yesno

I've been semi-following wikileaks but I didn't know about this Shell-Nigerian infiltration issue.

Sometime I feel that whatever noble cause Bill Gates and Warren Buffet do will eventually be overridden by these issues in the future.

What we're seeing is a humongous circle of evil:

A company started with a decent intention: just to make a living. Once its existence is threatened by competitors, it is forced to expand in order to be competitive.

When all "ethical" routes to expand had been explored, they started to do a less "un-ethical" moves (i.e.: infiltrate, spy, bribe, etc). Government is the first and foremost primary target for these kind of activities. Once it happened, government is no longer a pure entity that can lead a nation. Government turns into a commercial entity where it tries to make every single employee rich.

When every dirty little secrets are exposed, citizens might turn against their own government. Probably in the form of militants, rebels, and whatnot.

What once was an ideal movement to overrule the corrupt government might put these idealist in the same spot as the previous governments: "hey, we fought for this country and it's time for us to enjoy the best time of our lives ... while we can". Thus the circle of corruption in the government continues.

It all started with "Money". It is truly the root of all evils.

Somehow I've seen these things unfold in most Hollywood movies. WikiLeaks, corrupted government, overruling militants.

On the other hand, it looks like China is trying to stay away from all the debacles by rebuilding and reinvesting on its own infrastructure. While China has its own issues with human rights and freedom of speech, it is probably one of the nations that "seem" less corrupt to foreign interests (they're still corrupt within themselves) compare to other nations.

But I might be very wrong about China.

Last night I told my wife that the future seems scary with all these rich multi-international companies starting to stick their legs deeper in foreign countries infrastructure.

Oils, Natural Gas, Minings, Banks.

I can only pray that these giants won't create a huge ticking time-bomb such that governments all over the world had to bail them out in the future in case something bad happened.

(The conversation happened when I saw HSBC advertisement saying that they are the "local bank everywhere you go").

Whether FB wants to call it hackathons, hack-a-tack, tick-hack-toe doesn't matter.

But the message from the parent here is that it's cool to build a product by pulling one-nighter. (And we all know that's the culture in Facebook).

The same theme again and again that sort of... screw our industry as a whole: romanticizing the notion of hacker.

On the other hand, I don't think FB Chat was written in one-night.

Not quite sure why this is being downvoted but let me put my more "politically correct" hat on.

I don't feel strongly with the presence of the word hack in the same line with engineering. They just don't gel.

I rarely and hardly seen any engineers pulling one-nighter writing code with lack of automation tests. I see a lot of young hackers do that.

I would strongly suggest the downvoters go to InfoQ.com and search for Aditya's presentation regarding Facebook engineering to understand the issues arise for having a "hacker" culture.

And I'm telling you the fact that Facebook albums have had UI bugs; they frequently re-appear after what I felt is a re-deploy of their updates/newer versions of the website

Back button doesn't necessarily work sometime

One can see other people pictures but can't see their album (can't click the "photo" link but can click the photo in their profile page)

On iPhone, often one can't see "more..." pictures.

When I say those bugs in Facebook albums are exceptions, I truly mean it. Facebook can have buggy code yet they probably won't get penalized by their user. None of their user fled for other social networking sites.

It might be a matter of time before Oracle decided to cut all of the oxygen lines for these open source solutions judging from Ellison's comment about RedHat business models.

What do you think would happen in order for a library to be certified (passed a certain TCK) would require to pay Oracle a huge amount of money?

Oracle can get more money from IBM, RedHat, SpringSource (SS uses a modified Tomcat for their tcServer) and a slew bunch of other companies.

Whether they'll do it or not, I don't know.

... and bugs... lots of bugs... of course bugs in your Facebook albums are exceptions.

I wish I could write code without consequences during maintenance stage :(

Cool stats bro. Chill out, here's a glass of wine.

I saw an Azure book in a local bookstore yesterday and the content seems to be directed at CIOs, IT Manager and the like. I don't think Microsoft's marketing effort is weak though.

http://www.amazon.com/Applications-Microsoft-Platform-Patter...

As a side note, I wish Google would've done the same thing too: write a book that explains a scenario in a typical business environment (billing, invoicing, time tracking/vacation/time-off tracking) of what AppEngine can do for business users.

PS: I upvoted you though.

I used to work with a few companies that use warez software.

Let's just say that the situation weren't great in those companies.

While I'm not trying to judge people with their morality and all that stuff, there might be something that link between founders/owners that use pirated software and the quality or how their work, attitude, and behavior.

It feels like it is inline to the example of: your past performance might be a reflection of your work ethic kind of thing.

It is probably related to integrity of the owner.

Google is 1 in a [insert the number of startups from 1998 to 2010]

1:xyz

Nothing last forever.

Eventually all the "startups that you love" will either close their door or be acquired and I think people should expect that since day 1.

He quits grad school (he has a degree already). Big difference.

No, I'm not trying to knock you off either.

... or perhaps the advantage is in the ability of people to communicate.

I've lived in a few countries and the significant difference between them is how well people communicates (i.e.: to write, to talk, to imagine and put that imagination in writing).

US is on top in terms of magnifying something that might be otherwise boring/regular story to a fairy tale.

I don't know Jessica or her company that well but I've read many articles that glorify something that may not be true. To put things into perspective: Jessica Mah is bigger than her company or her product. She is the product. I saw many of her coverages focusing mostly on her life story.

On the other hand, low energy dull people might finish longer (in life) than most of these short-burst high energy people. Have you thought about that? Most people only see what happen now (aren't we all anyway? the current instant generation). Not too many people care/think/analyze those long-term stretch.

In most companies, that's what IT is: doing the necessary stuffs to support business.

On the other hand, it's their decision to specialize in such technology. Perhaps they have the necessary business knowledge and they just need to compliment that with enough IT skills.

Please don't act like a jerk by calling them one-trick pony. There are reasons before one came to make a decision, be it quality time with family, or piece of mind, or just to get by in life and do other things outside work.

I met tons of super-ego developers who always try to keep up with the latest greatest ORM tools in different languages praising the latest technology as the "best one out there" every 2 years. They did this for their on satisfaction, not for delivering any meaningful values.

I also met "one-language per year" developers who don't know low-level OS, or how computer networks work.

I met developers who know how to write code but don't know how to perform capacity planning, security audit, or heck, even write proper unit-testing, integration-testing, and acceptance testing.

I met developers who write code according to his/her "raw talent" (you know them developers, they're smart, but they can't work well with other people. Don't even bother touching their complex code).

People come in various experience and background. Don't make generalize judgement.

Some people decided to improve their skills once every 2 years, be it learning a new programming languages or a new web-me-too-framework. To others, that's like a rat-race. By the time these developers reached 40 years old, they have learned 20 different programming languages yet they don't understand the business inside-out. They deliver great architecture yet it's not what the business need.

What's that called? one-trick pony?

But if your competitors have the same amount of experience but have picked up and used the 'latest and greatest' tools in real production environment, guess which one will get the job?

Do keep in mind that if you're 40 years old, it's less likely you'll get a job by picking up the 'latest and greatest' tools. Cause most companies that use these tools often employ workers a wee bit half over your age.

This is a very unfortunate situation in our industry.

BizDev guy says he needs one of them "programmers" who can code and don't talk back to him. BizDev guy knew almost nothing about software development or the "properties of a system software". Business didn't work out because the software is flacky. BizDev guy blames them "programmers" when changes are hard, software is super buggy.

BizDev thinks he's awesome cause he has 3 things: Money, Network and Idea. Everybody should bow down to Money.

Programmers became hateful against the BizDev guy. They say "I can do this by myself, screw you guys". Then programmers try to re-create their ideal world: solving cool problems, working with cool gadgets, in a cool office environment. Some said programmers have to work in a close office, alone GASP. Of course these silos came up with a chunk of code that probably hard to be integrated. Them programmers try to hire BizDev guy cause now the VCs are on their butt asking how money could be made. Of course it'll be hard for them programmers to hire BizDev since they have a very strong bias. They probably ended up hiring Sales Engineer instead of bright BizDev.

Programmers think they're awesome cause they have 3 things: Knowledge, Skill and Idea. Knowledge is everything they say.

This... is why 9 out of 10 startups failed. That 1 startup that succeed? the BizDev guy has an MBA and BS in CS or EE. The Programmers? they took minor in economics/commerce or accounting.

Could backfire you. There's no guarantee that this is a home-run to get a job. Keep that in mind that the world is not "ideal".

... 50 years ago that is (check their age).

BBM is the key of BB existence for regular/most BB users outside Enterprise. Without BBM, BB is probably crippled.

Only after Mac got successful. If not, it won't be the best times of their lives.

Here's another bet: ask them if they want to do that again for at least 2 more times with different companies and unknown leaders, wonder if they'll take it.

I would agree with some of the commenters: you need experience and write more code using a single programming language of your choice.

But before you do so, here are some of my suggestions, take it with a grain of salt because it may not work for you.

1) Quit HNews.

You won't learn how to build software here. Most people rehash the same "technical" speak again and again about consumer application (web scaling, javascript, functional, anti-enterprise, etc).

2) Clear your mind

Go out. Walk in the park more. Don't think too much about programming languages. I suspect you're drawn to a distortion field of "learning programming language X will make you better at Y". Once you got that cloud away, start exploring what you wanted to do.

3) Pick a language and be good with it

Again, don't worry too much about the other programming languages unless you want to learn them for the fun of it. If your goal is to build something, stick with one.

A similar set of properties can be applied to web startups as well: market is saturated, competition is strong, and the consumers are much more conservative than you think (unless if you happen to be in Silicon Valley). Keep in mind that the consumers of web startups have a very short attention time-span.

Sometime there's a good reason why web-startups are tiny part of the European ecosystems. Even if you want to have more, the market doesn't necessarily agree with your personal point of view (I don't mean to criticize you, I'm just pointing out that there might be bias in your view)

It's relative. It depends on your POV.

To some people, Hacker News is like that book. To others, HN is like a bible.

Microsoft here is just a temporary buffer for those who can't get H1-B visas. Once they're approved, MS will ship them to HQ, Redmond.

apike, one of the commenter in this thread, used to work for Apple, he might be able to give more info (and the location of this secret building).

Vision Critical looks promising since they seem to be growing quite rapidly. Another company in the same level with Vision Critical is Elastic Path.

90Degree Software used to provide BI solution as well and has a few ex-BO people (seems most of them came from Sales though). They got bought by MS either last year or this year.

One thing that strikes fear for me is the stability of these local companies. I saw somewhere that Vision Critical did a round of lay-off before. A friend of mine was going to replace my co-op position with 90Degree software couple years ago was met by a "Sorry, we made a mistake in filling our government paperwork thus unable to give any co-op opportunities for this intake". After that, I haven't heard any hiring/co-op placement anymore from 90Degree Software.

I also heard that once BOBJ was acquired by SAP, the culture seem to take a hit. Some people seem unhappy with the new overlord's action (cutting costs across the board). I suppose that's quite normal post-acquisition?

Indicee seems like a promising company a'la Web 2.0 for BI (saw the website, saw your CEO demo-ing the product in front of vicious audiences). When I browsed LinkedIN last time about Indicee, I saw many short-term employees, say 8months to 1.5 years kind of employees plus a view contractors. Care to share stories about that?

There are small game-dev shops around here and they seem to do okay, not terribly successful.

Let's recap:

- EA Burnaby/Vancouver laid off twice in 2 years

- Disney Propaganda laid off 100-200 people recently

- Nexon (or something) close the door in 2009, 90 ppl gone.

- Radical, 2008, laid-off 100 people, 2010, laid-off 90+.

- Nokia, mid-2009, closed its vancouver game studio, 100 ppl.

That's a lot of "technical" workers for such a small city like Vancouver.

It's a nice place to live. Period. Can't go further than that.

Life is about series of choices:

- Work hard vs enjoy life

- Spend time writing unit-tests vs hack and go home by 5 PM

- Come in early 8.30 and build relationship/culture vs come in at 10 and make yourself a cup of coffee.

- Today is snowing, take a day off and go to Whistler vs stuck at the office along with colleagues and have a great time not just working, but share stories (again, build culture).

- Discipline vs "It's 4PM on Friday afternoon, let it go"

What does it mean with "Specialized Knowledge". I'd like to know.

Mind if I ask you where you can get these data?

I'm a semi hard-core NBA fan.

Relying the situation to motivate you seems... um... very risky and not quite strategic.

I noticed that some people weren't born to become Jason Calacanis, Zuck, Gates, Hsieh. For these type of people, they have to play a bit safe or else they will regret their choices by cutting the oxygen lifeline and hoping by 1 year things will pick up.

Let me rephrase that: following your 1,2,3,4 steps, 10 years from now he'll probably end up either jobless, have less money in the bank, or even in less favorable situation (working for less money, worse jobs, etc).

We're using the same assumption correct? that either consulting or the product were not successful.

One gig is definitely not enough. Consultant needs to build portfolio in order to get more gigs so that they can rely less from their networks. That is to assume the OP have a pretty good connections that could help him land few gigs.

People always said that "make sure you have X-months worth of saving".

People say the following phrase quite often as well: "money is not a problem". I'll add one word to that phrase... "...yet". Money is not a problem yet (so far).

Once you started to realize that money becomes an issue, your mind will have hard time to focus and concentrate. From that point onward, whatever you'll do won't be optimal.

To sum up my advise: make sure you have a fixed stable income. Once that's taken care of, your mind will have more capacity and effort to focus on something else.

That is assuming everything will go well: this person will get a few customers ASAP, within 1 week or 2, to stay a float for at least 1 - 1.5 years.

Consulting requires networks and connections. If the person stick too long as a "Senior Software Developer" and rarely meet non-geek human being (potential customers), it'll be a while before the person can get a well-paying less-stressful consulting offers.