HN user
shadesof
Probably my favorite TIHP episode.
When faced with a hard change, first make it easy (warning, this may be hard), then make the easy change.
This is my favorite bit. Katrina Owen mentions this in her talk on refactoring. "Make the change easy; then make the easy change."
The "Pro_Hacking" story made me laugh. In that case, I think the support person is just providing the body of a response template, where "Hello Pro_Hacking," is fixed (i.e., not something the support person can easily change).
Udacity has also partnered with Georgia Tech and AT&T to offer the OMSCS program. If this program continues to scale effectively on Udacity's platform, I imagine that more large-scale partnership opportunities will emerge. I would think that at least some of this funding is earmarked for smoothing out the platform's integration points and addressing insufficiencies revealed by this relatively new context.
Code School actually offers a course that (I would think) makes this a little less painful for the uninitiated.
Looks like it's finally a 404.
Sad. This person has obviously divorced reality. Shocking that a simple account deletion request could reveal so much. Whether his reaction was a product of pent-up frustration over normal growth challenges or a singular (now ongoing) display of gross immaturity, he has irreparably damaged his company.
That the latter is an issue does not make the former not an issue. The actions of Livecoding.tv here are reprehensible; if they didn't plan to remove the account—be the reason lack of technical capability or legal obligation—why tell the user otherwise? This is a marked display of carelessness.