joshuago’s Bookmarks

Grow organically. Have users from day one. Don't do a Hollywood style launch.

Tips for being a more productive programmer. Avoid distractions. Work in long stretches. Use succinct languages. Keep rewriting your program. Start small.

Run upstairs. A startup is like a mosquito. For potential acquirers, the most powerful motivator is the prospect that one of their competitors will buy you. The second biggest is the worry that, if they don't buy you now, you'll continue to grow rapidly and will cost more to acquire later, or even become a competitor. Users are the only real proof that you've created wealth. Wealth is what people want.

How to structure your CSS for a web application. Great for programmers who have to design because it emphasizes modularity and separation of concerns in CSS.

The founding document of The Economist.

Remember to ask the all-important question of why you're building a website, even if it looks like everyone else is enthusiastic about building one just for the hell of it. Everyone will be happier and better off if you ask.

The desire to redesign is aesthetic-driven, while the desire to realign is purpose-driven. One approach seeks merely to refresh, the other aims to fully reposition and may or may not include a full refresh.

Putting more logic into the model rather than the controller makes the code more readable, maintainable, and testable.

The classpath is the connection between the Java runtime and the filesystem. It defines where the interpreter looks for .class files to load. The basic idea is that the filesystem hierarchy mirrors the Java package hierarchy, and the classpath specifies which directories in the filesystem serve as roots for the Java package hierarchy.

Researchers have shown it takes about ten years to develop expertise in any of a wide variety of areas, including chess playing, music composition, telegraph operation, painting, piano playing, swimming, tennis, and research in neuropsychology and topology. The key is deliberative practice: not just doing it again and again, but challenging yourself with a task that is just beyond your current ability, trying it, analyzing your performance while and after doing it, and correcting any mistakes. Then repeat. And repeat again.