It doesn't take very advanced english to know:

and

are mutually exclusive.

You really think using an existing method that already exists is writing code? I obviously meant I didn't bother to try and re-write the heavier components.

If browser is IE use IE's method for making an event else use everyone elses method.

Congrats you wrote your own cross browser solution that lets you add events to something.

Wow, look at this. http://microjs.com/#events , 30ish other people are doing the same exact thing except they are also adding more stuff.

Anyone have 5 minutes to just review / grade a portfolio "blog" about .Net/C# that I will use to apply for Jr .Net jobs?

pm me then
Thx

Sure, I'd be happy to, especially since I'm hiring for those jobs right now. lol.

A big part of what Facebook was buying with Instagram was the people who built Instagram.

that doesn't sound right. the best programmer who has ever lived doesn't have a price tag like that. i've read a couple articles since my original question and it sounds like it was a long term strategic move more than anything, to strengthen their mobile presence and preempt other big players from taking that market over. that at least seems semi-reasonable i guess.

john stewart did a bit on the price of the buyout that was pretty funny (starts ~ 2:30):

http://mashable.com/2012/04/11/daily...oogle-glasses/

I read some articles which also spoke about the long term mobile plan, but also that it was a very important strategic move to acquire Instagram before Google did.

If Google purchased Instagram, it would have been a serious competitor and I think this article said it might even block Facebook out of some mobile photo sharing that it desperately wants to control.

I think it shows that at the end of the day, Facebook is about sharing pictures, and if that gets taken away, there is nothing left.

Oh and to add to my list if I somehow magically find time to add another item it'll probably be a Lisp...most likely Clojure. Anyone done anything with Clojure?

(same question for Erlang, Prolog and also taking comments on the list ldo)

Really interesting slideshow about Instagram scaled to 30 million users http://www.scribd.com/doc/89025069/M...ling-Instagram

clown,

i've got a buddy who started adding something about type checking to the clojure compiler last weekend. he, uh, seems to like it .

(specifically, he has spoken positively about how easy it is to grab 3rdparty java code (which exists for just about anything you'd care to do) and integrate it with clojure code in a pleasant way.)

so will a java program and clojure program implementing the same algorithm perform close to identically?

My (uneducated) guess would be yes. Depends on how they are compiled to JAVA bytecode though.

I read something recently that valued employees in an acquisition at ~$1M each. Think of how hard it is to hire great developers... imagine how much harder it is to find smart people who can build a highly successful product from scratch. There's so few of them, it's almost certainly worth that money to get them on board for a guaranteed period.

I think the right way of looking at it (assuming the people don't just retire or are at least motivated during their mendatory time at the new company) is that you basically hire proven tech entrepreneurs.
Basically you can usually turn over the acquired stuff to maintanance workers or greatly reduce the time the newly bought devs work on it...and you can let those guys innovate on new entrepreneurial stuff except you don't have to buy it out because it's now intrepreneurship that they perform which tends to be cheaper.

Zurvan I think what you say is pretty true and also holds for the non-gurus. It would probably be a decent idea for mildly good tech folks to simply shop around and ask for 20k signing bonuses etc.
Most IT folks that aren't entrepreneurial are pretty lousy negotiators though (as are the entrepreneurs usually FWIW) and to make matters worse many IT folks underestimate their own skills (or I guess overestimate the average skill pool).
Many companies have defalut payments in the 5k range if your "find a friend to work there" so I'd guess you could actually bargain for a decent chunk more (and cut out the middle man).

Lol I cannot belive that I just learned this useability feature of FF that I had never discovered before by reading HN comments

it's hard, but it's not that hard. i don't know how many employees they had, but i'm sure the bulk of the genius, as it were, is concentrated in like 5, mayyyybe 10, people. even at 1M each, that is like 1% of the purchase price. the people would be gravy, not the main reason for the deal. also, do we even know that the instagram founders made an employment deal as part of the buyout?

One million for a person is ridiculous. Maybe for the executive/founder level people (and that still seems like a big maybe) but certainly not for your standard dev (even if they're really good).

My impression has been that this isn't how it works. Most stories I've heard about acquisition continue having the executive team manage their old company. It makes sense since they have a proven track record - and managing a division that you just paid a crapload of money for is still really important. I highly doubt that Facebook will come in and tell the Instagram people to stop working on all their future feature ideas and just start treating it like a maintenance project.

yeah i think it's high too, i was just saying that even IF you accept that premise, it still doesn't make sense as a significant reason for the deal

Zurvan,

I work with IT contracting. It can take many forms. Most of the people I have working for me are grinder types, but I have worked with 2 people were complete subject matter experts.

1 guy in particular is a Linux genius. He can do the work of a 3-4 person team. I had him working with a Sr. director who said he got 4 months of work done in 2 weeks, so he had my consultant train his infrastructure team for the remainder of the contract.

This Sr director's company is owned by a 20 bil+ company.

You could get him for like 300-350k a year but he prefers remote cause he loves snowboarding.


Paying 1 mil to get good developers is absolutely ridiculous and makes no sense and no one "developing" is worth anywhere close to that as an up front cost. If this is someone who is gonna be a C-level executive and develop internet sensation products that is not a developer. No one is with that much, I wish they were.

Heh, so as my ticket out of California I took a job not on the programming side but on the digital communications side.

I'm doing my best to be nice when a tech guy gently explains to me something I know from experience is not so.

neil,

you're moving away from california?

I know cases like this as well, most noteably SAP IdM but usually the team only keeps working on it if the technology was the major reason the company was bought. Instagram is basically a userbase grab/deny imo with some extra benefits.
Facebook probably has some app/mobile ideas of their own that they could put Instagram people on.

I think there's developers that are worth 1 million/year without blinking an eye. Obviously most people disagree. The "problem" in IT is that some people are really a ton better than others but the pay difference is not nearly wide enough to refelct this.

Do any of you have recommendations of things to do in California? My brother is giving a talk there at Devcon5 (40 miles south of San Francisco) and has decided to make a week holiday of it and is looking for things to do!

Being worth 1mil/year is not the same as being worth 1mil as an up front signing bonus.

I agree with your "problem" but the biggest problem is the way that some companies still look at IT. I had someone tell me the other day that the "max bill rate" for a 7-10+ year architect level developer for their company is $75. I could send them a guy that has been basically sucking for 7 years for $75 and a guy that is actually a 7-10+ year Sr. Developer for $125-$140. They will never even look at the more expensive guy, even though their company is 2k+ ee's and he is probably worth between 5-10 times the value of the $75 guy.