drewsski · HackerTrans

3 months agodiscuss

It's not a done deal yet, and going by how the OpenAI + Windsurf deal came apart, nothing might come of this pact when all is said and done. All the same, I wonder how this news is being received over at Anthropic. For sure the Claude CLI is mega on it's own, but the Claude IDE is often paired with Cursor/VS Code. Will Anthropic feel the need to release their own IDE along the lines of Google's Antigravity? It might be a wise move for Cursor, given that a bespoke IDE from Anthropic would likely spell doom for them. On the other hand, getting tied at the hip with SpaceX/Elon is also fraught with jeopardy.

drewsski

6 months agodiscuss

If a prototype has to wait for engineering to bring it to life, then perhaps the tools being used for the prototype are the problem, or the staff that is charged with their usage. At my company, prototyping now falls entirely on the design and product team, with occasional consultation with engineering usually to inquire about the technical feasibility of a proposed feature.

The product team has the closest proximity to end users, so they are well placed to validate ideas. The AI tools help them iterate much faster, which also translates to keeping customer focus groups engaged.

The tools will definitely get better with time, but they are still an order of magnitude improvement compared to the Figma based prototypes from the early 2000s.

drewsski

6 months agodiscuss

When using Claude Code either as a CLI or VS Code extension, ask him to use /review and /security-review when he prepares his PR. These slash commands are surprisingly effective at catching mistakes, including typos. And they usually rank the severity of the mistakes. I mostly make typos in comments and the /review command always catches them and lists them as trivial but worth fixing.

drewsski

6 months agodiscuss

Have you tried affiliate/influencer marketing? Influencers are kinda the polar opposite to developers, as far as putting yourself out there shamelessly is concerned. They don't have to force themselves to be extroverted. While most established influencers will require upfront payment, the ones building a following will be more amenable to taking a commission. The key thing obviously is to identify influencers who have established community trust in your ICP segment.

drewsski

6 months agodiscuss

Oh, and here I was thinking it was because I has multiple browser tabs open! Our company product is based on Stripe Connect, so I spend a good deal of time on the Stripe Dashboard. I can't for the life of me figure out why it takes ~15 seconds to switch from the Products tab to the Coupons tab, all of which have about 20 records! They have great API's for sure, but their skill on the front end leaves a lot to be desired.

drewsski

6 months agodiscuss

Best video will be the one you create while learning. Often times, the best way to learn is to teach. Java with its compilation cycle is not ideal for trial and error but you can install Groovy console and just write code for a concept, execute, crash, fix and go again. I say this as someone who has spent a small fortune buying Udemy/Coursera videos, but ultimately the concepts never sink in until I write some code and run it.

drewsski

7 months agodiscuss

Reading between the lines, and not to take anything away from the substance of the report, is this a tacit admission from Openai that Enterprise is indeed the way to make a return on all the capital deployed so far, as opposed to the pursuit of AGI, which is a more lofty but perhaps quixotic pursuit? So far, Anthrophic has been the poster child for Enterprise AI, with Openai being dominant in consumer ai. It seems the release of Gemini 3 and it's favorable/comparable performance compared to GPT 5 likely precipitated a need for re-alignment within Openai.

drewsski

7 months agodiscuss

Given that you are processing that much volume, wouldn't it make sense to explore interchange plus pricing with a processor that connects directly to the card networks? I don't know much about the car rental business, but my experience has been that they typically require credit cards rather than debit cards. The ratio of debit to credit card usage obviously makes a big difference given that average credit card interchange cost hovers around 200 basis points while debit is closer to 50 basis points. If most of your transactions are credit card, then you're kind of stuck with the higher interchange rates even before Stripe adds their markup.

At my company, we started off with Stripe since the API's make it very easy to get started, but since then we have added backup integrations with Adyen and Fis. Stripe API's are still the gold standard, but as you have experienced, that vendor lock in limits your options when they decide to jack up prices.

For businesses that do recurring payments/subscription, one important consideration when you get started is whether you can port out the tokenized card data if you do decide to move to a different processor. Definitely don't want to have to ask subscribers to re-enter their card details because the payment details they provided via Stripe cannot be ported.

drewsski

7 months agodiscuss

A major factor for many companies is the strength of intellectual property rights and their enforcement. For most tech companies, their IP forms one of their primary moats, so naturally, it follows that they will be adverse to sharing their IP with anyone who is not within a jurisdiction that would honor the contract that outlines those IP rights. Many jurisdictions have IP laws on the books, but they are scarce enforced, making them effectively useless. And even those with relatively decent IP laws, litigating such a matter in a foreign land is not worthwhile for many companies. If it was simply a matter of cost, more companies would willingly engage qualified engineers all over the world, but given the risk of IP compromise or loss, that bargain ends up looking penny wise but pound foolish.