tiny bit terrified of being found incompetent cared.
You are born with a level of confidence (unsubstantiated and unproven), but you can also earn it by doing a substantial amount of work.
A right of passage within the software industry that showed a fundamental level of competency beyond the fizz-buzz test would've worked wonders for the young me.
2. A formal mentor.
I spent years flailing within technology. I learned the wrong things, dove deep into the wrong technology (Java Swing :|) and made obvious mistakes. In retrospect, I would have paid to work for a capable mentor when I started who could have validated my work and guided my efforts.
Alas, software development is free, unregulated and open to all. That is what makes it beautiful. That is what makes it frustrating.
If you hate Amazon's practices there is more reason to study them because of their success. Every successful company that's done a pereceived evil has also tapped into a market advantage that led them to their success.
If you hate Amazon learn why they succeed and build better. Dismissing everything they do well because of what they've done wrong leaves the advantage to everyone who sees nothing wrong in draconian business practices.
I'm surprised those apps haven't made a bigger effort to implement this logic for production. It would certainly make them unique and hard to leave.
Smaller size and easier to use is a big win. Going with the MIT license puts a real bow on this release. Thank you to the React team.
Can you explain a bit about how you tried to monetize the site? What did you try? What worked and what didn't?
- HEADLINE: Improve Desktop Apps Ecosystem. Make it easy for Ubuntu App Developers to Make Money $$$
- DESCRIPTION: I recently moved from Mac OS X to an Ubuntu desktop machine for day to day development. All my comments are relative to Mac OS X (I apologize cause I'm still a Mac fan boy). The only thing I really miss is the massive number of high quality apps available to me on Mac OS X. I wish Ubuntu could support Mac Apps in some sort of Mac sandbox (ala Wine for OS X). I know this is a pipe dream cause of the complexity of it but putting it out there.
A more realistic request is that you create/encourage tool makers to create Snaps. Snap packages must become compatible with flatpack to have any chance of becoming ubuitquitous. Fragmentation in Linux desktop apps will only continue hurting Linux adoption. I think the Ubuntu App directory feels too basic with too few options. Encouraging developers with better tools, better discovery and making it simple to port Mac/Windows apps to Ubuntu is the only way Ubuntu can begin to gain marketshare. I love Ubuntu but I still go back to my Mac Book PRO when I need to edit audio or have to login to many sites since I use 1Password and they have no Ubuntu app.
Ubuntu could work with the top 500 Mac App developers and help/advise them on how to easily port their Apps to Ubuntu. I'd happily pay double the price of the Mac App store Apps to have them on Ubuntu but their is no way for me to give them money. Get money to the developers and they'll come. This is missing from Ubuntu Apps.
I apologize for the long rant. I would've written a shorter comment but I didn't have the time.
- ROLE/AFFILIATION: Developer at Startup