Foo Hack » The Business

Programming Puzzles and Our Mismatch Problem

Isaac — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 17:00:46 +0000

In interviewing candidates for programming jobs, a common technique is to ask them to solve some programming puzzle. Makes sense, right? If the guy’s smart enough solve random silly questions, he’s probably good at programming, since that’s most of what programming is. As it turns out, this bit of common sense is common bullshit. ...Read More

OpenSocial, Meetings, and Success

Isaac — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 19:20:41 +0000

It’s a very interesting time for me at Yahoo! right now. I’d been keeping quiet about what’s going on for two big reasons. First, I’ve been too busy working to write about it. Second, it’s secret. Well, as of 2008 March 25, it was a secret. This press release broke the news ...Read More

Needed: chpass, finger, and pw for the web

Isaac — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 17:00:38 +0000

It’s been said that the best startups take a popular Unix command and bring it to the web. But there are a few that are poorly represented. I understand that I may be making a bad career move by discussing this openly on a blog, but quite honestly, my desire as a consumer for a satisfying product is enough to risk—-nay, hope—-that someone else makes a million dollars doing this before I get a chance to.

Surgical Team or Motley Crew of Adventurers?

Isaac — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 19:10:17 +0000

The Dungeons and Dragons party is, I believe, a much better metaphor for the modern programming team than Mills' and Brook's surgical team. In what has been called the geekiest thing every written, I catalog some different character classes and explain their corollary roles in a web development team. I suspect that other types of programming teams have similar roles. ...Read More

Agile Scrum Sucks (but so do the alternatives)

Isaac — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 17:00:38 +0000

Software development is not like manufacturing. Chances are wildly against getting any software product out on time or under budget. My heart goes out to project managers and executives who are tasked with controlling the chaos. I understand why many of them might grasp at ideologies that promise to solve the problems, but Scrum rarely helps the odds. If you're doing software development right, you're probably doing Agile wrong. ...Read More