amk

I keep hearing good things about Sublime, but I had no idea it was this popular. Maybe it's time to switch from Notepad++

Why shouldn't it count?

May I say something regarding your experience with IIT-JEE? I know atleast three people whose parents had set their hopes unrealistically high about IIT.

When they didn't get through, they just lost it. They completely lost every bit of confidence they had, lost interest in studies, and fucked up their college and careers for good.

I don't blame the parents. Every parent thinks his son/daughter is the next Einstein and instills this "get into IIT or you are an utter failure in life", and sadly this gets drilled into their heads pretty early in life.

What needs to be understood is that not every genius in India gets into IIT, because there just aren't enough seats, and there are too many really smart people around. At the end of it, only those who are smart AND work insanely hard get into. And I really don't think any less of anyone who doesn't, like the parents and the students themselves shouldn't.

Get this in your head: It doesn't matter if you got into IIT or not. At some point, no one cares. Hell, I don't even have a college degree yet because I keep dropping years, and there are still companies trying to lure me with good development jobs and attractive salaries, which freshers start earning only a few years down the line! (I am still a student in India by the way)

If you have a masters degree in CS in a good school and have got to the Google interviews, you must be a pretty smart programmer.

Get this in your head, and build some confidence.

I just wanted to add something to the discussion here.. A lot of sugar is definitely harmful to you, but is it sensible to complete avoid sugar everywhere as if it is poison? Isn't all this a bit hyped up? Example: I don't drink any processed juice or soda. But I do take sugar in coffee, and I eat chocolates once in a while. Is there any good reason for me to cut down on this sugar intake too? (and replace it with other so called "healthy alternatives" like those with Aspartame?)

There is no harm in asking. I have been conducting interviews for developers in the past couple of days, and I have given honest feedback to everyone who came by. Although HR is not my full time job or specialization..

Man.. if only all this was true.

Can someone explain this to me?

Even if they add another $30 to the price and it costs $60, its still a very interesting project. I wouldn't mind buying one.

Hmm.. I can think of one off the top of my head. Give the user something to do or read while he is waiting for content to load

I like the chocolate bar experiment. Even if the rewards were switched, more people would still opt for the "busy" option. That has very interesting implications: At times, the reward really doesn't matter. It's the process which is important.

If you are damn good with javascript, you already have my respect. And I am not just trying to make you feel better.

Working in MacDonalds can be a good experience. You learn how to interact with people. And maybe you could get a chance to improve your English skills there.

Remember, there is dignity in every form of work, and you can learn something almost everywhere.

Utter nonsense. A smart Indian CS student would never sell his soul to an outsourcing company like Wipro, Infosys and TCS. They are mass recruiters who hire people to show more headcount. Most of their so called "developers" are very poor in programming aptitude.

The smartest Indian programmers either to go abroad for further studies and work there, or work in product development companies at home in India.

To the Author of this post: If you are a smart Indian student, STAY AWAY from Wipro, Infosys, TCS. It may be the best career move you will ever make. Trust me.

PS: Yes, I am a Indian CS graduate. I graduated a year ago.

If you are new to MVC frameworks, you can get started very quickly with Codeigniter or Kohona. Otherwise, it's really worth investing some time learning Symfony or cakephp.

Another way to go would be to learn a ORM (doctrine) and a templating engine (tinybutstrong or smarty). I have never done any big php project without the help of frameworks, but some of my work friends find this approach (templating engine + ORM) more easier and better. I can't agree with them, though.

Frameworks are not all about rapid development. If used properly, they structure your application and make it easier for maintain.

Design can mean different things to different people.

While you don't need to have a very flashy and attractive website, you do need a clean and usable user interface, and stuff like clean colors and typography.

There are several reasons. Depending on the startup, it may be one or more of these:

* Older and more experienced programmers may need a bigger salary, which startups cannot always afford.

* Older and more experienced programmers may be more suited to work in larger organisations with set procedures and practices, which is not suited for startups.

* Older programmers have other commitments which may prevent them from putting more energy in the startup. It may also be more of a risk (money wise) for them to join a startup which may or may not succeed.

I feel a person only enjoys his life if there is unpredictability, which adds excitement. I guess specifically asking others what excites them is kinda pointless. Just think of something which you may enjoy doing but have never tried, and just go out and do it.

Do you listen to music? Ever wondered how guitarists play the guitar? Seems like fun? Take a guitar class. Who knows.. If you get good at it, you might find some like minded musicians and form a band.

Do you think outdoor activities would be fun? Try hiking, camping, travel, etc.

Have you ever wondered how much fun it would be to dance, but have never tried it because you don't want to embarrass yourself? Take a dancing class. Hit the clubs!

Basically, you have the entire world at your disposal! You are very lucky to have enough time to yourself to try new things.

Yeah.. I hear that the languages themselves offer a lot of benefits rather than the frameworks. I have just read some quickstart guides on rails and django, so I guess I should spend more time trying to learn the language first.

I must confess that even though I have tried other php frameworks, I have never tried any other language for web development. (I used ASP like 5 years ago, but I guess that doesn't count now) I will give your advice a shot. Maybe not just learn the basics about rails and django(already done that).. I'd probably need to develop one or two projects to really learn the benefits and pitfalls.

Send me an email: mail at munimkazia.com

I feel tools like trac are better for programming related projects. Some people think its too complicated. Maybe there is a better tool out there.

I had a very tiring time with basecamp with my previous employer. I don't think basecamp is suited for projects related to programming and development. And it's so simple.

That's what I thought. But it didn't work. For example, this very topic never came up in the ask section. I have tried it a few times before too. And there are other topics in the ask section which are not prefixed with this. http://news.ycombinator.net/item?id=1395561 http://news.ycombinator.net/item?id=1396900 http://news.ycombinator.net/item?id=1397003 http://news.ycombinator.net/item?id=1396876

Wow. this is interesting. Maybe its some payment gateway/credit card refund hack. I have been doing a lot of payment gateway programming and integration lately Looking forward to an explanation of a hack(if any).

By the way, could you tell us which payment gateway/solution you use?

It is extremely hard to find a co-founder. And not easy to trust them too. If you don't know anyone, it's probably not the best idea to look for one. (I wouldn't) Again, this also depends on what skills you bring to the table, and what else is needed which you can't provide. There are some things which can be handled by employees, and they are certain things which should be handled by a "founder".

I added myself to this sheet. Hope you don't mind.

Just a note: You may want to reformat your post and make it easier to read. Thanks

I have heard about this. All the obviously good ideas have already been implemented, and others find your not-so-obvious ideas hard to understand. While this makes perfect sense, there is a chance that the people who get to know of your secret idea will understand it very quickly, and proceed to work on it.

The other advise about hiding ideas, which has nothing to do with this quote, is that its the execution of the idea which matters, not the idea itself, which is also very good advise. But again, someone else who steals your idea may be in a position to execute it better than you (more funding, more resources)

I didn't use it for a long time. It works, but it still needs cygwin to be install for some snippets. That's a little ironic. installing cygwin on wine.. but I guess that's the only way to get a text-mate like editor on linux.

Or you could try something called Red Car Editor (http://redcareditor.com) which proclaims to be an editor specially made for ruby/rails programmers. It looks pretty impressive, but again I couldn't get it installed properly. (I think the latest version runs on jRuby platform)

EDIT: I got inspired to try Red Car again after posting this comment. Uninstalled Ruby completely from Windows 7, installed jRUby 1.5. Red car gem installation went perfectly, but the editor is shockingly slow and unresponsive. I don't know if the same applies to linux platform, or if there is something wrong with my system (its a 2 year old laptop, and its been a long while since I have reinstalled the Windows OS)

This is probably the best reference for those who want to learn what is new in HTML5 if they already know HTML. It is not just a quick start guide. It is a very good read and explains stuff very well.