13rules

Then why are you doing it? No one is forced to go to college. Nothing is stopping you from doing anything else.

If you want a "job" and a "career" working for someone else, then you probably will need a degree — there just isn't any way around that. You don't want to do it, but that's just what you will have to do because that is what is expected by the majority of people doing the hiring. Of course, if that's what you want, you should probably just get used to it because having a job means that someone else will be deciding what you do long after you are out of college.

If you want to chart your own course and be in control of what you pursue — then go do something on your own. Start something.

I wouldn't go to college with this mindset: "to learn something I already know". If you do, you won't learn anything, because you've already predisposed yourself against it. Go with an open mind. Look for opportunities. Collaborate with others. Find the best and the brightest — those in your class that are on your level — those that are ABOVE your level ... and learn from them, work on things with them, and learn everything you can not only about code, but people.

And never stop learning outside of your official classes. Keep pouring yourself into the things you love. Become an expert.

“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.” ~ Mark Twain

When it's an email like the one from this blog I actually do feel that they are looking to engage — even though I know the email itself wasn't sent personally.

I like the invitation to reply — I've done that several times with a random question or thought about the product / service. Knowing that the person on the other end expects and welcomes those kinds of random emails is helpful. Otherwise, I probably wouldn't send it — and I expect many others feel the same way, which is why these types of emails are seeing a lot of success.

It limits the number of people who are going to show up and ensures that there is some level of interest by all in attendance. Even if 1000 people go to the first conference, that is hardly a big money maker — $350,000 disappears quickly with costs associated with hosting the conference.

They will make money, but it's hardly a boondoggle. The real benefit for Dropbox is getting 500-1000+ developers all in the same location sharing ideas, creating, giving them feedback, etc. A few days of a conference is worth months of emails/tweets/HN/etc — in both directions.

Those complaining about the price probably don't have any business interest in Dropbox and are unlikely to attend — which should suit everyone just fine.

Or do you want to sell your product?

It boils down to that. Spend your time doing what you are GREAT at and what you WANT to do. Are you great at email deliverability? Do you want to spend your time becoming an expert on that? Probably not.

I know how to change the oil in my car. I know how to mow my lawn. I know how to clean toilets. I don't do any of those things because they are a huge waste of my time that is better spent elsewhere. Same thing goes here.

Your CSS file would like a word.

People are willing to trade a small reward for themselves for a larger reward that a group can achieve.

Well, with only five minutes left they are! Especially if it means they will lose the game if they don't.

I agree with your premise to just keep pushing forward, always making progress — but some things do have deadlines which are unavoidable.

We need to share more like this among entrepreneurs — the Marc Andreessen quote about the entrepreneurial roller coaster of euphoria and doom is spot on.

I'm reading that causes a little bit of downtime and AWS' recommendation for zero downtime is to create a new environment and then switch the CNAME to point to the new environment once it is ready... Seems like a little bit of an ordeal for pushing out changes.

Thoughts?

This should be on a poster.

End-users don't care about any of the behind the scenes stuff that developers sometimes get completely distracted by — they care if it works. If it solves their problem and does what they want/need it to do, then it works ... if not, it doesn't. What goes on behind that? Irrelevant to them.

This isn't 7th grade — come up with another word that really means what you want to say. There are a lot of ways to disagree with someone and/or an idea without the derogatory language.