Author Archives: patrick

Use Subclasses and alternative interface implementations to reduce “future” bugs

Posted on April 7, 2011 by patrick

One of the little-appreciated consequences of subclassing or alternative implementations of Java interfaces is to reduce or eliminate “future bugs”. “Future bugs” are bugs that are currently not wrong, but will cause problems in the future. Every conditional ( if, … Continue reading →

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When to change careers (for Fred Wilson)

Posted on April 4, 2011 by patrick

Fred Wilson is wondering when to quit being a VC: I was thinking about going out on top. So few manage to do it. Shaq is warming the bench in Boston. Brett Favre should have called it quits after he … Continue reading →

Posted in career | Leave a comment

Don’t jump into a project, wade in

Posted on March 28, 2011 by patrick

When starting a new programming task (or company ), it is very tempting to just plunge in and start coding (or doing) right away. The release early-and-often mentality encourages this approach. Documentation becomes optional and design is seat-of-the-pants. Hard-lessons learned … Continue reading →

Posted in software design, starting a company | Leave a comment

Privacy is best offline

Posted on March 14, 2011 by patrick

Art Petty Eric Rodriguez has a blog post about being fired for what is said on Facebook.: Dan Leone is the perfect example; he was a stadium operations manager for the Philadelphia Eagles, and in 2009 when he found out … Continue reading →

Posted in privacy, social commentary | Leave a comment

How to change jobs and careers

Posted on March 4, 2011 by patrick

A while ago I wrote this post about the elusive hunt for “rockstars” In it I had this table which showed things from the employers perspective: Good at doing Bad at doing Like to do “Rockstar” Sweet spot“future rockstars” Hate … Continue reading →

Posted in career, interviewing, management | 1 Comment

Checklist of things to do BEFORE starting your own company

Posted on March 4, 2011 by patrick

Get incorporated as a California C corp ( $800 ). Reasons: Incorporating later can be time consuming/distracting. Procrastination makes for a harder job later. Enables taking any investment directly in the company, rather than as a personal loan. (i.e. company … Continue reading →

Posted in starting a company | Leave a comment

How to do “status meetings” right (aka avoiding “Death-by-Status”)

Posted on March 4, 2011 by patrick

A truism in the start-ups v. “big” company battle is that start-ups have a big advantage because they don’t have to waste time in internal communication. Status meetings are quick and focused; not long-drawn out off-site affairs. However, many startups … Continue reading →

Posted in management, starting a company, technical | Leave a comment

Party like it’s 1611 aka living credit card and (dollar) bill-free

Posted on February 3, 2011 by patrick

Late last year I found out from a friend that the U.S. Mint is making a strong effort to get the $1 Coin into circulation. For no shipping and handling fees, the U.S. Mint will send to consumers $1 Coins … Continue reading →

Posted in political, random silliness, rants | Leave a comment

Internet businesses should pay sales tax

Posted on January 30, 2011 by patrick

Update (15 April 2011) : O.k. boy did I miss the boat on this one. As as been pointed out in a series of comments on techcrunch ( I would post the link to the techcrunch post except with facebook … Continue reading →

Posted in political, rants, social commentary | 5 Comments

How to do a redirect after POST

Posted on January 25, 2011 by patrick

Continuing an StackOverflow answer: Its a little non-obvious but: create a keyed-object in the user session. the value is a Request + java Future for the result return immediately with a client-side redirect. while the client-side redirect is being handled, … Continue reading →

Posted in code review, technical | Leave a comment