Hacker News: dhmiller

New comment by dhmiller in "An API is a user interface"

dhmiller — Wed, 25 Nov 2020 15:05:48 +0000

Some developers just write bad documentation. Some spend so much time in the weeds that when it comes time to write the documentation, they write a garbled string of words that tries to address all of the edge cases with not enough emphasis on the core usage. Others don't know how to express the concept of a feature in a simple and straightforward manner.

As a member of a Developer Experience team, I can confidently say that good documentation does not require a "certified" technical writer. Good API documentation just requires that another person, who has not worked on the feature, review the documentation in code review.

As a founder, it should be important to you that your business is providing the best possible value to your customers. If your business is providing an API, then you should cater to the developers who will be consuming that API as much as you are catering to the executives who will be signing the paperwork.

New comment by dhmiller in "Remote work is not necessarily a good thing for the worker"

dhmiller — Mon, 27 Jul 2020 04:44:17 +0000

I was working from home about 2 or 3 days a week before the pandemic. I always found that the key to success is to maintain as much of my standard "going to the office" routine as possible.

- I wake up at the same time every day.

- I eat breakfast and have my morning coffee at the same time every day.

- I shower and dress the same way as if I were heading into the office every day.

- I have a dedicated place in my home that I work from every day.

- I stop working around the same time every day.

It is essential for me to do all of these things. Just because I'm not heading to an office doesn't mean that I can start my day any later. Just because I'm home and my work can be done from home doesn't mean that I should continue working any longer than I would in the office.

Maintain your schedule and routine to... maintain your schedule and routine.

New comment by dhmiller in "How Did Vim Become So Popular?"

dhmiller — Wed, 01 Jul 2020 05:31:46 +0000

There are things that vim does better. There are things that VS Code does better. There are things that Visual Studio does better. You can memorize all sorts of things about your particular editor of choice and you will be more efficient and effective in that editor.

If I wanted to cherry pick examples of what vim does better, I could start all of them with, "first ssh into a random server."

What makes vim great is that it has a tremendous number of features and is available nearly everywhere. Can VS Code do that?

New comment by dhmiller in "Flipping your Disk (1981)"

dhmiller — Mon, 30 Sep 2019 19:11:02 +0000

> The APPLE DISK is different than most other drives because it ignores the timing hole, using the motor and ‘soft’ timing techniques instead.

New comment by dhmiller in "Fingerprints could be stolen from V sign selfies (2017)"

dhmiller — Fri, 27 Sep 2019 15:25:27 +0000

I've said it many times before. Biometrics should be used as usernames and not as passwords. You should be able to change a password.

New comment by dhmiller in "Sites with dumb password rules"

dhmiller — Fri, 06 Sep 2019 13:51:00 +0000

I remember when their max password length was 8 characters. It blew my mind that a (effectively) bank had such terrible requirements. At least they fixed that

New comment by dhmiller in "‘Product engineers’ vs ‘Software engineers’ in startups"

dhmiller — Mon, 19 Aug 2019 15:51:45 +0000

What you describe as a Product Engineer, I call a Senior Engineer/Developer/Programmer/etc.

Your examples essentially differentiate between 1) a person who accomplishes an assigned task because it was assigned to them and 2) a person who knows that there is more to completing a task than meeting the defined requirements.

New comment by dhmiller in "YouTube videos that have almost zero previous views"

dhmiller — Mon, 15 Jul 2019 16:23:31 +0000

"These videos come from YouTube. They were uploaded in the last week and have titles like DSC 1234 and IMG 4321. They have almost zero previous views."

That is from the initial page load. So it would seem that the title pattern that you observed is intentional