I was one of the very first advocates for AWS back when it was brand new - SQS, S3, EC2 SimpleDB - it was a lot smaller back then. In fact I organised the very first AWS event in Melbourne when the AWS rep came from the US to evangelise. Cloud computing was an absolutely mind blowing revolution - suddenly your startup could run its own computer systems in minutes without need to install and run…
20 Dec 2021 andrew.stuart@supercoders.com.au It's a rotary phone from the 1970's. This is the sort of phone we had in the house when I was a kid. For Mum's birthday, I bought this old phone from a second hand store. I pulled it apart and installed a little computer into the phone. I connected the rotary dial to the computer. I connected the speaker in the handset to the computer. I connected the…
Recruiting junior developers is NOT the same as recruiting senior developers - a different approach is required. Junior/graduate software developers are NOT senior developers with fewer years experience. And yet, many companies interview and assess juniors/graduates in pretty much the same way as they interview senior developers. You need to change your process for assessing juniors . Senior…
You've founded your company. You've got the investor cash. Now you need to start building that application that's going to make you a bajillionaire. But first you need to hire developers to do the building. I'm going to put it out there: you should get a senior developer / senior software engineer, and you should pay them TWICE the market. So if market rate in your city is $120K, then place ads on…
Unikernels http://unikernel.org/ have been around for a while but remain a relatively unknown technology. The core idea of a Unikernel is that it is a specialised operating system that throws away pretty much everything except network and disk drivers and application code, making for a tiny custom operating system that is usually single purpose, and typically claim to be more secure and efficient…
My little boy has recently become old enough to enjoy going to the movies. What could be better than taking your kids to the movies on a Saturday afternoon? But I've found that many, if not most, supposedly G-rated movies almost always contain frankly absolutely terrifying scenes that are often quite extended. My boy jumps off his seat and hides and doesn't watch. Many of these scenes are very,…
In the Linux world, as others before have said, "everything is broken". If you are a developer or sysadmin doing anything of any significance then your ability to reach your goal is defined by how quickly and easily you can recognise and find workarounds for broken stuff. Actually, not everything is broken, but so much is broken that it feel like everything. It's the broken stuff that will take…
Over the years I've done bits and pieces of web and JavaScript development. For one of my current projects however I need to get some serious stuff done, so I knew I had to come up to speed on the state of the art in browser development. I chose to target react.js as it seems to me to promise the simplest mental model which is what I need because I am time poor. And things have changed ALOT in…
If your product has no viral mechanism, then maybe it belongs in a marketplace. So before you start developing, know which marketplace your product is suited to. Don't get to the end of the development process (as I do) and then wonder how to get it in front of buyers. Understand marketplaces in advance.