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Recently I used Fog Creek’s Copilot software to attempt to help a family member import some favorites into Firefox. I followed the original Project Aardvark team two summers ago and knew what Copilot was in broad strokes. So I ran the two minute trial and things seemed to work as expected. I bought a day [...]

Engineers like problems and businesspeople like solutions. When was the last time you heard any executive say, “let’s sit down in front of this whiteboard and try to better understand the problem at hand”? If it was recent, congratulations, you’re in a lucky minority. The truth is that the majority of executives want to hear solutions, not problems; sales, not internal struggle.

I am frequently confronted by a dilemma while working on new projects — that is, writing new code and designing new architectures. The whole time I’m designing the architecture I think of how much better it could be solved for a more general case. There is a constant temptation to step back and think of [...]

“Business is business.” says the old adage. It is, of course, true. Naïvety, anxiety, or eagerness can cloud issues of business and lead to unsupported judgments and decisions. It is not immediately apparent that trust in the business world is something to be reserved for the most solid of relationships — though none is probably [...]

Google’s hiring philosophy involves always raising the bar. They strive to find people who are better and smarter than the ones already working there, so that the average level of intelligence and ability across Google employees actually increases over time. This should be contrasted against a more traditional model where the smartest people start the [...]

“Well, it works.” The pathetic proverb of contemporary capitalist dogma. Getting something done with minimal cost and maximal return is what it’s about. Cut corners. Get away with everything you can. Lie. Cheat. Deceive. Embezzle. So long as you’re making money doing it, you’re doing it the right way. American capitalism, like all other relatively [...]

I’ve been second guessing my decision to take on another major and stay in college for one more year. Not because of the all-too-common “What is philosophy useful for?” inquisition, but because I’m restless. I realized that while most or at least some college students are timid about entering the “real world” after school, I [...]

As Evan Robinson explains in his article, Why Crunch Mode Doesn’t Work, the notion of “crunch time” was thrown away a long time ago in the industrial sector. Unfortunately, it now exists in the software development industry and might even be the norm. I think the reasons for the prevalence of this practice in software [...]

In his book, Joel on Software, Joel Spolsky talks about many dynamics of the software development business. His unpretentious and engaging writing style is just a mild benefit compared to the enormous wealth of practical knowledge he imparts on his readers. From office space to writing functional specs and readable code, Joel writes about no-nonsense [...]

There are too many times when I’m browsing the net and I come across a product or service site that is just poorly designed. I don’t have any products or services that I am offering to the public, but if and when I do, I will follow some of these basic rules. Upfront with dollar [...]