tapan_k

Thank you!

> I tell students that the best way to make an impact is to focus on the details

Thank you for the insight in your last paragraph. Do you have references that will help me explore this even more?

> Confusion about roles can lead to conflicts.

Agree. Accountability is the key here (this is not about authority). If things do not pan out as expected, the PM must be answerable, and to be in that position, [s]he must have the ability to make the final call in most situations.

My email is in my profile. :) tapan (AT) karecha (DOT) com

I can take take a look. (Thanks for the $10 offer, but no thanks).

> This year saw the publication of the fourth and final volume of Samuel Beckett’s letters, The Letters of Samuel Beckett: 1966-1989, representing his correspondence from the age of 60 to his death at the age of 83.

History has many examples of beautiful revelations from letters written by famous people. I have to wonder what is a modern equivalent of this phenomenon. People seldom write letters these days, leave alone keep a copy for posterity. Emails are private, and are unlikely to be opened up for the general public after the owner is gone. The closest something else gets to this is bloging. However, the author is cognizant of the fact that she is writing for public, while a letter is intended to be read by the recipient alone, thereby influencing the tone accordingly. Is there a way for the future generations to ever learn from the personal message exchanges of today's greats?

> I miss Seattle, the weather, the city, and the people :-)

Rare for someone to appreciate the weather in Seattle. Can you tell us more about your perspective?

And, there are 15 more days to go in 2016

I find it much more helpful to think in terms of why and what we will test rather than how much will we test. This approach resolves a few of the frequently debated issues around testing, such as:

1. Should I test first, or test later?

2. What is the right amount of code coverage?

3. Should I write more unit tests or integration tests?

4. Should I use mocks or not?

and so on...

The above questions can have an arbitrary answer that makes sense in a certain context but may not yield the best cost / benefit ratio in other contexts. Hence, the guiding star needs to be: why are we writing a test.

Excellent list. I would like to add a couple of things that have worked for me:

1. Ensure sufficient sleep (varies for each individual)

2. Identify and manage sources of stress

3. Practice mindfulness meditation

Doing the above ensures that your willpower is stronger and you are able to stick with new habits.

It is plausible that the plant imagery in these texts is unrecognisable because these have changed beyond recognition. Take a look at this[1] to see how the fruits we know today looked very different in the past.

[1]: http://www.sciencealert.com/here-s-what-fruits-and-vegetable...

The lure of an IDE! I am having a hard time making up my mind on IDE v/s basic tools that help debug, compile, test, etc.

On one hand, IDE provide the ease of development, especially if you have used one in the past.

On the other hand, not using an IDE (in favor of basic tools) results in simpler and neater solutions.

+1 for Github Pages + Cloudflare

Wish there was a poll option on HN. How are you going to count OP? Will you share the results?

Thank you so much for posting these links. I started reading How to Solve It and am a few pages in, and am so happy to have found this book. This is the value that I find here at HN that keeps me coming back every day. The new tools and new technologies, and the interesting tech news are all very interesting, but none as valuable as the gems that people leave in comments for others to discover, thereby enriching their lives.

I joined the software industry after getting tired of all the [sometimes seemingly mindless] rigours of the construction industry that I worked for at the time. I wanted freedom, such as work anywhere anytime. Now, the pendulum has swung too far on the other side and I again long for some ritual that will help me maintain sanity.

Reading this article convinces me that some ritual is still possible in the tech industry and I feel like working for this company.

> I do love wearing a uniform of my choice

Every uniform is someone's choice. If it's my own, I love it. If it's someone else's then it's a hit or miss -- I will either love it or hate it.

Rigid rules are a bane or a blessing depending on which side of the table you are on.

> While at Google, his framework for career development led to more than a 10-point bump on engagement scores across hundreds of employees.

This caught my attention too. It is not clear if these improvements were sustained over an extended period of time. Also, what about other metrics? For e.g. did attrition rate change? Did people write better quality software? What was the effect on innovation?

Indeed, career discussions are important. Even more important are the following, which are more about here and now, than the future:

1. Is the work challenging enough?

2. Am I learning on the job?

3. Do my contributions matter?

4. Do I have healthy relationships in the team and with management?

5. Am I concerned about my pay?

6. Do I have a work life balance?

If the above are sorted out, then sure, go ahead and ensure that my future also looks bright.

> Another solution could be encouraging personal projects.

Agree. This is necessary to encourage learning, which helps keep people sharp, which in turn benefits the projects that they are working on in the day job. Even if the technology is the "same old".

A couple of decades ago, many software developers were content using the tools they had and knew. Few demonstrated the eagerness and openness to try something new. These few were also the ones who were better at coming up with out of the box solutions because they were willing to try something new -- both tools and/or approaches. Now, we have reached a point where the bare minimum required of a software developer is familiarity and comfort with the new and shiny, leading to the reverse problem we had early on. Now, people can spend way too much time and energy learning and trying out new tech that they miss out on the opportunity of staying long enough with a technology to learn from experience.

In other words, today we spend way too much time on accidental complexity than on essential complexity.

Another reason to not just use Google fonts is to make sure they do not - even if unwittingly - give an impression that the Go language is controlled by Google. This is an open source initiative (at least in spirit) and needs to make choices akin to its roots.

> but you don't throw away the feature branch history

Once a feature is merged, how is the history of a feature branch helpful?

Since I do not see/understand the benefits of retaining feature branch history, my preference is to squash commit and merge. Perhaps, this is a result of my habits that I carry from the ClearCase days, but would love to hear the downsides of this approach.

Cannot comment on Moleskine as I've never used one. I am loving TWSBI notebooks [1]: the paper is thick, and does not feather or bleed with fountain pen ink. There is very little ghosting which makes it possible to use both sides of paper. Here [2] is a review I found helpful.

[1] http://www.twsbi.com/collections/notebooks

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RJkNfiP_ys

Perhaps old fashioned, but I fill up a page of TWSBI [1] every evening, using a Sheaffer Prelude [2].

[1] http://www.twsbi.com/collections/notebooks/products/twsbi-no...

[2] https://www.amazon.com/Sheaffer-Prelude-Black-Featuring-Foun...

I have the same question.

I recently read a programming book on Go [1] and this book reminded me of the pleasure of reading a programming book cover to cover. For a reader whose purpose is not to just get through the coursework (as in a graduate school), a well written programming book can be as pleasurable a read (if not more) than the most gripping novel. The author's style of writing has a lot to do with the readability of a programming book. I think.

[1]: https://www.amazon.com/Programming-Language-Addison-Wesley-P...

I am into software product development and hence malaysia et al don't look promising. The alternatives I have considered are: Australia, Luxemburg, US, and UK, in that order. However, these are not regional options.

Last year, I started taking LCHF lifestyle [0] seriously. The primary influence was Prof Tim Noakes [1] and his relentless tweets about how sugar is at the root of widespread obesity, and the diseases associated with obesity. I stopped having sugar and carbohydrate rich food, and my weight dropped rapidly. I went from being heaviest in my life to 10kg lighter in a span of 6 months. And I felt great.

Now I know the secret sauce of weight loss, and feeling great at the same time, but the only thing that knocks me off this diet and lifestyle is stress. When under work related stress, I end up eating carbohydrate rich food which results in quick weight gain. I am in the process of figuring out a way to stay on LCHF because I long to going back to the feeling that I have experienced while on LCHF.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-carbohydrate_diet

[1]: https://twitter.com/ProfTimNoakes

I call myself a Bangalorian now, but I have been here for 16 years. Not born and brought up in Bangalore, so some of you will cringe at my claim at being Bangalorian. I love this place because it gave me a career. There is no other place in India that I would be willing to move to. BUT, I am now worried about this city and the future my children have here (if they choose to continue to live here). Just yesterday, after a dinner with a couple of friends, we ended up discussing if there is a better place to go to in India. The answer, as always, was -- no. If I want a better life (which includes decent job opportunities), the only way out is to move to a place outside of India. I wish this was not the case.

BLR: 9:00a-6:30p [includes 30m paid lunch] + 30m commute each way

Thank you for the links to guidelines. This helps.

Why is this downvoted? (serious question)

Where can I find the "code of conduct" for HN?

> The well grounded Rubyist (I'm on Chapter 13 yay!)

What is your proficiency in Ruby, and why are you reading this? I am asking out of curiosity because I am a Ruby newbie and have just completed Learning Ruby the Hard Way [0] and am looking for something to pick up next.

[0] http://learnrubythehardway.org/book/