AskHN Digest

1. Thank HN: You helped me get a new job

Top comment by keyle

There is undeniably a positive energy around HN. It has enriched my life in many ways and opened my mind to many different fields, niche communities and many historical facts.

The world is truly filled with good people.

I'm not surprised and very glad to read about this story.

2. Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?

Top comment by nkrisc

How important it is to be able to inhabit another person's viewpoint and see things from their perspective. So much time and effort is saved in doing so.

Much of my job has become translating and mediating between stakeholders going around in circles, because each one believes their viewpoint represents the entirety of the issue. They can not understand one another because they assume the other understands everything exactly as they do. The engineer sees the issue as a technical problem, while the BA sees the issue as a process problem. They're both right, but each is only seeing half the issue.

Forget what you think you know about someone, shed your own views, listen very closely to what they're saying, and interpret what they're saying not through your own lens, but through theirs. Their viewpoints are formed through their experiences, not yours.

It's not easy and you'll get better at it the more you know someone, but there are plenty of shortcuts you can take based on your assumptions about them. Just be sure to update your mental model of them as you learn new information, usually gained by listening to what they're saying.

3. Ask HN: What were your most impactful podcast episodes from 2019?

Top comment by spikepuppet

For me it's got to be the podcast "On The Metal" by the guys over at Oxide Computer Company. I was a big fan of a lot of the talks by Bryan Cantrill and Jess Frazelle, but hearing these two talk to people who worked on such interesting problems at some amazing points in history makes me so happy.

It was also such a good reminder of why i wanted to do software, and re-ignited my love of working closer to the metal.

In terms of a single episode though, I would have to go with the interview with Jeff Rothschild. The guy had such an interesting career with some hilarious problems. Also, the most recent one with Kenneth Finnegan, while from 2020 not 2019 is honestly an amazing listen.

Link for those interested: https://open.spotify.com/show/4GDUravTUbvTrdJ2oWnzJp

4. Ask HN: Ever worked with a service that can never be restarted?

Top comment by verytrivial

My advice:

1. Suggest that the work to replace it is prioritized commensurate with the business impact caused whilst re-establishing service as if it went down right now

2. Remind them that it will go down at the worst possible time.

3. Ensure your name is attached to these two warnings.

4. Promise yourself you wouldn't run your business this way.

5. Get on with your life.

5. Ask HN: What tools do you use for data munging and merging?

Top comment by hn12345

Looks like you're looking for ETL solutions. It's funny reading some of the replies here, you can tell who's coming from a more BI background compared to a software engineering background.

Anyways, I think Alteryx does this job really well. It's great for ETL that the average Joe can pick up and learn very quickly. Sure, the UX could be improved, but it's miles better than AWS' Data Pipeline and other tools. It is a bit costly like another user mentioned, but well worth it IMO. Tableau has introduced some new products the past year or two to compete in this space as well, so if you use Tableau for reporting, look into their new offerings. Dell introduced an ETL tool a few years ago called Boomi. It had some promise a few years ago and might be something to consider. I have no idea what it costs though. Another option is SSIS if the data is eventually going to live in SQL Server or some Microsoft database.

Ultimately, I would consider options based on your target database/environment.

6. Ask HN: Why does anyone still use Medium?

Top comment by stevekemp

For the future you should say "piqued my interest".

As for Medium, it has a lot of people using it because it was popular, fashionable, and free for a long time. These days as a reader it is terrible - I don't bother clicking medium links, and as an author I'd want to host my own content, not get it mixed in with the other noise hosted nearby.

7. Ask HN: I need advice on my first B2B SaaS startup

Top comment by codegeek

I run a B2B SAAS company (small but established). I like to be straight and honest and hopefully my advice will help. You are making the classic mistake of overspending time building stuff at this point. Here is why:

You have no paying customers yet. But you are going with a "horizontal process automation platform" which means you are very generic. When you are starting out, it is better to find one specific niche and go hard at it. If you get great at it, you can then expand slowly.

If you are selling to everyone, you sell to no one (unless you are amazon but that takes 2 decades). You need to get more specific about the immediate value your product brings and to which audience ? Every business technically can automate their processes. But are you really selling to every business ? 99.9% chance you will fail if you are not established already.

Few more things:

"platform that has the potential to adapt to a lot of different industries and company sizes with the goal to automate pretty much any business process".. You are just starting out. This wouldn't work for now. Get more specific. Think of one industry to start with and then expand slowly.

"5 signed pilot agreements (to start once we finish a couple of features)"..Sorry but the moment the contract is contingent upon features, it is in trouble. The customer should have seen enough value already even though I am not undermining it completely. This is risky for you. What if you are not able to convince the customer that those features are now delivered. How specific were those features ? I would count this as no customer yet. brutally honest.

Ok, now the good news:

You have a working product. That is awesome. STOP DOING ANY MORE CODING. It is time for sales and marketing like yesterday. What marketing and sales strategies do you have in place if any between you and your cofounder ? When you say "my co founder does sales", what does that mean ? Right now, you both need to focus on Sales and Marketing.

Sorry for the long post but this hits close to my heart being a bootstrapped SAAS founder so I thought to share my own experiences.

8. Ask HN: Make something of the free time at work

Top comment by philpem

I think this is asking the wrong question.

Your team lead might not have realised that the workload is becoming sporadic.

Speak to them, explain the situation, and ask if there are other smaller tasks you could use to fill in the gaps.

If it "wouldn't seem good to bring a book to study at my desk", then it's probably not a good idea to do effectively the same thing on the computer either.

9. Ask HN: Started job 3 months ago...not going as planned

Top comment by crikli

> How long do I stick it out before looking elsewhere or even returning to my last job as I left on good terms?

Eject, as long as this isn't going to add to an existing pattern in your employment history.

People in the position to hire have more than likely been in the situation where they were sold a bill of goods, gotten on the job, and had to make the same choice.

But if this is going to be, say the third short term gig in a row, then it's going to be a hard sell that the problem has been the employers and not you.

Assuming it's the former, when it comes time to talk to other potential employers and interviewers, state the scenario factually and without rancor. "I was told during the recruiting process that we would be writing the platform in Node, turns out we were hand punching Fortran cards."

Edit (hit submit too soon): if it's the latter, then you need to stick it out for at least 12 months. There are some great comments in the thread about changing the culture, etc. I would add to those to shift your mentality from "this is my employer" to "this is a client for whom I'm going to do the best work I can for 12 months." I can yap a lot more about that shift but if you can create a mental firewall between you and the employer and minimize emotional engagement, doing the time will be easier. :)

10. Android programming, looking for good guides for beginners

Top comment by 0xcde4c3db

I'm not sure how mainstream of an opinion this is, but I'd suggest skipping Google's own tutorials. It would be reasonable to suppose that a multi-billion-dollar corporation that massively benefits from a thriving developer community would put out first-rate documentation, but I was quite disappointed by how much of an inconsistent and incomplete mess those tutorials are.

While I've only briefly skimmed it myself, I've heard a lot of good things about The Busy Coder's Guide to Android Development. Newer editions require a $20 "subscription", but older ones are available for free [1].

[1] https://commonsware.com/Android/4-2-free