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shadowwolf007

91 karma · joined February 11, 2014

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shadowwolf007··on ClickHouse, Inc.
Ok thank you!

I appreciate from your POV this probably is silly but for us it’s very helpful to have explicit clarity since investors are questioning and demand certainty. I once had to rewrite https handshakes because a lawyer thought export compliance laws would be violated, so hopefully you understand my trepidation :-)

shadowwolf007··on ClickHouse, Inc.
So this is a very relevant question and I have been trying to figure out if I need to migrate off timescaledb asap coincidentally over the last 2 weeks (We're pre-production anyway, so it's the time to do so!). Doing so has been super low priority, but since you're here .... :)

If I have a table that records timeseries data and then another table that has a customer-provided extensible set of metadata where a customer can define columns and other related tabular data, would that violate the license? The customer doesn't have a direct, like, psql level of access but the API intentionally provides a very similar level of interaction.

Does this qualify as providing Data Definition Interfaces? If none of those additional columns and such appear on tables set up as timescale tables does that make any difference?

shadowwolf007··on Time to retire the CSV?
We looked at it and there were a few problems we had with where it would force us to put VMs that we just weren't super comfortable with due to the in-process-ness.

More a byproduct of decisions made 5 - 7 years ago when the company was in raw startup mode versus a more mature roadmap.

shadowwolf007··on Time to retire the CSV?
Honestly with the schema thing I'd probably be fine with either/or!

A checksum would be crude and user-hostile, only being able to say "you did it wrong" but not really good at tell you what it means to do it right.

If I understand the concepts correctly then it seems like a shared ontology could potentially solve the problem in a non-hostile way.

Plus, it makes me happy because I feel like types are a real-world problem, so it is always nice if the type system could enforce that real-world-ness and all the messiness that comes along for the ride.

shadowwolf007··on Time to retire the CSV?
Yeah - I used to lead a department that would process somewhere around 10TB of CSV formatted data per day.

The edge cases are a hassle but they don't become less of a hassle from a business perspective by switching to json or really any other format. We tried an experiment of using more json and eventually gave it up because it wasn't saving any time at a holistic level because the "data schema" conversations massively dominated the entirety of the development and testing time.

Obviously being able to jam out some json helped quite a bit initially, but then on the QA side we started to run in to problems with tooling not really being designed to handle massive json files. Basically, when something was invalid (such as the first time we encountered an invalid quote) it was not enjoyable to figure out where that was in a 15GB file.

That said, I fully concur with the general premise that CSV doesn't let you encode the solutions to these problems, which really really sucks. But, to solve that, we would output to a more columnar storage format like Parquet or something. This would let us fully encode and manage the data how we wanted while letting our clients continue working their processes.

What I would really like to see is a file format where the validity of the file could be established by only using the header. E.g. I could validate that all the values in a specific column were integers without having to read them all.

shadowwolf007··on The 'Great Resignation' is really the 'Great Discontent'
On the flip side, the only time I've ever felt like my work was fulfilling and valuable was when was under-compensated and insanely overworked (like 80 hours was a pretty reasonable work week).
shadowwolf007··on Wisconsin has negotiated a dramatically scaled-back deal with Foxconn
The "Tiny town" is 70,000 people who live in an multi-city metro area of around 600,000. That may not be like SF or NYC big, but it's also not just a random metro area. Having lived there for a few years, you're painting with a poetic brush a bit and I'd like to clarify how I see it.

Walmart owns Bentonville. The city council, mayor, and basically anyone there is almost completely subservient to their interests. Again - WM never moved in to the small community, the small community literally is Wal-mart.

For many years, people in the town worked in Wal-mart retail buildings & warehouses around Bentonville. Around 2013 the company started to struggle to compete and found that they needed to attract talent, so the Walton Family Foundation started spending somewhere around $300 million - $400 million a year in improvements and restoration projects. This included massive subsidies for companies that moved in to the area - WFF also paid partially or fully relocation money, but I have no idea how much they paid other than one restaurant owner I spoke to who was basically given moving costs, a building, and "free" rent for a year.

The whole "Wal-mart HQ" thing is just another in their line of tactics to attract new talent in to the area because they are struggling to build an ecosystem of talented developers and analysts. Which, again, there's nothing wrong with this tactic if that's what you're hunting for.

One thing I'll give WM for sure - they are 100% focused on building out a tech bubble for people who want a semi-urban lifestyle. There's a lot of TX & CA transplants and honestly it's working great for them.

All told, none of this is even kind of comparable to Amazon moving to NYC or Atlanta. Nor is it comparable to a company moving in to a small town brand-new.

[ed: oops missed an important sentence!]

shadowwolf007··on We created a fake language to root out resume liars
I've worked with several recruiters who are trying to shop around as an outsourced recruiter. Basically, they take your resume and slap their name on it in an effort to show companies "You should use me because I provide well-qualified talent."

If you're not going through internal recruitment then this is a great way to go about it. The recruiter isn't just trying to get their 20%, so they spend a lot more time getting to know you and also getting to know where you're going.

The biggest down side is that you'll never hear a negative word about anything, so you gotta be good at asking some pointed questions.

shadowwolf007··on Microsoft is not rebasing Windows to Linux
As of Windows 10 1903 you can set the codepage of the application to UTF-8 - in fact for UWP Microsoft recommends you do that (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/design/globaliz...).

Unfortunately I don't see that being common enough for data ingestion tools for this to be relevant for a very, very long time.

For now, it's just another pain point because you can't assume Windows == UTF-16 lookalike anymore.

shadowwolf007··on Amazon scooped up data from its own sellers to launch competing products
I work in this industry as well. That said - private label is a small (but growing) area in the US markets, so it's hard to make a generalized statement of how much someone does or does not participate.

Many retailers are beginning tie production of private labeled products in with being the captain of a category - which begins to create incentive for companies to start to pursue these private label opportunities.

K-C and P&G are two examples of companies who largely resist the private label trends in the US - you could counter with ConAgra and Treehouse.

A lot of that has to do with the product and what-not, of course.

[ed: fixed a misspeak]

shadowwolf007··on Ask HN: Going from Developer to Manager. What should I know or learn?
A struggle I've had is I'm used to casing performance in terms of errors or negative feedback. So far the feedback I've had is almost all positive (team is far above previous performance, flight risk is far lower than other departments, etc) but I don't feel like that's helping me improve cuz I don't know how to actually deal with positive feedback.

Some personal introspective criticism I've been wrestling with.

shadowwolf007··on Ask HN: Going from Developer to Manager. What should I know or learn?
I'm really glad you were able to avoid that scam. That's super scummy.

I built this premise because I do read a lot of car forums and, quite frequently, people would ask "Hey my car is doing XYZ" and a lot of responses would be "Take your car to a mechanic you can trust." To me this is basically telling them "Already know the answer to your question."

One time a guy answered basically saying "Hey, go find a guy who has a car in his driveway he works on every weekend, bring a 6 pack, and ask him for an opinion." It totally opened my eyes to how different types of advice really change people's perspective.

I believe that the value is in explaining what a person who loves what they do actually looks like.

shadowwolf007··on Ask HN: Going from Developer to Manager. What should I know or learn?
To be honest a lot of your suggestions are probably very solid but come off like the "Find a mechanic you can trust" solution.

By that I mean the advice of "find a mechanic you can trust" only is applicable to someone already familiar enough to know how to determine if a mechanic is trustworthy.

A lot of your advice is probably 100% valuable, but as someone working through a lot of these same concerns I'm stuck wondering "Well, how do I know I'm actually doing that?" It leads me to wonder if I'm actually successful at any of this or just Dunning–Kruger-ing my way through it.

shadowwolf007··on Ask HN: Examples of great landing pages?
I've been working on this for a product launch we are trying to do and have had the problem you are talking about.

The problem is that explaining that without ending up mired in detail is much harder than people give it credit. I've found it very useful to actually write out the list of what I am trying to convey and look at it constantly while doing design work.

Also splitting out the work - the first forays have been what I realized was actually development work that I was hiding behind design. During design I put away the dev environment and just work with sketches.

shadowwolf007··on Better Software Design with Clean Architecture
You nailed why I think many object oriented designs fall flat. People presuppose both that the objects within their domain encompass all objects (just students and courses) as well as that the objects within a domain will not change.

When #1 is missed I usually see that theres a design that doesn't mimic its domain and thus lose the ability for developers and users to have clear, concise communication. At that point OO is a disservice.

When #2 is missed you end up with IFilteredCourseAdapterProcessor as people attempt to bolt on components to solve future needs.

The addition of the "Registrar" to the domain immediately demonstrates how the naive interpretation is missing core components and I bet the users and devs fundamentally aren't speaking the same language.

This, imo, leads to conversations like, "Of course so and so approves all the registrations! Otherwise it would be madness!"

shadowwolf007··on Blue Apron, Struggling to Woo Investors, Lowers Price Range for IPO
Yeah BA is way over-priced, but aside from a few of their completely nonsensically simple recipes I've never made anything comparable for $2 - $3 a person. The $5.50 mark sounds about right for me in the midwest and I'm buying pretty good quality ingredients still. I often splurge and go to $8 - $10 a person but that's totally excessive :)

I've cooked and bought groceries in NYC several times and while the prices are definitely competitive with some hunting, the 99c whole chicken I found was total garbage and basically was like water and salt.

My step-dad used to swear he couldn't tell a difference between the $1.99 special chicken and the regular stuff I bought that was $4 - 6.99. To me the $1.99 tastes like eating saline solution (I've had saline injections, it tasted like that to me). Maybe it's just a question of taste.

shadowwolf007··on TypeScript 2.4 RC
Fwiw, this page blocks when you come from HN. I suspect the author wouldn't want their stuff posted here.
shadowwolf007··on On average, skipping college and investing tuition costs nets a higher return
> I've shown my resume to various people in the field and they said it was fine aside from a few conflicting opinions of moving one thing somewhere else or other minor details.

I learned the hard way that, generally, games reflect poorly in many non-NYC/LA/SEA cities. For some reason I will never understand, people think they're easy or that you're a liar. Get in to some new projects and generalize what you did in to specific tasks that demonstrate competence. E.g. I worked on an "MMO-ish" game with about 500 users a month (30 - 40 concurrent). I ended up making no mention it was a game but rather referred to it as a networking system I built in college :) Once I got in to the room, I would de-emphasize that it was a game and focus on some of the cool stuff I did.

Many years of reviewing and having my resume reviewed by varying people (HR, managers in varying trades, etc) has made me come to the conclusion that unless your resume is "Good", it's bad. Also keep in mind tech people are often the last people to review your resume. You're selling yourself (your product) to HR first and tech people second. You need to find managers and HR folks and have them review your resume. Alternatively, some markets have very good recruiter firms that can help tailor your resume to the local market and attract lots of job options.

What people you've talked to are nicely telling you is that your resume is not good enough to get noticed. Your resume is good enough when you hear "Hey, this is good. In fact, I wish (we're hiring/most were this good/I knew you were looking)!"

It sounds like you already have the right attitude, but you need to stand out. Because you aren't living knee-deep in a big city and no appreciable experience, you're at a huge disadvantage. But all of that can be overcome with a pivot on your part, I think.

shadowwolf007··on New York City bans employers from asking potential workers about past salary
I am also often similarly loathe to apply to positions without posted salary ranges. Unfortunately, in my experience, it's often "taboo" to bring up pay early-on in the discussions. But on the flip side, I've found that people who don't like to talk about pay usually don't want to pay much either, so it almost is a self-selection criterion that has worked really well in the past.

But I really like that you approach it this way - practical, sensible, and acknowledges that both parties' time has value.

shadowwolf007··on Does It Make Sense for Programmers to Move to the Bay Area?
Anecdote to back up what you wrote:

When I bought my first home my loan (P+I) payment was $1300 per month on average (paid every 2 weeks), which was not only affordable but cheaper than what I was renting at once you accounted for interest deductions! But the taxes were somewhere around $500 a month after the township raised local property tax by the maximum year after year. Due to average daily balance laws and escrow regulations, we often had a substantial amount of money "invested" in to our escrow account.

There was no amount of deductions to make this home an asset. It pushed a good quality home at a great price to something that now remains completely unoccupied.

My situation is 100% atypical - but I more meant to illustrate how big of an impact property taxes can be.

shadowwolf007··on Ask HN: Currency rounding rules
The standard rounding for financial applications is typically Banker's Rounding, which is another way of describing rounding to the nearest even. E.g. 1.5 rounds up to 2 but 6.5 rounds down to 6. Over the long haul, this method of rounding produces the least amount of error. Some regulations and laws, though, specify different rounding techniques or specific phases in a process where rounding must or must not be performed. Especially critical in things like forex and other trading type applications. In addition to what byoung2 mentioned, Canadian law has specific rounding regulations that change based on what payment method is being used, but (as far as I know) don't generally apply to things like interest calculations and stuff like that[1].

ISO 4217 works well for display purposes but doesn't work for all financial applications. Consider, for example, scenarios involving tax or a product billed based on usage. By rounding off at each processing step, the company could be losing substantial amounts of money. The last two companies I've worked have used varying types of mechanisms for tracking fractions of pennies. In some circumstances, it makes sense to store everything as integers with a separate column to represent precision, but I would probably not do this unless you have a specific use. It's a lot of noise and mucks up the source code worse than, say, a BigDecimal or Decimal type. At the current job, we store everything with 6 digits of precision because of the nature of our billing and use Decimal as a reserved type for only money.

To be honest, if you have an accounting department you probably want to involve them in these discussions because rounding decisions can have impact on your financial statements and, potentially, any audits that may occur in the future. I've worked on two financially focused applications so far and I would strongly suggest that you build out a very defined and clear way to manipulate money for rounding purposes. Building out those processes in a standardized and well-defined way makes for easy unit tests and also helps those who come in the future understand the decisions made.

[1]: http://www.mint.ca/store/mint/about-the-mint/rounding-690000...

shadowwolf007··on Project Rider – A C# IDE
Yeah - not surprised the DNX stuff is wonky.

It seems like every time there's a new project format the first version is just really awful. I think they really only test it on small almost toy-level projects thoroughly but fully conjecture.

That's a very cool project though - what got you going on that? If I could convince my coworkers to not kill me for doing so, I would try to introduce using that at work :-) I've definitely gotten them on to the immutability by default train of thought tho - a lot of people very happy with that mindset considering how much of work has become parallel processing. It's amazing how much faster you can do things like build invoices of thousands of items when you can process the whole thing in parallel :-D

My pref has always been command line tbh - getting away from TFS was the best thing that ever happened for me.

shadowwolf007··on Project Rider – A C# IDE
I hate to say this, but a lot of your issues might also be coming from the TFS integration. I know I used to have a bear of a time with random crashes and issues. Since switching to git & resharper I have had a much, much easier time.

With 1 notable exception of 1 huge project.

On large, 40+ project, solutions it seems like Visual Studio just falls on its face. Our new team is redirecting toward microservice approaches in light of some of these frustrations.

Not that your arch should be dictated by your editor, but quality of life is what it is.

shadowwolf007··on GitUp makes Git painless
We use git exclusively as a Windows-based shop and only 1 person uses the git integration with Visual Studio. Everyone else uses different solutions from tortoise to source tree to command line.

I think there's definitely a decent market for this sort of thing - I've had plenty of conversations locally that end with "Wow, I'm so glad to get away from Visual Studio for this"

shadowwolf007··on [dead]
.net is moving away from LINQ? Where is that and how did I miss this? Do you have a link?

That seems totally insane.

shadowwolf007··on Inside the Tragic, Obsessive World of Video Game Addicts
Honestly, I'm not sure. I mean, I play games too - don't get me wrong. I am not sure how much of gaming comes down to being healthy or not and how much is just the culture. The very limited exposure I had to ingress involved a lot of drinking and eating out. It definitely was not even close to neutral calorie wise.

But I didn't get in to Augmented Reality games and it's not my shtick. At the end of the day, I definitely use games as a way to decompress.

For me, personally, when I go out I have a hard time wanting to have anything to do with the computer, be it software dev or games.

shadowwolf007··on Inside the Tragic, Obsessive World of Video Game Addicts
I don't think [many/most] gamers consider gaming to be "a real addiction" - especially FPS games. I definitely have friends that I don't want to play games, I don't talk to them about games, and when the subject of games comes up I actively try to move it elsewhere because when they gamed that's literally all they did. As someone who enjoys going out, it's so weird to ask someone "Hey, wanna go do XYZ" and have them be like "nah dude, let's just hit up ABC game like usual - I played all weekend to get us set up for tonight".

People don't realize that it's like you wouldn't invite your now-sober alcoholic friend to the bar unless you knew they were absolutely comfortable with it.

I'm glad you got outside of it. Games are awesome and a lot of fun, but there's a lot of other really awesome stuff out there too.

shadowwolf007··on Show HN: Test My Typing Speed (weekend project)
There's a ton of typos on the site, advacned, word per minute, etc.

As aesthetics1 mentioned, the test itself is nearly impossible to type quickly because of the jarring. In fact, the faster you type the worse this jarring is.

In terms of features: It would be cool if it had immediate feedback for errors like on Typeracer :)

Also not a big fan of that background color on the borders. The test itself is a pretty nice gray color but the background of the overall page is kind of distracting.

e.g. Neighbour: it would be awesome if I could set my culture up so it uses American-isms for those words.

shadowwolf007··on I'm 25 years old and I am lost
That's crazy. I don't know why people do that :-(

I don't know that I would take their numbers as gospel but to be fair in the tech industry it's probably more accurate when I think of it.

shadowwolf007··on I'm 25 years old and I am lost
Why 2400 hours - that's 46 hours a week! Maybe a founder is working that much, but generally they over-work and it's proven more than the tenuous 7 hours of sleep a night thing that 45+ hours a week is bad. e.g. http://legacy.igda.org/why-crunch-modes-doesnt-work-six-less...; etc. I think it's totally reasonable to work 45+ hours a week in your first year or maybe even 2. But after 3 if you're working 45+ hours a week you have a major, major problem.

Most average people are expected to work 2080 or 2087 hours a year. Seems a little disingenuous to bump it all the way to 2400 - if you're working over 45 hours a week on average you're over-working, which is far worse for your health.

Even still, using the 17 hour mark and 2087 hours it's 33.6%.

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