mak120

Related: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2800538

I don't think the impact that stackexchange has had on the programming community is even well understood or appreciated yet. Still for many of us it is already hard to imagine a world without something like stackoverflow.com. It is a tool that we rely upon every day, not unlike Google. Thank you Jeff.

Its a nice project and great effort no doubt. But I am not convinced bundling an IM client into a browser is necessary or even a good idea.

That is exactly the way almost every non-tech/nerd I know uses Facebook. Setting up a website is too much work. And I can understand that for them having to remember several logins and unconnected accounts (one for photo sharing, another for email, yet others for IM, blog etc.) is a lot less attractive than one site that lets them do all of the above (albeit with much less control and privacy, neither of these cause them to lose any sleep).

As for me, since most of my non-tech friends are on facebook anyway I have to keep my presence there to keep in touch. I have to admit, facebook is a pretty effective way of keeping in touch. I know I can call/email or meet in person - which I do for my inner circle of close friends. But the fact of the matter is a lot of my friends live abroad and international calls are expensive. Also, we seldom feel the need to make a call or send an email unless there is something specific we want to talk about (but that could be just me). OTOH, placing a small comment on Facebook seems a lot more effortless. The other party can also not feel compelled to answer. And there are a lot of friends I have on facebook who I don't want to lose contact with but don't want to have a day to day relationship with either (i.e. saying hi or meeting up once in a while - but not hanging out every weekend or constantly IM-ing every day).

Another thing is, apart from facebook chat, all interactions on facebook are semi-live at best. I can post a comment and the reply does not have to instant. This is good, especially if the other party lives in a very different time zone.

I am also on G+, but unfortunately most of my non-tech friends find it rather confusing, empty or just ignore it altogether. Which is a shame because liked it from the start.

It lists Bangladesh as formerly being a part of India. That is not just an error in a date - it is just factually wrong.

Bangladesh got recognition from the UK and several European countries in 1971 AFAIK. By December of 1971, even the armed conflict was over.

Actually, being off by one year isn't such a big deal. Most maps from the first half of 1971 would not show Bangladesh. But it lists Bangladesh as being previously of India before 1971. That is just wrong since it was part of Pakistan from 1947 to 1971.

Bangladesh became independent in 1971 not 1972. And it was not formerly part of India, but was part of Pakistan. Makes me wonder what else is wrong in that chart.

Its a nice Dynamic programming problem. The beauty of DP is that simply memorizing one application of it does not guarantee you a solution to an entirely different problem that might have a similar Dynamic Programming solution. Look over the TopCoder SRM archives if you don't believe me.

So even though you are retiring this one, coming up with something similar that tests for basically the same things shouldn't be impossible.

I recently interviewed at Google and got an offer. I live in Bangladesh and I am pretty sure no one involved in the interview process ever heard the name of my university or cared what my CGPA was. So, the part about coming from an elite school does not make a lot of sense to me.

The interviews were intense but all the interviewers were very friendly. I got stuck at several problems but was given a lot of hints. And even when I completely missed an answer, the interviewer was nice enough to point it out without sounding rude or arrogant - or making me feel like an idiot. I must say this was unexpected since I did make quite a few mistakes.

The way I see it, knowing about the right tool to use is important and useful in our day to day work. But the guys at Google often have to create the tools themselves (or better versions of them) for the scale at which they work. Also, I got the feeling they want their engineers to be aware about what actually goes on inside the framework/tool/database etc. instead of just using it like a black box.

I was recently asked "Why did you learn <language X>, especially when there was no scope for its use in your career at the time?". I found out it was an almost impossible to understand concept for the asker.

Most people are so obsessed with counting the pictures, they cannot imagine someone doing something else.

Can't help feeling a little sad. The same feeling when the Concorde was retired.

Its not sad that these awesome machines are being phased out. Machines/designs become old and obsolete all the time. But in this case, there is simply nothing better to replace it. It is as if this was as far as mankind could go and have to turn back.

Here's to hoping that some day there will something more ingenious that will be a worthy successor.

Agreed. Saying because you can do <insert easy/trivial task here> you are in the top X percent just means that the rest of the (100-X)% are incompetent. Being "above average" isn't really saying much when the average is dismal.

I interviewed with them recently (got through phone interviews and am waiting for a visa for my onsite interview), and I never got any trick/puzzle questions that need no programming to solve. I did get questions about simple CS concepts and had to write code for programming problems on a shared google doc. Nothing any ordinary CS graduate wouldn't know. I made mistakes, which my interviewers always guided me to correct. They don't expect you to write a flawless binary search - they know you'll make mistakes. What they want to see is how you think and how you code, and how you recover from mistakes. Also, that you know what binary search is in the first place.

That was my first interview, and they said at first it was going to be a coding interview. My next interview was a design interview. We talked at length about designing a simple web application, which got increasingly sophisticated as we progressed. But my interviewer did ask me to write code to demonstrate what I had in mind from time to time and I had to code up some small methods and classes to show him. No puzzles. No CS theory or abstract problems. Just what I would do if I were building a real world application.

Oh, and they asked about what projects I had worked on both interviews.

I have been an interviewer in the place where I work currently, and I always asked candidates to write code. Some guys here ask puzzles, but I don't like that. Puzzles (like how to find you who's lying in an island on people or something) don't really show anything in an interview situation. But a short programming problem, demonstrating the ability to identify and use a well known data structure or algorithm, or to use good sense and understanding to design a solution to a problem does go a long way to show that a candidate can actually code and get stuff done. I've seen lots of bad candidates impress us with their knowledge of tech buzzwords, past projects in their CV and even talking about design patterns, but fail miserably when asked specific questions or writing even the simplest amount of code.

But if someone asks me about trains and birds, I would seriously reconsider working there

I come off with the feeling it is actually composed by an Iranian (possibly a team but could be an individual) who is clearly motivated to make "politically correct" (from the POV of the Iranian govt.) speeches. He goes to great lengths to praise his government, ambassador and president while denouncing all dissidents, separatists, Israel and the US. I cannot help feeling he/they have some connection with the government. Possibly the whole teenage cyberpunk rhetoric was deliberate (see repeated "hard for you easy for me" and "I was so fast" and the absurd "I will factor large integers") and little more than a poorly executed smoke screen to divert attention.

By the same logic, were the Nazi trials at Nuremberg a violation of German sovereignty?

There is something heroic about taking a bullet for your friend and not shying away from your duty for your country (even if it is run by evil maniacs). Couldn't help feeling sad.

Yes, he could not say the names of all US presidents at age 6. I doubt Einstein ever tried memorizing the names of all US presidents when he was child. He wasn't in the US then. :)

Python Paradox was written quite some time ago. Back then there were far fewer jobs for Python. python has become a lot more mainstream since then, hence your story of learning Python just for the sake of getting a job. IMHO, the idea of the Python paradox no longer applies to Python today.

Most of the other comments already voice my reaction to this post. I will only add that a "heads will roll" attitude towards motivating devs on the part of management would prompt me to switch to some other place very fast. Simply saying "you have to do X as well as Y or heads will roll" just sounds like trying to save money on QA and squeezing more work out of devs - who could be putting that time and effort to much better use improving the product.

This post does raise some real issues about ubuntu (namely support for multiple screens). But its a shame it quickly regresses into the same old "I'm not used to it and so it is bad" sort of rant. I found it annoying that the author assumes he somehow spends more time on his PC and uses it in more ways than any Linux user. Really dents his credibility there.

So, I guess you could just pick up an illiterate guy with good people skills to run a large corporation or be the president?

I live in a country where cheating is rampant (although it has gotten a little better in recent years). Most of the best students (in terms of grades) at my university were outright cheaters, or employed other indirect means of academic dishonesty. Most blamed the teachers for making the courses "unpassable".

You know what, no course is "unpassable". Its just something people make up to justify their incompetence and laziness. Yes, some educators are pretty bad, while others just don't care enough to stop this. But no matter what the teachers and authorities try, you cannot stop a reasonably adept cheater from using some way of gaming the system. People who are not interested in learning will cheat no matter what.

Trying to lay the blame on the education system and the students is like a drug dealer saying he is not to blame but the addicts are. By providing this service, people like him are making the cheating option easier for students.

I just seem to get the vibe that he is just frustrated that his novel got rejected by his university. This, compounded by financial (and perhaps academic and social?) problems, possibly results in him being bitter about university and the education system as a whole. He has every right to have whatever opinions he has. But IMHO he is no rebel working to dismantle a corrupt system. He's just a bitter writer exploiting and fueling the immorality of some people to make a buck.

(Disclaimer: I am not an educator (I work as a software engineer) and I don't even have any post-graduate degree. I just don't like people who go about buying and cheating their way through life while the rest of do it the hard way.)

One of my all time favourite CS books. I especially liked the Alan J. Perlis quote at the start.

Perhaps you are implying the Dragon Book is not needed for people who will use tools like lex and yacc to generate it.

While that is true, the Dragon Book gives real insight into how a compiler really works and how to code one from scratch. If someone is only interested in getting a very basic compiler up and running quickly and not interested in understanding how to really make one, a simple tutorial for yacc should suffice.

I think the author at least has a point, but I totally disagree with his use of the word 'ponzi' here. It looks like yet another cheap attempt to make something look horribly bad by just tacking on a term that is hated/disliked widely.