

Old - raganwald
http://github.com/raganwald/homoiconic/blob/master/2009-01-21/old.md

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axod
What makes me feel old is seeing people using github as a blog :/

I know this is off-topic, but isn't there a way to just link to the content?
When I click on this, I can see a screen full of random bits and pieces which
are completely irrelevant, then just at the bottom of the page, I can see one
line of the post...

Guess I'm just getting old also...

~~~
raganwald
Good question. There's probably a way to link directly to github's
representation of the post, in which case you can read it in markdown syntax
rather than look at the fancy formatting.

TBH, what I like about how much github sucks as a blogging platform is that it
discourages words and encourages code. There is a "pages" feature that
publishes things as HTML pages with templates using Jekyl, but that is a
slippery slope. I know this doesn't solve your problem, but keeping it raw and
nerdy encourages me to maintain a certain words-to-LOC ratio.

Sorry about that!

~~~
defunkt
What if there was a "chrome"-less view for Markdown files? Just a quick
Firebug mockup: <http://skitch.com/defunkt/bb6p7>

Btw, the raw is pretty readable:
[http://github.com/raganwald/homoiconic/raw/master/2009-01-21...](http://github.com/raganwald/homoiconic/raw/master/2009-01-21/old.md)

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thomasmallen
There must be some reason that arrow keys and the space bar don't scroll on
GitHub. It's probably not a very good one, though. This makes scrolling
tedious for many users, including me.

~~~
defunkt
It's a bug that snuck in this afternoon. We have a fix we'll deploy soon.

~~~
thomasmallen
Great, thanks!

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Goronmon
Though not the focus of the topic, I did catch this comment.

 _You catch more flies with honey than vinegar, an old saying that seems to be
even more relevant in the age of the Internet._

Honestly, from my experience, the complete opposite is true of the internet.
Though I guess the type of flies you are trying to catch does come into play,
more of than not, you'll get a much stronger reaction from a more heated,
confrontational approach than a mellow and reasonable one. Not that I endorse
the "linkbait" approach, but hey, the word exists for a reason.

~~~
mtrichardson
I suppose if your only goal was to get traffic then a confrontational approach
might work - certainly enough blogs out there attempting to do such a thing.
That's about it, though.

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dmoney
_The voice that says “Putting several programmers in an open room where they
can interrupt each other doesn’t work, we tried that at Bell Labs in 1973” is
the voice of someone who cannot appreciate that circumstances have changed,
and that if you change a bunch of other things at the same time, putting an
entire team in a single room can be more productive than putting them in
offices with doors that close._

What would make this work now if it wouldn't work then?

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raganwald
Good question. I have met some teams that insist on private offices, and some
that get very good results with "project rooms," where everyone in the same
room is working on the exact same project.

A lot of things have changed since 1973, but also don't forget that this
straw-man argument is being made by someone with a sample size of one.
Sometimes when people say "We tried such-and-such and it failed," they are not
describing something that always or even usually failed, just that they failed
when they tried it once.

Somebody else may have tried it in 1973 and gotten wonderful results. Who
knows?

~~~
dmoney
My sample size is also one. This isn't arguing against your main point, I just
had to chime in, as it's one thing I've disliked about my company moving to an
Agile methodology. I personally find it very distracting, but that may just be
because we're doing "team rooms" wrong.

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gojomo
Old and cranky: remember failures with a single 'fail' bit.

Old and wise: remember failures in context, with a mental model of what
factors could change to make them a success.

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biohacker42
_...and that if you change a bunch of other things at the same time, putting
an entire team in a single room can be more productive than putting them in
offices with doors that close._

Could not disagree more.

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jwinter
Can someone provide a link to the reddit article he mentions at the end? I'd
like to know what old, unfinished idea might still be useful.

~~~
raganwald
<http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~dfisher/ziggurat/faq.html>

