Re:Ask HN: Should you bother hiding your website's secret sa...
by burrows on Monday March 21, 2011 @05:59PM
(#2351826)
Despite the fact that Operational Knowledge can be hard to replicate with the efficiency of someone who has more experience. I find talking to more senior engineers about their development process (or even just pair programming with them) to be very insightful.
Even if it's just a matter of how they have their key bindings set, terminal aliases, window management, testing integrating, etc. Stuff like that is nice to pick off of people who have honed it over some time.
Re:Ask HN: Should you bother hiding your website's secret sa...
by curt on Monday March 21, 2011 @06:36PM
(#2351982)
Sorry, I was referring more to manufacturing,production, and logistics knowledge. Most of my experience revolves around combining software with physical products, working with partners around the world to get them to a stores shelves. Since there are only a hand full of people with the breath of knowledge to design, prototype, and manage every step combining both software and the physical I tend not to worry.
Even then I have no problem telling them 'the secret sauce'... I just don't show them how it works or how to do it.
Now you also have a type of secret sauce called operational knowledge. For example I know how to take an idea, prototype it, and produce it in days. I could explain to someone exactly how to do it and they would still fail because you need the experience and breath of knowledge. In those cases I rarely hold anything back, unless it involves a piece of equipment/technology I've designed that revolutionizes a process.