I don't try to avoid procrastinating.

Ok, that sounds wrong. Let me try again: I find that when I'm procrastinating about writing a particular piece of code, it's because there's something nagging at my subconscious telling me "this isn't the right way to solve this particular problems -- go away and think some more".

Once I know what the next step is and know that it's the right next step, I find that I don't procrastinate any more.

After having explored "new technologies" since my graduation in 99, I paused myself and has started moving back in time, discovering things like Lisp, Smalltalk, vim and bash. I picked up Python and rediscovered a beauty of a simple text file without XML garbage. All of that feels very "fresh" to me after years with COM-ActiveX/Win32/XML/XSLT/XPath/.NET and other "ex-new" tech.

Besides, what is "new"? MVC has been something of revelation to most web "engineers".

In fact (or maybe it comes with age) I started to dislike new stuff, like Flash/Flex/Air. I see a great danger of "web runtime" being controlled by a company. If they won't stop, Adobe will soon become "Microsoft of the Web" because they'll be controlling "Web OS". This is why I want AIR to fail and I hope that more web applications stick to HTML/CSS/JavaScript as opposed to moving to Adobe world.

For same reasons I always stayed away from Java. Same applies to Silverlight.

I do like D though (the language). But the author made two crucial mistakes that will inevitably hurt this beautiful systems programming language: he picked a name that does not work with search engines at all, and he decided to control too much - won't even let other people to distribute binaries of his compilers.

Q: I have worked in various technologies businesses, but I understand that you do not typically invest in the technology sector. Why is that? How do you view technology as an individual and as an investor?

A: Technology is clearly a boost to business productivity and a driver of better consumer products and the like, so as an individual I have a high appreciation for the power of technology. I have avoided technology sectors as an investor because in general I don't have a solid grasp of what differentiates many technology companies. I don't know how to spot durable competitive advantage in technology. To get rich, you find businesses with durable competitive advantage and you don't overpay for them. Technology is based on change; and change is really the enemy of the investor. Change is more rapid and unpredictable in technology relative to the broader economy. To me, all technology sectors look like 7-foot hurdles.

Large-scale text mining (Google/Wikipedia). There's boatloads of patterns and data latent in an enormous popular text corpus.

For instance, if you have two terms, and you want to see how similar they are, that's P(A|B). So do a search query for A&B and for B, and P(A|B)=P(A&B)/P(B), and that's a first approximation, a Google Distance, for arbitrary terms.

The information silos are only a couple years old, and already they're so valuable. I can't wait until the Internet's a century old.

machine learning

Open Source (or available source) and business is a tricky combination. We (Virtualmin, Inc.) are predominantly an Open Source based company, though we also have some proprietary products--but even the proprietary products include all of the source in a non-obfuscated form. We have not had significant problems with folks absconding with our source...but we have such a strong brand and awareness of our product and Open Source projects that we aren't afraid of someone launching a competitor based on our code.

That said, I suspect you won't gain much by distributing source in a wholly proprietary product. Customers might occasionally find a bug or two, and might have some interest in modifications...but you can solve the former by fixing problems quickly, and the latter by providing an API. So, while your particular fears are unfounded. Why would someone steal your code, when there is probably better-documented Open Source software to do roughly the same things from a developer perspective? Where proprietary software can win is on usability, UI, support, and sometimes more rapid innovation if the field doesn't have thousands of developers.

As slashcom mentioned, you need to be very clear about the terms of use of your software if you include source, and if you mention inclusion of source code on the website as a feature. Like izak30, your customers may wrongly assume you're talking about Open Source software. We still get occasional users who find ways to misunderstand our license terms because we offer an Open Source version of our product.

Good luck, whatever you decide.

Buffet doesn't actually tell you to save sex until you're old. The actual quote from the article is about him talking to a young MBA grad:

"I asked him what he wanted to do for his career, and he replied that he wanted to go into a particular field, but thought he should work for McKinsey for a few years first to add to his resume. To me that's like saving sex for your old age. It makes no sense."

>Paul Graham, arguably one of the most important figures in the Internet's history

Now that's just a little bit ridiculous, no matter how good his essays are.

http://www.unc.edu/depts/jomc/academics/dri/pioneers2c.html

Jesus... yet another email bashing BS. Email has always been for "old people" because it's (mostly) a working tool. Kids don't like to do work, they like to play.

It's like saying that "doing dishes is dead. leaving them dirty all over the place is the future".

Here's the actual conversation, as close to verbatim as I can remember:

  Q: What can we do to make Britain better for startups?

  A: Well, when you're doing badly at something, the first
     step is to admit it-- to say, Ok, we suck, now what
     do we have to do to get better?

I certainly never said British startups suck. If I'd been getting specific, I might have said British investors did, but I didn't even say that.

This whole article reads like what I said run through a blender.

i've been called worse

I'd actually suggest that real programmers expect non-Microsoft languages to be Open Source, eg, without restrictions on binaries.

It's all about eliminating distraction. That means an isolated location, with sound isolation, and no irrelevant people around. Getting in the zone is just a matter of time for me. Spending 20 minutes on something means I should be able to get a good few hours.

The biggest barrier to this is the "i'll start right after [X]". Go the the bathroom, chat with someone about an idea, get a cup of coffee, check my mail, comment on a news article, write a blog post about a cool dancing robot, submit a time card, get a long lunch, go to a neighboring cube to get a piece of candy, get a glass of water, check on my finances, etc.

People fill days doing junk like this. Even if interleaved with real work, the lack of focus prevents the coveted "zone". Identify and eliminate everything besides work that you're doing when you should be in a long stretch of work.

Bourne shell, sed, awk, sort, uniq -- the UNIX utilities are worth your time to get to know well.

Filesystems -- how to write them, and what's out there already.