HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

snarkypixel

358 karma · joined November 2, 2019

submissionscomments
snarkypixel··on Ask HN: Advice for leading a software migration?
One thing I've learned from these large migration projects is that v1 always seems like total crap, while v2 appears to be the perfect dream. However, as you begin building v2, you start to realize that v1 was not actually that bad and had many great but unappreciated features. Additionally, you come to understand that many v1 features took a long time to develop, were battle-tested, and would require significant effort to rebuild in v2 with minimal benefits.

So, what I've learned is not to completely discard v1. Instead, it's better to refactor or rebuild only the parts that pose issues, even though it may not be as sexy or exciting as starting v2 from scratch.

In practice, I would begin by cloning v1 and deploying it to a development environment to start tweaking it. I would also ensure to implement numerous automated tests to safeguard against any potential issues caused by refactoring. Of course, if you can keep using the same database that's even better as you can test refactored features with real customer data and even run both builds in parallel to spot any differences.

snarkypixel··on Show HN: Learn piano without sheet music
I think I'm closer to the target audience as I usually learn either by "ear" or by watching someone play the song. Actually, what I prefer is looking/finding the chords first, and then I fill up the melody and everything in-between. So, an app like this is very helpful. My only feedback is I find the UI piano at the bottom of the screen hard to read without black keys
snarkypixel··on Ask HN: What topics are good for a UI/UX Primer?
Lots of great stuff in https://www.refactoringui.com
snarkypixel··on Still Love Telnet
Telnet was great. Had so much fun learning the IRC protocol with it.
snarkypixel··on Beej's Guide to Network Programming
This guide was my bible when I was a kid. I learned not just network programming, but also C with it.
snarkypixel··on The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Release
Ocarina of Time does a fantastic job going from the bright world of young Link to the more serious and darker world of adult Link. This adds a ton of depth to the game. And let's not forget the clever game mechanic of swapping between young and adult Link to solve puzzles.
snarkypixel··on Twitter features Mastodon is better for not having
> Now that a narcissistic billionaire bought Twitter and will likely make it Nazi-friendly

Instantly lost credibility for me

snarkypixel··on Ask HN: How to overcome job search exhaustion?
I think the problem is how the vast majority of inbound job requests are spam or irrelevant, while at the same time there are a few gems out there that can't seem to reach the right candidates.
snarkypixel··on Ask HN: How to overcome job search exhaustion?
lol :) I have a new take on it that I haven't seen yet, but yeah it seems like such a crowded space not sure I want to get into this mess.
snarkypixel··on Ask HN: How to overcome job search exhaustion?
I wanted to make an app to make job searching easier. It's a pain in the ass on both side and imo current tools on the market suck.
snarkypixel··on Inside the Proton
Personally I think it's because we're "looking" at it from the wrong angle. A bit like in programming when you're stuck and you need to take a step back and approach the problem differently. IMHO the fundamental construct is probably something way more abstract, i.e. "information", with some laws that we aren't even aware of yet that will probably challenge the principle of locality.
snarkypixel··on Ask HN: DALL-E was trained on watermarked stock images?
Somewhat ironically, wasn't it openai's main mission for AI to benefit humanity?
snarkypixel··on Retool raises $45M at a $3.2B valuation
Product looks really cool, well done
snarkypixel··on What I Learned at Clubhouse
Seems like a lot of shit happened if you read between the lines. IMO the lessons would have been more impactful with insights into what really happened. For instance: "#1 Earn the right to build the next thing" --> A.K.A we built the wrong thing. What did you build and why didn't it work?

Still, overall great lessons. In the end, it seems like Clubhouse is more of a feature that can be added to an existing product rather than a full product by itself. That doesn't necessarily make it a failure but much harder to turn into a long-term company. Reminds me a bit of Dropbox in that sense.

snarkypixel··on Watching an acquirer ruin your company
My startup was acquired and it was fucking hell. Next time I get acquired I'll make sure to have everything in writing and planned for me to get out within one year.
snarkypixel··on Show HN: Feather – 90 percent of Bloomberg terminal, for 5 percent of the price
Really cool, congrats for the launch
snarkypixel··on Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees
There needs to be an asymmetrical rewards from taking a huge risk starting a startup. Otherwise people wouldn't do it and just work at big_company.
snarkypixel··on Cache made consistent: Meta’s cache invalidation solution
I also was surprising to not see the solution to the cache invalidation. The blog post describes how the tracing/logging mechanism works, but what about the actual cache consistency/invalidation strategy? I.e. what about many-to-many where one fetch returns inconsistent results.. how do you even know it's inconsistent? What about data queried while there's a transaction rollback.. when is it updated in the cache?

Sorry if it sounds like silly questions, I was genuinely curious to learn about the strategy since the blog started with "When it comes to cache invalidation, we believe we now have an effective solution to bridge the gap between theory and practice"

snarkypixel··on Ask HN: Why aren't code diagram generating tools more common?
Yeah.. in a world with infinite time and no compromise, documentations + diagrams are nice. In practice, working on this means not working on something else, potentially more important. Trade-offs are hard and not fun :(
snarkypixel··on Yep: Google alternative that shares revenue with creators – by Ahrefs
Kind of ironic that they're hosting their "Story behind Yep" on medium which has many privacy issues
snarkypixel··on Tell HN: I'm Afraid We're Shutting Down
Potentially could reboot the startup after the downturn with your learnings, seems like something that really should exist.
snarkypixel··on Ask HN: How to learn math from zero for adults?
Absolutely need to check out 3Blue1Brown on youtube, especially for visual learners.
snarkypixel··on Ask HN: Best book on modern cryptography?
One of my favorite book
snarkypixel··on Ask HN: Heavy Metal Music for Programming?
I listen to dream theater all the time while coding
snarkypixel··on Launch HN: Carbon Crusher (YC W22) – Carbon Negative Roads
Congrats on the launch. As a side note, I love this landing page
snarkypixel··on Ask HN: The book that did it for you in math and/or CS?
The Theoretical Minimum by Leonard Susskind --> My background is in software engineering. I loved these books and their associated videos.
snarkypixel··on Ask HN: How to make the most out of time at university?
People say go all-in when you're young because it gets harder when you're older. I just wanted to mention that this is true and it happened to me and many of my friends. I'm so glad I went all-in when I was younger to establish my career and get wealthy because nowadays with a family it's much harder.. this let me focus on my family rather than work.

I think one of the most important thing you could do is get a great network and surround yourself with amazing people. What's hot in the moment changes every few years, but great connections stay for a long time. Also, being close to amazing people that are very talented means that you'll get to see new trends coming and always be on top of it.

snarkypixel··on Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2022 – Show and tell
Looks neat. Why do you think oku will replace goodreads?
snarkypixel··on Ask HN: Why is today's Internet experience so user hostile?
Shit leadership setting wrong incentives is the reason
snarkypixel··on How often people copy and paste from Stack Overflow
TL&DR: 40,623,987 copies across 7,305,042 posts and comments between March 26th and April 9th
Page 1 of 5Next →