Many times. A few of my favorites:

- We upgraded our hardware and our forecasting software vendor wanted a one time $600,000 charge. I convinced my boss to replace them with in-house written software. Took 6 weeks to write.

- Our 400 worker factory was $30,000 under-absorbed per month. I wrote both standard costing and data collection software. Supervisors compared the standards to the actuals to discover where they were losing money. We were over-absorbed by $30,000 per month 6 months later.

- We budgeted over $1 million for a new ERP system to "solve all of our problems". I helped others solve most of their problems by identifying them and coming up with solutions from the existing software. We never did buy new software.

- (My favorite). Our HCFA feed from the U.S. Government was broken and no one knew why. I dug in and changed 1 byte of code (1 byte, not 1 line). The next day, our bank account had $6.5 million more in it. I never had the heart to tell them how easy it was to fix.

Original thread:  http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1843246

Very inspiring, OP. The little tips and tricks are always helpful, but what is best is getting us to think, "If he can do it, then so can I."

One giant question, though. You describe a life where you often squeeze in a few hours on your start-up here and there. This sounds like it would work rather well for repetitive tasks like stuffing envelopes, folding apparel, or answering emails. But what happens if you have trouble getting "into the zone" for writing software during your short window of opportunity.

I have found this to be my difficulty developing leading edge software. Finding time isn't always the biggest problem; getting creative is. It's tough to get creative. It's tougher to get creative when you have to right now and you only have 2 hours to work on it.

How do you handle that?

Original thread:  http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1847497

Never.

If the project was a success, I did it for the project.

If it wasn't, I did it to learn and grow.

Either way, nothing to be embarrassed about.

(Am I embarrassed by the code I wrote 3 years ago? Now that's another story.)

Original thread:  http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1843432

Every house on the street I grew up on had a front porch and 4 to 6 people living in it. Everyone knew everyone and we did everything together. There was no organized sports; if you wanted to play you just went in the middle of the street and in 5 minutes there were 10 other kids. If you wanted to take a shortcut, you just cut though people's yards; no one had a fence.

Every one of my parent's 14 siblings and my 32 first cousins lived within 10 miles. We all saw each other at least once per week.

Our mailman cut our hair, our dry cleaner picked up and delivered, our principal was also manager of the local swimming pool, and we worshipped in our neighbor's basement.

We knew the names of every police officer, fireman, cashier, clerk, waitress, gardner, and handyman in our neighborhood. If you ever needed anything, someone knew someone else who could help you. We didn't have google, cell phones, or cable TV; we had lots of other people in our lives all the time.

In college, I lived with 35 others in a fraternity house. We didn't do a whole lot of planning. There was always someone around to do stuff with.

Today, I don't know the name of a single neighbor. I don't remember the last time I lived in a house without a fence in back or with a porch in front. My nearest relative lives 1000 miles away. I know the names of exactly 2 waitresses; guess where I eat out all the time?

Loneliness probably has more to do with the proximity of people in your life than all these other "factors".

I don't know when things changed, but they sure have. Anyone with experiences similar to mine?

Original thread:  http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1301852

I'm not even going to use my stock rebuttal of "correlation != causation" because in the case of #1 through #5, I doubt if we even have correlation. For every example of a good programmer for any of these 5 that OP can provide, I can provide multiple counter-examples. None of these is much of an indicator of anything.

1. How opinionated are they?

Everyone has an opinion, assholes included.

2. How much do they contribute to open source projects?

Many of the best programmers I know contribute nothing to open source because of confidentiality agreements.

3. How much do they enjoy programming?

You mean when it's fun specing something out or at 4 in the morning when everything is down?

4. Do they actually ship?

And what does it cost to maintain or fix it? There are 2 ways to find out. a. Read the source. b. Wait a year. Which would you prefer?

5. What have they mastered?

Who cares? What they do on their own time is their own business. This is an indicator of nothing.

6. How well do they communicate?

This is important for all people, for all things, so it doesn't even need to be on this list.

So, how should a non-programmer hire a programmer?

a. Become a programmer.

b. Hire a programmer to hire a programmer.

c. Punt.

Original thread:  http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1835561

"He is dead, too much hard living!". Too much hard coding would be more like it.

Wow, those ones and zeros must have really been heavy!

Every time I see landscapers, construction workers, farmers, nurses aides, or anyone in one of my customers' factories or warehouses, I thank my lucky stars that I was born when I was, I had an aptitude and interest in programming, and I found the perfect career for me.

Sure I work hard, but my hard work is hardly the same as their hard work.

I've spent a career on my ass, building applications that hopefully make the lives of those who do physical work just a little easier.

My last career was a cook. After a 6 hour shift in a 110 degree kitchen serving 2,000 meals, a 12 hour stint in an air conditioned office in my Aeron chair seems like a vacation. Oh, and did I mention I earn more in a month than I did in a year as a cook?

I never expect my boss to thank me for anything. My boss (me) gives me the best bonus I could ever ask for. I get to do it all over again tomorrow.

Original thread:  http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1318916

You will NOT become an engineer, programmer, or web developer, but you will be able to put a prototype of your idea together and maybe get one or two beta users for feedback...

You will also be able to have an intelligent conversation with a developer.

I get sad whenever I encounter a business person with no technical bullshit filter. Not because I'm judging them, but because if I can bullshit them, any other developer can. Which probably means there's a problem somewhere that will hurt all of us.

I'll make a point to have a cursory understanding of financial statements, market segmentation, and project management if you do the same for the basic building blocks of software applications. Then the two of us will be able to talk about almost anything. OK?

Original thread:  http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1761530

This is the hardest thing for me to explain to others. And still one of the hardest for me to get used to myself. It takes a lot of time working alone to get anything done.

It may also be one of the many reasons Hacker News is so popular. I don't know about you guys, but if I didn't have this place to break up the loneliness, I'd probably go nuts.

Original thread:  http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=796573

So, printf() is your friend. Log everything your program does, and if something seems to go wrong, scour the logs to figure it out. Disk is cheap, so better to just log everything and sort it out later if something seems to be broken. There's little hope of doing real interactive debugging in this kind of environment, and most developers don't get shell access to the machines they are running on anyway.

1985: Interactive debuggers suck. PRINT() is your friend.

1990: Interactive debuggers have matured. No one uses PRINT() any more. Debugger questions are now even part of technical interviews.

2008: Concurrent processing and cloud computing have made interactive debugging difficult.

2010: printf() is your friend again.

Developing software is getting to be like fashion. Keep those old skinny jeans and workarounds in your closet. Sooner or later, they'll be in style again.

Original thread:  http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1814596

"What are some of the projects that you built using that method? Did you build anything that you later spun off into a better job or a side business?"

Just a few off the top of my head:

1. As part of the research for requirements for a new inventory package, I noticed that every pallet was counted by 3 different people and the lowest count was recorded. I worked with plant supervisors to fix the procedures. Management then realized that there was now no need for new million dollar software. They rewarded my effort and concern for the company with lots of great project work and money. Lesson: Look for the obvious first.

2. A user asked me to help solve her forecasting problem. The two of us sat down and designed the software to do it. I realized there was a parallel effort to do the same thing in another division (with an expensive purchased package), so I made my software work for both divisions. It took 3 weeks to write and people were very grateful. I was employee of the month and got a nice bonus. Lesson: Sometimes little things can solve big problems.

3. I noticed that warehouse pickers were bending and climbing ladders a lot, so I suggested modifying our inventory system to place the most popular items in bins between the knees and shoulders. The change took one week and made us 10% more efficient (a lot of money after a few months). I would have never thought of it if I hadn't been walking around, trying to understand how my software was being used. Lesson: Give yourself the chance to find opportunities.

"Did you build anything that you later spun off into a better job or a side business?"

Yes. Everything I learned using these methods went into 2 businesses: a small business software package and a consulting practice. If I hadn't stretched myself, who knows what cubicle I'd be sitting in today.

Original thread:  http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1811050