A final tranche of questions I've answered on Quora, these ones being IT stuff not covered in my post on Java questions.
Startups and business models
Start-up/business advice. I'm hardly a business guru but I have been there and done that, and there are a lot of people looking for very basic (whether they realise it or not) business advice.
- How can a startup answer the question "what prevents a bigger company from taking your idea?"
- When documenting a development for a tech startup, what information should be included?
- In a startup, do we consider our salaries as cofounders when we calculate the breakeven point? Or do we have to work on it without salaries?
- How do I Get Sales from My Hotel booking website?
- How can I gain traction like Quora?
- How does one set prices and collect payments for a lawn simple lawn mowing business?
- Would you rather build a mobile app using people in house, using freelancers, using a mobile app dev shop, or something else?
- If I build my own flight ticket booking website, how can I make money if the customers leave my site and purchase the ticket directly from the airline?
- In a startup of 6-8 employees in seed, how do you know when it's time to bring on a human resources person to help with the hiring process?
- How much does it cost to make an iOS or Android app?
- Is it unethical for a VC firm to fund a promising company whose founding members display serious misogyny/mistreatment of employees/other unethical behaviour?
- How do I make validation with b2b business model?
- I worked for a start-up that failed and soon after, my contract expired. I learned a lot about it and a lot of different ways to go about the original business plan. What legal measures, if any, do I need to take in order to improve the idea all the while making it unique, my own and away from any legal issues?
- Are there any engineers who sold their startup and then got "regular" jobs (for example VP of engineering) at different companies, as opposed to doing it all again?
- I have an 8 person startup and we're based in London and I want to rent a house and use it as an office. What do I need to do to use it as an office? Are there any particular licenses I need?
- Is it wrong to spend company money on yourself?
- What is the best way to get startup tax advice in the UK?
- When attending a tech conference for a start up is it wise to try to pitch the idea of your business or simply talk about it briefly? Need advice on getting the best out of the session.
- As a newbie to start ups, what is the best way to learn the best practices for SEO and SEM?
- What made Yahoo acquire Summly for $40 million from an 18 year old despite having thousands of engineers who could replicate the same app overnight?
Copyright & legal
Strictly factual answers.
- Is it legal to copy website content?
- What law permits people on social networks to post content taken from other websites? Isn't there a copyright infringement?
- It’s illegal to distribute copyrighted content, so how do websites with free downloads get away with it?
- Are cracked softwares and games legal to use?
- What's the difference between (TM) and (R), specifically in the UK?
- Is there any copyright-free RSS news feed that I can use on my website?
- Is it good to steal client from your current company and start your own business with the help of that client?
- What happens to a company's bank account if its only owner suddenly dies?
- What is the best contract template for software company?
- Can a limited company (Ltd) only have one owner?
- If someone pays me to program something, what are the legal implications of me re-purposing the exact work commercially, or modifications of it?
IT careers
I seem to have answered a lot of questions about working in IT. All opinion, obviously, but again I have BT&DT.
- What should beginner software engineers know about software engineering?
- As a programmer, how can I learn to stop unnecessarily complicating my projects?
- Should I take a semester off to work on developing my own apps/programs if I have all living expenses paid?
- How can I understand the concepts behind computing/computer science?
- How do I choose a Computer science field?
- What is your advice about security to a SaaS start-up programmer?
- What are the pros and cons of being a Software Consultant vs Software Engineer right out of college?
- How can someone learn computer science using first principles thinking?
- Do I need to major in computer science if I'm only interested in web or mobile development?
- Will selecting computer science as my preferred major on a college application decrease my chances of getting in if I'm not good at math?
- Are computing science and computer science the same thing?
- How are the opportunities for jobs and research in computer vision? Is the field in high demand?
- Is it less likely for one to get hired if one isn't currently working?
- What is the most important concept you learned in engineering school? What was the most useful throughout your career?
- Are technical conferences a scam?
- What is needed (or you advise) to hold a technical conference, for the youngsters?
- As an experienced programmer, what can I do when I cannot handle complex applications, and when professional tasks take too much time?
- I majored in Computer Science but hate the career opportunities. What should I do?
- If you were given a choice to select between a MBA course from Ivy League School or just 1 year work permit with one of the Fortune Top 5 companies, which one would you choose? Why?
- What kind of a portfolio would prove that a non-CS graduate knows programming?
- As a developer, should my resume include the time I spent serving our country? Do tech employers even give a damn?
- Which do you think is more physically and mentally demanding: medical school or software development at a startup/Google?
Programming
A grab bag of answers about stuff other than Java.
- Technically, why doesn't try/catch work for asynchronous code in JavaScript?
- Should you still remove a code when a feature set is no longer used from a legacy codebase if it's still in use in production but going to be replaced?
- Why is it that when pair programming produces better code, almost no company practices it?
- What are the disadvantages of single entry single exit programming?
- Object-Oriented Programming: When I start a project I never know how to begin. How can I fix that?
- How can I enforce a license for Python software?
- Are all NoSQL databases based on a distributed hash table? If yes, then how do they handle range queries?
- If parallel programming is significantly faster, why aren't all programming problems solved using that technique?
History, future, philosophy of IT
An IT miscellany.
- Why are there so many computer science departments founded in 1964?
- What are other computing machines similar to the Turing Machine?
- If Alan Turing hadn't died when he did, would he have played an important part in the personal computer industry?
- With the probable mainstream adoption of VR technology on the horizon, is it possible that VR porn consumption could spell disaster for the future of the human race?
- What exactly is human-computer interaction (HCI)?
- What does "consumer facing website" mean?
- What is the meaning of tx?
- Is the so-called flat hierarchy of businesses, a step towards equality of people?
- Who are the most important figures in the Open Source movement, both in promoting the movement and providing innovative contributions?
That was the last set - I've posted links to around 800 of my answers on Quora.