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Monday July 09, 2007

First Day at LinkedIn

LinkedIn Logo Today was my first day onsite at LinkedIn in Mountain View, California. I'm very impressed by two things so far: they gave me a new MacBook Pro and Sushi is on tap for lunch tomorrow. Of course, there's a lot more impressive things going on there, but the new MacBook was today's highlight. The strange thing is I don't need one - I just got a new 17" a few months ago. Nevertheless, I received and configured a new 15" today. It's not the machine that impresses me, but the company's willingness to buy the best machines for its developers.

I was introduced to almost the entire company this morning, and I only saw one Windows machine in a sea of Macs. My favorite quote? "If the MacBook Pro isn't fast enough for you, we can see about getting you a Mac Pro." I like a company that knows what developers like and doesn't have a problem treating them well.

The last time I received a new computer as part of a contract or full-time position? I believe that was way back in 2002. Working at LinkedIn seems like a developer's paradise. Does your company provide new MacBook Pros and Cinema Displays to its developers?

Posted in Java at Jul 09 2007, 11:51:18 PM MDT 26 Comments
Comments:

Hi mate,

Good to hear that you are out west. How long are you around? I am in Mountain View for Google myself, so we should get together. We have Sushi too... and i have Macbook Pro and Mac Pro ;)

Cheers,

Dion

Posted by Dion Almaer on July 10, 2007 at 12:31 AM MDT #

I have a good old latitude 810 that i hide because they want to change it for latitude d520!! I think they know how to get rid of developers

Posted by G. on July 10, 2007 at 01:44 AM MDT #

Yes, my contractor provides me with the necessary computing facilities (MBP and a few Minis), but I have to insist a bit more than you did. :-)

Posted by Nik on July 10, 2007 at 03:31 AM MDT #

As of fairly recently, this is the standard (default) Interface21 developer setup:

  • Apple MacBook 2.16GHz Core 2 Duo 1GB Ram 13" TFT Black
  • Apple Mac Pro Dual-Core Xeon 5150 2.66 GHz 4Gb Ram
  • Apple Display - flat panel display - TFT - 23"

Yes, you get 2 Macs + the display.

Posted by Colin Sampaleanu on July 10, 2007 at 05:03 AM MDT #

Is there a version of Java 6 for Intel Macs available? I've bought a PowerBook a few years ago and all I can say is that it sucks to be 12+ months behind on every major release.

I like my Mac but Apple's promise about "making Mac OS X the ultimate platform for developing and deploying cross-platform Java applications" is just plain bullshit. All they can offer is an outdated and buggy (when it comes to actually using new features of Java 6) beta version. Ultimate? Ahem...

Drehorgelmann

Posted by drehorgelmann on July 10, 2007 at 06:12 AM MDT #

How easy is it to develop Java apps on a Mac? TSS has a thread where most people seemed to be pretty disappointed with Apple.

Posted by Chris G on July 10, 2007 at 07:34 AM MDT #

Drehorgelmann, You can sign up for a free ADC (Apple Developer Connection) login, then you have access to a Java SE 6.0 Release 1 Developer Preview 6 version that was released on September 13th, 2006 (it's under Downloads -> Java once you log in to developer.apple.com).

Posted by Jeff Hubbach on July 10, 2007 at 07:59 AM MDT #

Hi Matt, I am a little "hub" in LinkedIn, we could connect each one ... :-)

Posted by Gianluca on July 10, 2007 at 08:38 AM MDT #

Jeff, that's exactly the outdated and buggy version I mentioned. In about two months we can all celebrate a year of standstill.

I'm also aware of the "we needed everyone for the iPhone" argument. It's strange that Apple gets away with crap like that. Imagine MS saying something like "uhhhh... sorry we couldn't finish Windows XYZ in time, we needed our developers to get Office ABC done".

Right now, IMHO Java development is best done on a Windows machine. Everything I need just works, which is maybe due to the fact that I don't have 20+ games along with the corresponding "optimal" driver settings lurking on a development machine. For deployment some flavour of Unix seems appropriate, mainly for security reasons.

I think it would be best if Apple just admitted that they've lost interest in supporting Java (AKA "ball and chain"). They should hand their stuff over to Sun or start an open source project or whatever. Anything would be better than their finger-up-the-butt, no comment policy. It's not cool, Steve, just annoying.

Drehorgelmann

Posted by drehorgelmann on July 10, 2007 at 08:51 AM MDT #

You dawg! You lucky bas%(@#! Most of us are dealing with cranium-rectally managed companies who insist on Java 1.4 because it's save. Best of luck to you.

Posted by Grego on July 10, 2007 at 10:04 AM MDT #

Did they give you a free pack of clove cigarettes with the silver machine? Ubuntu on a Dell here... just so long as it's not the platform that doesn't provide a real terminal.

Posted by Bryan Noll on July 10, 2007 at 11:04 AM MDT #

Dion - I'm in town this week and next; flying in Monday and out Friday each week. I'm definitely interested in doing a tech meetup this week or next (or both). For those that don't know - a tech meetup is a user group meeting w/o the meeting part. Get together, have beers, talk tech. Pretty simple and generally a good time. How does Thursday night sound?

BTW, I drive by a Google office every morning. Are you located there?

Posted by Matt Raible on July 10, 2007 at 12:06 PM MDT #

Matt,

Congrats on the new job. Linkedin is awesome.

We (Jive Software) give everyone their choice of computer: use their personal one (some people like to use the Mac they're already hacking on), get a new Mac or get a new PC. Most people have opted for the new Mac. :) Our monitor of choice are the new widescreen Dells (2707WFP).

Cheers,
--Bill

Posted by Bill Lynch on July 10, 2007 at 02:03 PM MDT #

great news! I've always been reluctant to subscribe to this service, to the point of answering to my collegues' invitations with a mocked "linkedout" logo just to emphasize a "don't bother me" attitude and have fun of them ;) but then the JUG leaders started their own group over there, and now I have another good reason to join! Best of luck!

Posted by magomarcelo on July 10, 2007 at 04:12 PM MDT #

No MacBook Pro's here at Atlassian, at least not for the Developers. But you have a choice between a MacPro and a PC if you prefer to run Linux or Windows. Makes sense because most people (like yourself) already own a MacBook Pro anyways. And no need to mention that I love my MacPro :)

Posted by Jens Schumacher on July 10, 2007 at 05:42 PM MDT #

I live and work in london (wish I could get a green card) anyways I just started a new contract and they made us supply our own laptops (Apparently Its go to do with IR35, basically you pay less tax by acting through your own private company) Also our customer insists on using weblogic 8.2 so we have to use java 1.4 very sucky. Our client is a very big telecoms company, I have never seen a level of incompetence like this before, also infrastructure stuff is outsourced, we had a guy doing infrastrucure who didnt know what x-windows was, anyways the work is pretty intresting so ill stick it out for the next 4 months or so.

Posted by Bob on July 10, 2007 at 06:26 PM MDT #

Good Matt hunter I say ;) Congrats man! I am just curious if you have developed software on MacBook pro laptops with those ultra (I say abnormal) wide screens and resolutions like "1680 by 1050 (native)" ? It doesn't seem to be built for developers, in my opinon. Do you agree?

Posted by Ashkan on July 11, 2007 at 01:14 AM MDT #

Welcome to LinkedIn! I have to admit, I was both surprised and impressed walking around my first day and seeing all of those great 23" and 30" Apple Cinema displays. By the way, we continue to be actively hiring new java developers... :) - Adam

Posted by Adam Nash on July 11, 2007 at 04:06 AM MDT #

Hey Bob, "(Apparently Its go to do with IR35, basically you pay less tax by acting through your own private company)" Working as a full timer at the moment and have just decided to opt for contracting. Maybe i should have read this posting first!! Current company only works with Dells. 1 laptop(ubuntu), 1 desktop(xp), 2 screens.. (only way to work)

Posted by reddeagle on July 11, 2007 at 06:31 AM MDT #

Ashkan - I've used a 23" monitor for development for a couple of years - both with Windows XP and with OS X. I keep it at 1900 x 1200 and it's been working great. I keep Favelets in my bookmark toolbars that let me see what websites look like at 800 x 600 and 1024 x 768. Besides that, I don't see any issues with developing this way.

Posted by Matt Raible on July 11, 2007 at 08:46 AM MDT #

Just curious if anyone is using commercial app servers and db servers for os X development? ie: Weblogic/Oracle or Websphere/DB2. Seems like Linux offers better support if you have to use a commercial 'stack'.

Posted by hmd on July 11, 2007 at 09:40 AM MDT #

My last two projects have had SQL Server and Oracle on the backend. While there's an Oracle install available for OS X PPC, there isn't one for OS X Intel. For both, I used Parallels with Windows XP installed. I've heard that Oracle on Linux is much faster, so in the future, I'll try VMWare/Parallels + Linux + Oracle for Oracle support.

Posted by Matt Raible on July 11, 2007 at 09:47 AM MDT #

Im using a mac book pro at work, getting weblogic was pretty easy, just download the generic jar its an executable jar fire it up and things should work. Still havent been able to get oracle working on the mac + intel environment.

Posted by Bob on July 11, 2007 at 12:05 PM MDT #

Thanks Matt, Regarding Favelets, I guess web developer extension for firefox can do the same thing too.

Posted by Ashkan on July 12, 2007 at 03:24 AM MDT #

I've found that a MBP plus a Linux Shuttle box makes for a great development env. I have a 20" Dell 2001FP LCD hooked up via the DVI port on the MBP and the VGA port on the Shuttle. Switching between the two is as easy as pressing a button on the monitor or using Chicken of the VNC on the Mac and XVNCViewer from the Ubuntu repositories.

Posted by BenC on July 12, 2007 at 08:29 AM MDT #

Congratulations on joining LinkedIn. I have been an user, albeit a latent one, of the service for several years. When are you guys planning on IPO?

Posted by Angsuman Chakraborty on July 12, 2007 at 09:24 AM MDT #

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