Patrick McKenzie

Devops actually makes things a little easier I think. With Ansible, setting up a server on AWS feels a little like maintaining a vimrc file. Get a starter playbook from someone and run that to setup a server on AWS. Then you modify as needed as you go through your days as a developer. The great thing about Ansible playbooks is that it codifies the setup. You have a "recipe" that you can modify and run as needed. For me, this is much better than the days where I would set up a VPS "firing from the hip." If you had me setup 10 different servers, I would have set them up 10 different ways.

I think for development knowledge in general, it might be good to look at the following people...

http://www.kalzumeus.com/ (patio11 here)

http://brennandunn.com/

http://unicornfree.com/

Take a read through. For these guys, it's all about products. In the end, that's all that matters. Maybe try for a change of perspective where you look at your skills in terms of products.

In Amazon, there are probably projects where they lock developers in dark basements to learn arcane crafts so specialized that these engineers forget how to spell their name. These engineers would probably struggle just the same as you if the need for these specialties were to disappear. Faced with the need to "retool" - would they be able to do it? Some might, some might not.

There is (and probably will be for quite some time) still a lot of need for people doing the sort of "LAMP" development that you cut your…

Honestly, if she’s ready to graduate High school and enter college, she’s old enough to be researching those questions on her own (not that you can’t too). She should be, too. Learning how to learn in your industry is an actual skill to learn. Learning what the “pulse” of the industry is will also be valuable for her during studies and beyond, and she’ll also meet peers who can have those discussions with her.

That said, I think for many this forum is actually the place to learn about the industry. It’s too broad an industry to find more specifics without knowing her interests. Does she like startups? Does she care more about the business side? Financial tech? AI? App development? Does she not know?

This site is honestly a great mixed aggregator of other sites. Find interesting ones and see the other posts. She’s in HS so the bar is low on deep technical knowledge and expectations. She should probably focus less on intense research topics unless she has an actual interest in a more academic side (simply because academic research is less approachable to someone without much academic experience).

If she doesn’t have an answer to those questions, I would say she just start googling things that pique curiosity. “How does X work” is how I started. That’s how I learned which buzzwords and jargon mattered to me. Probably more approachable for a younger person earlier on the journey.

Here are some newsletters I follow. My interests skew towards business.

Bits About…

Submission

I cannot stress enough the importance of reviewing the App Store Review Guidelines before submitting your app. My recent app got rejected because of a problem that I literally fixed in 5 seconds, but I have to wait another week before it will be reviewed again. Don't let that happen to you.

https://developer.apple.com/appstore/resources/approval/guidelines.html

Marketing

Think about how you will market your app. For your app, I would research the marketing origins of startups like Uber and Lyft. A "Show HN" is a great place to get feedback, but it is unlikely that the HN community is your target market. Go to Twitter, Google+ Communities, and find forums tailored to carpooling and ride sharing. Hit the blogs!Often times, moderators of blogs will give you FREE advertisement, just because you made something that their readers will enjoy. Do not spam, and hang around in each community you post in for a while. Then, if you haven't already, start a blog. Start writing about your app, carpooling, and other things that you want to be known for.

Here are some well-known blogs that are great for learning how to market your products:

http://www.kalzumeus.com/

http://nathanbarry.com/

http://brennandunn.com/ - This one is focused more on freelancers, but Brennan provides really helpful advice that applies to almost all situations

But every business is always looking to maximize, but why is there a sort of contraction, and why now?

There used to be a period of “Patrick McKenzie way of doing business” during 2005-2020 (https://www.kalzumeus.com/):

- Be nice with customers,

- Reimburse when they haven’t used the software,

- Provide value, even with 3 fields on a webform,

- And you’ll get positive feedback loop into higher revenue, even with a crappy layout,

It was the time of Basecamp and Joel on Software. It was the time of Atlassian. It was the time of entrepreneurs being cool kids.

What happened is the Schumpeter cycle (40-70 years, as opposed to Kondratiev cycles, 5-7 years due to stock movements). Internet entered a more stable phase, instead of the startup phase. The cake is now limited, everyone has reached peak time spent on phones, the eyeballs you get are eyeballs someone else doesn’t. The goal is to stay big. Now, to be heard, you need a designer, not only for your services, not even for your software, but even to publish your CVE (Heartbleed). If it’s not sexy it’s not worthy.

Unless, of course, unless all of these Twitters and AirBnbs were fluff that can go away without any part of the economy depending on it, in which case we’ll just see another short cycle until we invent the final technologies/services which will stay.

I suppose it would be backwards from what you typically experience.

Let me try again: You're looking for a piece of software, you need it, and are ready to buy. Let's call it a CRM and the feature you're looking for the ability to add a new contact from the main screen. (It could be anything and any feature, but just as an example)

During the demo, you love the software, the people instill confidence, and you can see yourself using this everyday. If it takes three extra button clicks to add a new contact (giving you a workaround) would this make you happy?

Or you're really happy with everything, and the choice is to sign the contract and we would have the button before install date (written in the contract.) Would that be a better option?

I'm interested in how you as the person listening to the demo, would take those two options (giving only one option would be presented during the demo) Does this make more sense?

As a reference, The guys at Close.io use the first option ( http://blog.close.io/)
patio11 (who is kicking around here) uses the second option (http://www.kalzumeus.com/)

1) Remember that tech news is biased towards that kind of people. They are the "ideal", young "wizkids", the ones that fit the narrative. The fact that you don't hear about 30 or 40-something entrepeneurs/engineers with great ideas that make a difference and/or make millions doesn't mean they don't exist.

2) You need to understand that there is always going to be somebody better, more talented and/or more hardworking. Remember to play the market, assess yourself objectivly, understand your strengths, understand the context, see the real problem, know where to push and get good at timing your pushes. Don't bruteforce, be sophisticated, precise and elegant. And most importantly, understand that the alternative to "The Constant Grind" is NOT being a couch potato. Remember that beating yourself accomplishes nothing. Be prepared to accept that if the procastination is too deep maybie, just maybie, you might just be lying to youself when you say you "love" what you are doing.

3) Read Patrick Mckenzie's blog: http://www.kalzumeus.com/