ximo @_oywl

Aspiring iOS Dev based in Seoul. I tweet when I have an epiphany or when I'm going through an existential crisis Joined January 2020

Tweets

52
Followers

13
Following

50
Likes

17

ximo @_oywl

4 years ago

f I could get people to remember just one quote about programming, it would be the one at the beginning of Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs. “Programs should be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute.”

0 0 0 0 0

ximo @_oywl

4 years ago

Understanding how someone else sees things doesn't imply that you'll act in his interest; in some situations-- in war, for example-- you want to do exactly the opposite.

0 0 0 0 0

ximo @_oywl

4 years ago

In hacking, like painting, work comes in cycles. Sometimes you get excited about some new project and you want to work sixteen hours a day on it. Other times nothing seems interesting.

0 0 0 0 0

ximo @_oywl

4 years ago

I'm not claiming I write great software, but I know that when it comes to code I behave in a way that would make me eligible for prescription drugs if I approached everyday life the same way. It drives me crazy to see code that's badly indented, or that uses ugly variable names.

0 0 0 0 0

ximo @_oywl

4 years ago

Great software, likewise, requires a fanatical devotion to beauty. If you look inside good software, you find that parts no one is ever supposed to see are beautiful too.

0 0 1 0 0

ximo @_oywl

4 years ago

Relentlessness wins because, in the aggregate, unseen details become visible. When people walk by the portrait of Ginevra de Benci, their attention is often immediately arrested by it, even before they look at the label and notice that it says Leonardo da Vinci.

0 0 0 0 0

ximo @_oywl

4 years ago

Not Leonardo. How hard he worked on part of a painting didn't depend at all on how closely he expected anyone to look at it. He was like Michael Jordan. Relentless.

0 0 0 0 0

ximo @_oywl

4 years ago

You can't do anything really well unless you love it, and if you love to hack you'll inevitably be working on projects of your own.

0 0 0 0 0

ximo @_oywl

4 years ago

I think the answer to this problem, in the case of software, is a concept known to nearly all makers: the day job. This phrase began with musicians, who perform at night. More generally, it means that you have one kind of work you do for money, and another for love.

0 0 1 0 0

ximo @_oywl

4 years ago

If you want to make money, you tend to be forced to work on problems that are too nasty for anyone to solve for free.

0 0 0 0 0

ximo @_oywl

4 years ago

The other problem with startups is that there is not much overlap between the kind of software that makes money and the kind that's interesting to write.

0 0 0 0 0

ximo @_oywl

4 years ago

Microsoft themselves did this at the start. So did Apple. And Hewlett-Packard. I suspect almost every successful startup has.

0 0 0 0 0

ximo @_oywl

4 years ago

The place to fight design wars is in new markets, where no one has yet managed to establish any fortifications. That's where you can win big by taking the bold approach to design, and having the same people both design and implement the product.