johnm

Given all of the vagaries in the hiring process, do you believe that e.g., algo approaches are actually fair in the way that you intend?

Sorry but the pointed out problem is both way more commoin and way way more of an issue. Interviewers talk about "I just want to see how someone thinks" but the implicit biases and the overuse of problems leads to unconscious expectation setting and rigidity in the interviewers. In fact, I explicitly test for this by giving valid answers using e.g., techniques that I don't think the interviewer is familiar with precisely to see how open minded the interviewers actually are. Their response is amazingly revealing about the interviewer and the organization behind them.

Implicit vs. explicit interactions/contracts. Both between consumers & producers but also...

The features, constraints, goals, etc. expected out of the ESB substrate by the different use cases becomes a nightmare of responsibility/blame shifting. Durability and replay? That's the ESB's problem. Load balancing? Yep, ESB. But it's screwing up the ordering guarantees! Well, make the ESB 'smarter' and we can just keep punting all of our problems to someone else. Etc.

Here's a PDF version: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.29.4...

Skip to original Dactyl and look at the configurability/customizability of the Dactyl Manuforms.

Personally, after using the Kinesis Advantage for many years, I'm going a different direction... fewer keys, lower profile, etc. E.g., Corne, Kyria, Ferris.

I see. Yeah, sounds like a one of the Dactyl Manuform's is in your future. :-) Given the parametric nature, it seems like you be able to tune it to your specifics.

For me, on the existing flat thumb ergos, hitting the thumb buttons with the side of the thumb actually feels normal to me in terms of thumb & wrist motion. The primary issue is the angles and arc of the splaying of the thumb to hit the keys without having to contort my thumbs any. This is my biggest issue with the Kinesis Advantage and ErgoDox.

The second biggest factor is that the tall Cherry style switches and keycaps requires a lot of travel distance for activation. One the more recent ergo boards, I've switched to lower profile switches and that makes a non-trivial improvement as well. My upcoming build is with the choc minis + low profile keycaps but with heavier springs so they feel more like the last generation of the 17" MBP keyboard (as opposed the crap that's Apple's done with their recent keys).

I don't know of one that exactly fits your constraints. But there are so many and more being created all the time. Trying asking on https://www.reddit.com/r/ErgoMechKeyboards/

In terms of the tall versus short keys... Look for one that you can get/build with either Kailh low profile "chocs" or their even lower profile "choc mini" switches. The "linear" versions will be most like the feel of the Apple keyboards.

Indeed. I started with the original Advantage a long time ago. After getting used to it, switching back and forth with the laptop keyboards doesn't scramble my brain.

But making the jump to the modern, smaller splits + multiple layers, etc. is another huge jump in ergonomics... and they are portable enough to travel with.

Nowhere close.

There are DIY mods that people have done to be able to run e.q., QMK as well as make them bluetooth.

My impression is that people who really want the concave keywells are building variations of the Dactyl Manuform.

Indeed!

Was just looking at that yesterday.

There's basically two directions that people are going... Splits with lots of keys so you can have keys dedicated to whatever you want or going more and more minimalist.

The minimalism idea is that since these are all programmable, we can design them to require much less finger/hand movement by taking more advantage of layers, various strategies of key activation, key layouts, etc.

There's an active Discord for the whole genre of the smaller, 40% keyboards.

Actually, there are people who have already written firmware in Rust for their DIY/kit keyboards. Nothing yet mainstream like QMK. Here's a write up of one of them: https://josh.robsonchase.com/rest-of-the-keyboard/

Meet the Ferris keeb that was just recently developed. Currently built using QMK but will eventually have Rust firmware. https://github.com/pierrechevalier83/ferris

Do you only use the Advantage at home/work? I.e., what do you do when you're traveling (or just using your laptop away from you desk)?

Can you add more details about the problems you had with the Kyria thumb positioning? Too much usage of the inward thumb keys? Angles?

Is there mobility so people can leave bad managers and move to other teams easily (i.e., vote with their feet) rather than being stuck under bad managers and getting screwed this way?

So then what was the behavior after the bad manager was let go? Did they actually reach out to those who were let go? The toxic effects of bad managers is way larger than ICs.

Because you made a variety of specific points and it's easier to address them specifically.

Yes but there's all sorts of silliness that people and companies need to unlearn so they can do this effectively and efficiently.

And let's not forget how scant real mentorship and training of managers is in this industry. Nor, how we've setup the power/money hierarchy that many people feel the only career growth path is to become a people manager (even if they aren't any good at it). :-(

As I mentioned in a sibling comment, the toxic (and incompetent) manager problem is fundamentally a leadership problem. The single biggest responsibility of the founders is the culture of the organization -- everything stems from that, one way or another.

Leadership, from the top down, is absolutely responsible for the mentoring, training, and environment created by the management. None of the systemic problems with & induced by management is new. It comes down to: does leadership actually care enough to do anything about it? Companies institute all sorts of formal stuff like internal surveys and NPS scoring and so forth but it always comes down to trust & communication and then follow through. And the follow through is the clearest way to create trust. All of the things that even well intentioned leaders spout, if not followed through, quickly erodes and ultimately destroys trust. So, just like with kids, don't make promises you won't keep.

Note that I'm also not talking about companies doing forced rankings and nuking the bottom X%. That's a different form of systemic toxicity and, alas, plays into the technical industry's huge problem with toxic "geek machismo" culture.

Unless you work in a crazy place like Germany with the extremes driven by the work councils, probationary periods are an HR gimmick. If people aren't working out, they can be let go. Have simple, clear, legal policies and simple documentation, WIPs, and most importantly managers who actually care, communicate, and help their team members succeed. The fact is that most companies and managers don't fit those criteria and so create their own hells.

Re: your point about interviewers looking for their expected/standard answer vs an actually innovative one...

I take that as part of my job in interviewing the the company/interviewers. I will very deliberately give a more radical, non-standard but correct answer precisely to see if they fit into that broken/fixated mindset and see how they deal with being challenged. The dynamic of how they deal with that shows everything about not just how clever they are but how intellectually honest, curious, and emotionally mature they really are.

Sure you can. You can talk about the hard problems that have nothing to do with the fact that it was part of a missile guidance system or whatever. If you worked on anything non-trivial there are always some interesting problems you had to deal with be they algorithmic, engineering, human, or whatever. If people press for inappropriate details when you've given them plenty of other interesting bits then that's telling you more about them (and whether you want to work with them).

On the manager side, I can't upvote that enough.

Toxic systems are always the responsibility of the managers and that's from the top down. The systemically perverse issues created by people "managing up" is one of the most critical problems that people higher up the food chain need to correct for.

Alas, for all of the focus on the interview processes to "prevent" false positive hires, those same companies suck as actually getting rid of the bad hires. Some is rational risk aversion to lawsuits and the like but that clearly bs when you see just how fast people that aren't liked by someone high enough up the food chain are shown the door.

The effect on morale and real productivity of getting rid of the toxic and worst performers is amazing.

These are, like NVC, tools to help when people are generally intending to work together. I.e., it presumes non-toxic participation.

Alas, in, for example, big company "politics" manipulating the system to further oneself typically subverts such processes and creates broken/toxic cultures.

Fantastic! I'm so happy that's working for you.

One of things that's missing in this is that the parties involved actually intend to work together. As is clear from the various threads of discussion to this post, people react based on their underlying (dis)trust of the intent of the other party. That's why this is experienced by many folks emotionally as "passive-aggressive" manipulation.

That's presuming that the drivers for management have product/customer reality as a high priority. In big companies, "managing up" and corporate politics strongly dominate. Those are the fundamental drivers of whiplash management.

In terms of the licensing debate... Did you bother to actually read the Common Clause FAQ? Here are the first 2 FAQ entries:

"What is Commons Clause? The Commons Clause is a license condition drafted by Heather Meeker that applies a narrow, minimal-form commercial restriction on top of an existing open source license to transition the project to a source-availability licensing scheme. The combined text replaces the existing license, allowing all permissions of the original license to remain except the ability to "Sell" the software as defined in the text.

This Clause is not intended to replace licenses of existing open source projects in general, but to be used by specific projects to satisfy urgent business or legal requirements without resorting to fully "closing source".

Is this “Open Source”? No.

“Open source”, has a specific definition that was written years ago and is stewarded by the Open Source Initiative, which approves Open Source licenses. Applying the Commons Clause to an open source project will mean the source code is available, and meets many of the elements of the Open Source Definition, such as free access to source code, freedom to modify, and freedom to re-distribute, but not all of them. So to avoid confusion, it is best not to call Commons Clause software “open source.” "