Programmer, engineer, scientist, critic, gamer, dreamer, and kid-at-heart.
All entries tagged answers.
You can subscribe to an RSS feed of this list.
Someone on quora asked:
Is it true that the best way to learn to program is to jump into a project?
I’d like to say yes because that’s how it is for me, but the truth is it depends largely on the person trying to learn. Different people learn in different ways, some learn better if they do a lot of reading ahead of time, while others will find it easier to just jump in and try stuff and poke around. Try different approaches and figure out what works best for you
Someone on quora asked:
Depends on the crowd. Sometimes you’ll feel out of place. You have to resist the urge to correct people all the time (many people don’t like it). You have to avoid sounding like a smartass. You have to know when it is appropriate to use your smarts.
Someone on quora asked:
Could technology develop infinitely faster using a simulation?
It would depend on the problems you are trying to solve. If they can be solved by brute-forcing all the possibilities within a given scope, then yes computer programs can help solve them. Typically however, any problem that would be solvable by this method already has been solved.
Also, it will only work for problems that can be perfectly simulated. For most physical experiments this is not feasible; since the computer program can only simulate what humans know well enough to be able to input that data into a computer. Quantum mechanics tells us that there will always be uncertainty at the quantum level so perfect simulations are not possible. In theory, simulations might be able to help narrow the scope of a problem though.
Someone on quora asked:
How do you know what to do with your life if you don’t know what you want in life?
A vast majority of people in the world don’t really know what to do in life or what they want in life. They/we all just kind of stumble along to where life takes us. Many people take up a degree in college only because they believe that course will lead them to a good job, so they can get promoted to a high position, get married, raise a family, etc. Most people are on this “default path” that society provides instead of figuring out what they really want to do or where their passions lie. Many people live their entire lives not finding a passion or what they want in life.
So don’t worry too much if you are finding it difficult to find out what you want in life, because most people are in that state. The difference between you and other people is you are aware of it, that you want more in life but are not yet sure what that something is.
Explore life. Say yes to more random encounters. Take up new opportunities when they appear. Increase the scope of your activities. Do all these things to increase the odds that you will be able to find and figure out what you want in life.
Someone on quora asked:
How can you read and study a large software project source code?
Attacking a large, existing codebase that you are unfamiliar with can be a daunting endeavor. Don’t expect that you will be able to easily navigate the codebase quickly after just a few days of studying it. Familiarity will come with experience.
Some things that can help:
Someone on quora asked:
Can I become an software engineer without CS bachelor’s degree? I’m very interest in AI and VR now.
Yes. I’ve worked more than a decade as a software engineer, my degree is in Electronics and Communications Engineering. I did take some programming classes as part of my course though.
Just be aware: The further your background is from computer science, the more work and learning you will have to put in.
Someone on quora asked:
You’re going to learn more in the second situation. So it depends on what your priorities are.
Someone on quora asked:
Try to find a way to leave and move to a different company. You are obviously not working in a good environment for you. We work for a living yes, but that does not mean we need to suffer for it.
Someone on quora asked:
What’s the best time in your life to decide what you want to do for the rest of it?
The best time is right now. It’s never too late or too early to be who you were meant to be.
Someone on quora asked:
JSPs are actually compiled into Java servlets on the server-side anyway. Their main purpose is to make it easier to write and maintain HTML/CSS/JS since doing that in an actual servlet includes writing a lot of out.print statements.
Someone on quora asked:
How can I ensure that my clients will trust my new employee?
Pair him with an employee that they already trust. Say it is part of your mentoring or training program. Eventually you can wean the client off the more veteran employee
Someone on quora asked:
When will the results for Filipino presidential elections 2016 come in?
Official results most probably around early June. There’s a procedure where the vote tallies for national posts need to be canvassed by Congress. They are required to finish the canvassing after 30 days. Here’s a description of the 2010 canvassing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_canvass_for_the_Philippine_presidential_election,_2010
Someone on quora asked:
What are some reasons to attend the University of the Philippines?
If you live in the Philippines, it’s easily the best University in the country. As compared to the other two generally considered to be tops Universities (Ateneo, DLSU), you get exposed to a wider variety of both professors and students. There is a significant culture of activism and political involvement (if that’s the sort of thing that you like) - except maybe for the College of Engineering, where I found it to be minimal. Because of the varied population of the University, there’s generally something there for everyone.
Someone on quora asked:
How do I spend and save “concentration and attention” throughout day for daily tasks?
It depends on how predictable your day is. If there is a constant risk of crises coming up as the day goes on, it becomes more difficult. Making it more complicated is that people really aren’t very good at assessing how much additional work they can take on without starting to lose focus.
In general, the best idea would probably be to do the most important things, the ones that require your most attention, early in the day when your mind is the most sharp and creative, instead of risking doing them later in the day when intervening crises may have sapped your concentration and focus.
Someone on quora asked:
Should the Philippines and the US take Scarborough Shoal since it is near Subic Bay?
Taking it by force entails too many risks and will very likely escalate tensions making a bad situation worse. I think the current approach being taken - pressuring China to let up on its illegal activities and gathering support from other nations and going through the arbitration case - are much safer bets in the long term.
Someone on quora asked:
No. You should get to drink what you want to drink. Besides water is healthier than soda or anything like that
Someone on quora asked:
Confidence really only comes with experience. The reason senior developers are able to handle pressure so easily is that they’ve been under the gun many times and know how to focus and deliver even under strict deadlines. I suggest just putting in the best work you can, be helpful to your team as much as possible. Respect will come naturally to those who put in good work
Someone on quora asked:
Sure! The great thing about life is that you get to make your own goals. You get to define what winning means for you!
Maybe winning for you means finding someone who loves you and you do it. You won!
Maybe winning for you means helping out other people and you find a career that lets you do that. You won!
Maybe winning for you means finishing college and working to see your younger siblings finish college too, and after years of hard work you do that. You won!
Maybe winning for you means getting great answers on Quora then you find this answer and upvote it. You won!
Someone on quora asked:
Yeah. It’s partly because the media overhypes some things. One of the best examples is terrorism - terrorism is terrible of course and many lives are lost. But the truth is many more lives are lost to everyday occurrences like car accidents as compared to terrorist attacks. It’s just that terrorist attacks are more sensationalized (which is kind of what terrorists want) so people are more outraged by them
It’s also partly because people tend to rely on how they feel emotionally rather than thinking rationally about how likely certain worries really are. It’s like mothers who are overprotective of their children and don’t want them running around the playground with strange kids because they might get hurt, when really kids have been playing outdoors for ages and ages and most of the time it’s fine.
Someone on quora asked:
What shall I do when I doubt my technical skills as a software engineer?
You know, you are already being given some free tips on how to improve yourself: they’re in the comments you get from code review! Study the comments, and if you don’t understand, feel free to discuss with the reviewer and ask how it could be made better.
Writing good, clean, robust code is difficult. Not even veteran software developers will get it right 100% of the time. The only difference between you and them is that they have a lot more practice and experience which translates into better instincts as to which code will perform better or will be easier to maintain. And experience and instinct can only be acquired with time.
You also have to accept that you will not write perfect code most of the time. Possibly never. And often there is no real “best” approach: even among senior developers implementing any nontrivial programming solution, the code will most likely be completely different among them. Even veteran software developers will often look back at code they wrote weeks or months ago and wonder WTH they were thinking.
Lastly, do not attach too much of your ego to your code such that you are embarrassed by how it turns out. You are not your code. You are not the snippets of Javascript or for loops or function calls you hammered out today. The code you have written is almost immediately yesterday’s news. The instant you save it or commit it or build it, you have already outgrown it. If you make mistakes, own up to them and figure out how to avoid them in the future and move on.
Someone on quora asked:
I have an inconsistent confidence level, what should I do to improve?
This may sound trite, but fake it til you make it. Confidence is really about just believing in yourself, and the more you at least try or pretend to believe in yourself the more likely it is to come true. Even the act of faking confidence can already have some benefits
Someone on quora asked:
I think it’s mostly Filipinos who hate the Philippines.
Aside from that, there have been some individuals who voice out racist/hatred for Filipinos in general, but I don’t think there’s such a thing as an entire country hating us
Someone on quora asked:
What should every white tourist know when visiting the Philippines?
The other day I went through this great album of a trip by an American to the rural Philippines (where foreigners are very rare), you might find it insightful: My trip to the Philippines
Someone on quora asked:
Is there a way to move forward in a line without the person behind you moving the same distance?
Step forward such that you end up facing sideways. Leave one of your legs slightly behind you, then lean forward. The leg will give you additional space between you and the person behind.
Someone on quora asked:
Optimists will say yes. Pessimists will say no. Both are correct.
If you are willing to seek out and/or create those opportunities, then yes there is no limit to the opportunities available to you. If not, if you just sit around all day and complain about how things are bad for you, then your opportunities will be limited
Someone on quora asked:
How do you create good sidewalks on city streets with a lot of driveways?
It’s something that needs to be part of urban planning from the start. It may already be too late for most of Metro Manila, as urban planning has been virtually nonexistent and land area is a quickly vanishing resource. Metro Manila cities aren’t really planned and more like grown organically and adjusted as needed
Someone on quora asked:
Maybe. There are two possibilities:
Think about the first possibility. Are you doing the best work you possibly can? Are your co-workers having trouble with the same level of work? Are you managing your time properly? Are you spending too much time fixing defects or reworking existing code? Is your understanding of the business requirements sufficient or are you making mistakes because of a gap in understanding? Ask yourself these and similar questions to identify areas of improvement to help you cope with the amount of work you need to do
The workload will also vary wildly between companies, so it’s also a possibility that you have the bad luck of being in one of those companies that overwork their developers
Someone on quora asked:
What are some of the generalizable skills that you can get from product management?
It’s mostly soft skills:
Someone on quora asked:
In the Philippines, what are the IDs issued by the government like?
What exactly are you asking?
The most common government issued IDs are:
Someone on quora asked:
I finally let go and now I feel like I have nothing left to live for, so now what?
Your task now is to find a new purpose in life. And the best way to do this is to try new things, as many things as possible. Rarely does one find purpose in life, more often than not purpose finds you.
Go outside. Hang out with friends. Take up new hobbies. Take a class at the local university. Study a new language. Meet new friends. Try out a new coffee shop. Try out a new gym. Rekindle old friendships. Visit an art gallery. Go on a pub crawl. Go out and live!
Someone on quora asked:
Make a list, then do them one at a time. Do the more important things first. Intersperse small and large tasks where possible.
Someone on quora asked:
The best thing about trying to develop self-control is that there are a lot of opportunities everyday to practice it. Just try something like: whenever you have an impulse for something (like to buy a new thing that you just found about, or sudden urge to have an unhealthy snack), try to delay it until the next day
Introspection and self-awareness helps too. Analyze your wants and needs so that you’re aware what things you really need and which ones you can easily defer or outright ignore.
Someone on quora asked:
Psychological therapy and diagnosis isn’t really a thing in the Philippines. As in, it’s not something people believe in, and although there are people who undergo therapy, it is rare and seldom talked about
No, it is not inappropriate. It’s your LinkedIn, you can do whatever you want.
Mine has a statement that any recruiters who want to connect with me must include the word PINEAPPLE (all caps) in their invite. No one has ever complied haha
Someone on quora asked:
How does one improve debilitatingly low verbal communication skills?
You need to practice all the time, preferably with people who know where you’re coming from and know the right kind of communication/discussion that will keep you engaged and help you improve
Someone on quora asked:
Life is just about as interesting as you choose to make it. If you feel a lack of challenge in your life, you might want to try upping the difficulty level a bit. Or explore life to find new things and challenges and expand your horizons.
Ask for more responsibilities at work.
Look for new interesting hobbies.
Hang out at places you don’t usually hang out.
Meet new people. Preferably smarter people. People who can challenge you.
Live life to the fullest!
Someone on quora asked:
Is there a better way to get better at handling rejection than keep being rejected?
In general, the best answer to “how can I get better at X” is to keep practicing X until you get better.
That being said, there are some ways to make it easier to deal with rejection. Most of it has to do with improving your state of mind.
What does that mean? It doesn’t mean conditioning yourself to expect rejection (that would be a self-fulfilling prophecy right there!) but rather to detach your ego from the attempts you make.
The reason rejection can be so difficult to handle is that it’s a huge ego hit, it makes you feel bad about yourself, as if there’s something wrong with you that’s why you got rejected. And that’s nonsense.
People get rejected all the time. Good people, bad people. Handsome people, ugly people. Rich people, poor people. A rejection isn’t a reflection of something wrong with you as a person, it’s a reflection of something wrong with the relationship you were trying to form. And that’s the nature of the world - not all persons are meant to have relationships together! This can apply to romantic relationships, business relationships, friendships, etc. Once you accept this truth, it becomes a lot easier to handle rejection.
Someone on quora asked:
I’m a good salesman but how can I become the best in my field (real estate)?
Well, what is the criteria to be considered the best in your field? For a real estate salesman I would guess it’s to generate the most amount of sales among the salesmen in your area right?
First, maybe you can figure out who is the salesman currently considered as the best in your field. Figure out how much he’s making. Figure out how many sales he makes, how much margins they usually have. Then ask him for tips! If he doesn’t want to talk to you, that’s fine, no loss there! You can also try talking to his clients, ask them what made them willing to buy real estate from that guy.
Copying other people can only get you so far though. The real way to get ahead of the pack is to hustle. Get busy. Work hard. Practice on your pitch.
The only way to be the best salesman is to sell more than other people. That means making more pitches than everyone else and improving on your pitches so that you can convert more of them into sales than everyone else!
Aiming to be the best in any given field is a huge goal to work towards, but it can be worth it!
Someone on quora asked:
When a person is said to take something personally, it means that person considers something to be directly affecting his ego and reflecting upon him as a person. For example, if you try to refute a person’s arguments and he takes it personally, it means he gets offended by your counter-argument as if you were attacking him as a person instead of just his arguments. Or taking one’s work personally means if there’s a problem with your work you think there’s a problem with you as person.
Not taking things personally means being able to detach ourselves from the things we interact with.
Someone on quora asked:
How does one come to be a person where “there is nothing he/she CAN’T do”?
First, there is no such thing as a person who can do everything, no matter how much it looks like that. That being said, it’s a reasonably good goal to try to be that kind of person
And like many things, it’s largely confidence. It’s largely believing that you are capable of anything you put your mind to (within limits of course - if you are physically disabled it might be unreasonable to try to become an olympic gold medal winner in the 100 meter dash or somesuch). And even if you don’t believe that you can do it - fake it til you make it. You are who you believe yourself to be
Someone on quora asked:
Can understanding about life improve the ability to enjoy it better?
I think so. I think that some level of introspection or self-awareness is important in making the most of your life, identifying the things that are not good for you, identifying the things you want, etc. The more you understand your own life, the easier will it be for you to focus it towards directions that lead to growth and happiness
Someone on quora asked:
No, that’s fine. Don’t do things you don’t want to do. Of course, there may be social consequences, but I assume you’ve weighed those already :p. As long as your boss is a well-adjusted person it should be fine though. People getting married are much more preoccupied with the their own problems than with guests who can’t attend. Just don’t say you’ll go then not go
Someone on quora asked:
It is a form of self-awareness, which can come only with contemplating yourself and your actions. Look at how you live your life. Which things do you prioritize, which principles do you adhere to? What actions do you respond to well? What actions do you respond to poorly? e.g. If you respond poorly to people lying, maybe you strongly value honesty and integrity. If you respond well to people who make intelligent discussion points maybe you value cerebral thinking
Someone on quora asked:
It’s difficult. Generally whatever you do will always be colored to some extent by your personal biases. The key is to be aware of your personal views and biases and compensate against them in order to be more balanced. Do more research on views opposing your own to counteract your own biases
Someone on quora asked:
People don’t always react well to people they perceive as different from them. It is born of a primal fear of things that are unknown, i.e. in the olden caveman days you had to be wary of every unknown thing since it might be a dangerous predator. This fear can be hard to overcome unless the person willingly recognizes it and acts to change it. Your acquaintance may not realize it, but he is probably scared that you will do something unusual or awkward and he won’t know what to do or how to respond.
I would suggest just telling him that you’re just like every other person: you have some unusual quirks that takes some getting used to. Everyone is like that! But if he doesn’t want to hang out with you, you have to respect that and just look for better friends who can be more understanding.
Someone on quora asked:
Well, probably the best way is to ask them what features of your product they would like to be different or what additional features would suit them
Someone on quora asked:
Fear is often overcome by facing the fear repeatedly until you are so used to what you are afraid of that the fear goes away. Fear is a primal instinct meant to keep us alive, but many times that instinct is not justified. You need to learn to understand when fear is keeping you safe and when fear is holding you back.
For your specific fear, I’m not clear exactly what you mean by unsafe. If your fear is keeping you from entering unsafe conditions, i.e. maybe your fear is stopping you from moving in to a bad neighborhood known for a high crime rate, that fear might be justified and it’s ok. But if your fear is unjustified, it can be unhealthy. i.e. if you fear flying because you think it’s unsafe (despite the fact that thousands of planes take off and land each day without incident), that’s irrational
Someone on quora asked:
Stop thinking of yourself as a loser and just move on. Try to avoid thinking about this girl and don’t hang out with her unless absolutely necessary. Moving on from someone isn’t easy, you need to be dedicated to it.
Someone on quora asked:
How do I stop getting irritated on receiving large numbers of code review comments?
Remember: You are not your code. You are not the hundred or so lines of C or Java or Javascript or whatever that you wrote today.
This problem arises because you are too attached to your code. Your ego is associated with the code you write and you feel that any comments or defects found reflect upon you as a person.
You are not perfect. You will not write perfect software, and that’s fine. It’s not a flaw, it’s just the way software is. It isn’t written all in one go, magically perfect and elegant and satisfying all the requirements. Good software goes through multiple iterations and many eyes looking at it.
It is also important to treat it as a learning experience - learn what you can from each code review comment and try to apply what you learn to future code you write. This also helps you minimize review comments in the future. Instead of treating the large number of comments as a shortcoming on your part, treat it as a metric you can improve upon.
Someone on quora asked: