smg

How do you deal with the github enterprise version of your software? Does it have a separate QA cycle? How often do you ship new releases of that?

I am hoping that Github could shed more light on the how they ship an enterprise version along with the SAASy web version that we all know and love.

It would be interesting if some kind of client (javascript)instrumentation - recording hover times, focus times could reveal the WTF results. Crowdsourcing is effective for top/most common queries, detecting WTF in the long tail of queries (where they would be more common) might be very expensive.

The Fluent demo is very cool. I wish it was easier to try this service out.

Is there a plan to open source any of the WebSockets work and/or contribute it back to Jetty?

If you are interested in joining a learning group in SF around this class please see here

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3672184

A few years ago there were a large number of Indian startup trying to become the youtube or facebook of India. Because almost all the internet users in India are also English savy, they found that the youtube of India is youtube unlike say youku in China. Doing a consumer web startup in India is very difficult as you end up competing with far more mature SV startups who have almost limitless resources. Companies with a uniquely local twist like Flipkart or Burrp have had more success.

Look around you and you will find that most American companies hire lots of Indians as programmers. Do you think that the guys who ended up coming to America suddenly transmogrified in to competent programmers during their flight across the ocean? Do you think that those Indian engineers who decided to stay back and work in India are any less competent than the ones who took the flight? Having worked in both India and the US for over a decade, my experience tells me that the distributions for programming skills are almost identical in the two populations. The top percentile of programmers in India (those who work for Google, MS, Amazon) are as good as their counterparts in the US. The $12 crowd is about as good as the craigslist freelancers who charge a similar rate. While you may not have to worry about being replaced as a programmer, what you should worry about is an India startup like Zoho or Freshdesk competing with your company. Unlike China where startups can focus on the largely internal Mandarin speaking market, Indian startups are going to come after all the English speaking markets.

Could you please elaborate more on the "narrow sweet spot".? I would love to know which applications fit this sweet spot.

The original Ed Witten New York Times article referred to by Weisbort is here http://www.nytimes.com/1987/10/18/magazine/a-theory-of-every...

Does any one have access to the original New York Times Ed Witten article?

Are there any plans to livestream the event?

move

Many startups eg justin.tv use programming problems to screen applications. Do you think this is a good idea? Why does Xobni not use something like that to prevent the avalanche of resumes that greets every job posting?

Do you find working for google better preparation for your next startup?

Not about code/software/hacking. Dont check this unless you want to waste some time

I am working from India for the past 3 months instead of my San Francisco office. Nearly every large IT company in India offers benefits at par with Google. Yes I mean multiple food vendors. Food being served 6 times a day.

The salary of an IT professional in India easily puts him among the highest wage earners in India (something similar to how Wall Street traders were a couple of years ago). Chauffeur driven cars, cooks and daily house cleaning services are all easily affordable.

The biggest question I have to ask myself is should I return to my studio in SF.

thanks aneesh

I am not looking for exact numbers. An indication of the change in growth rates even whether the growth rate increased or decreased would be enough

I have found http://sales.alltop.com/ very usefull

Thanks your writeup was helpful

Sorry I am incapable of comparing numerical quantities and figuring out which one is larger.

why is this on hacker news

real programmers code in assembly and debug in opcode

great story would surely appeal to all HN readers

The Xobni guys ask a great puzzle if you interview with them. The puzzle makes the whole interview process worthwhile. I hope they are still asking that puzzle ;-)

yanni

Go to the source "Art of Computer Programming" Get your hands dirty with MIX

Hmmm I cannot really claim to read Bill Gs mind. But the man was an accomplished programmer and knew that great software gets built when a hacker commits himself to doing nothing else but working on it for a couple of weeks. I think he was just trying to edge Hertzfield into working on the Switcher. Another interesting take away from the story is how Gates focuses on what is good for the users and not on M$ controlling the Switcher

well I am not sure if this story is really true but a sensationalist title makes a better read ;-)

Sorry I was not clear about it but if you are a good programmer in today's market there is no reason for you to be working on something that you do not enjoy working on. To quote PG for once . "If it is possible to make yourself into a great hacker, the way to do it may be to make the following deal with yourself: you never have to work on boring projects (unless your family will starve otherwise), and in return, you'll never allow yourself to do a half-assed job. All the great hackers I know seem to have made that deal, though perhaps none of them had any choice in the matter."

There are some programmers who were just born to code. They can put in monster hours everyday as long as they believe that what they are doing is cool. I was lucky to work with one such individual at a previous job. He was just phenomenally productive and he was working way more than 80 hrs a week. He could write device drivers in days and entire file systems in weeks. If you are lucky you might get to observe someone like that. In some ways writing code to people who are good at it is almost an exhilarating and enjoyable experience. It is easy to get into the Flow and then you just loose track of time. Programming is not really a bursty activity. If you are unable to find the flow and immerse yourself in your code for hours at a stretch find another career.