The Philosophist by Philip Dhingra
The Selfish Case for Good Character
I’ve had three business partners in my life (1994, 1999, and 2006), and all three partnerships ended in tears. All three startups were…either washes or failures. I’ve often asked myself, “How am I supposed to succeed in tech without good partners?” So many great tech success stories were founded by duos: Think Paul Allen and Bill Gates, Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. ¶ It seems we know more about how not to find good people. If you type in “don’t work with” into Google, autocomplete suggests “don’t work with friends” and “don’t work with family.”
Philip DhingraMar 30
TED Talks will be considered middle-brow in retrospect
Despite the outcry over teens and texting, the Internet has been one of the largest booms in literacy, depending on how you define it. If…you define literacy broadly as the spread of words all that comes with it — ideas, culture, etc. — then the Internet has been rocket fuel. This is why the bar for quality television shows has risen so much: The world is so much more literate now. Overwhelmed with so much content, everyone can be more selective. ¶ But this also raises the bar for what is and isn’t middle-brow. The fascination with TED talks may, in retrospect, be viewed as a relic of the “early” Internet, whereby the bite-sized…Philip DhingraJan 10
Why I Skip Stack Overflow
In order to make myself a better coder, I avoid reading Stack Overflow (SO) answers until I’ve exhausted all other efforts. Computer…systems are designed to be figured out from their manuals or APIs. Some systems are unclear, in which case I’ll Google for the answer, but only read articles people wrote and posted on their own sites. This is the same as looking up the answer in a programming book, which are written as clearer, extended manuals. ¶ The problem isn’t with SO, but with what going down that path entails. Oftentimes, your initial question is the problem.Philip DhingraFeb 20