[NPC] Cindy Donovinh
Gaia Staff
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This week on Gaia Insider, we grabbed venerable Gaia developer kaia9 for a chat. He's been with Gaia for ages, and has worked on some of the fundamental features that make Gaia what it is today. He's known around the office for his gruff but friendly demeanor, his ultra-baggy pants and his legendary aversion to the shift key. He's also known for being one of the most helpful and interesting guys around, which you'll see right away in his detailed and thoughtful answers to your questions.
Q&A from Gaia's Members
Yue Hirino wants to know: "When did you get your first computer and what got you into computer programming?"
i've been a computer geek since pong on the commodore64. it was something that drew me in right away, and by the time that PC's started to become prevalent, i was using and abusing them like any good geek. my father got the family the our first computer forever and a day ago... my memory sucks, so i don't know when... let's just say that it was an IBM PS2... no not a sony ps2, an IBM PS2, with 40MB of memory, and a x286 processor.
i think i got into programming as things progressed, by my nature. i would always look at computers, and software as something that was a tool, one that could be made better, and i spent a lot of time trying to figure out how things worked, and how i could make them better. early on in high school i had decided to do computer science in college, and as it turned out... that was a good and bad decision. when i got to college, the classes felt like they were teaching material 10 years old, and i wanted more. i wasn't satisfied learning what they were trying to teach me, so i went off and taught myself.
Yoigoshi asks, "what initially drew you to work for a company like Gaia Online?"
when i was hired at gaia, i had been unemployed for almost a year and a half, being stuck in the layoffs and lack of jobs that defined the dot-com-boom (and bust). i was diligently putting my resume out online, applying for everything that was even remotely in my field of choice. i had gotten to a point in my search for jobs where i was getting depressed about it, and had almost given up. a few days later, without even applying for the position at gaia, lanzer found me on monster.com, and invited me in for an interview. i guess he saw potential or something.
my favorite part about the interview was this: i was in the only conference room (it was basically a 2 room office back then, one big-ish room with pseudo-cubes, and a conference room) interviewing w/ lanzer and the cfo. l0cke busted into the room screaming "we just hit 600k!" (registrations) and bounding back out. then, two weeks later, i was in the same room again, signing my offer letter, and he busted in again screaming "we just hit 700k!" and running back to his desk. it gives you an idea of just how long ago it was, and what gaia was like when i started.
i signed with gaia because it was (and still is) my dream job. i work on something that millions of people see, use, and get happiness from. i work in an environment where everyone is equal, no one is better than someone else just because they get paid different, and everyone is important. and... i get to wear what i want to work. that might not seem like much to a lot of people... but i've had to wear a suit and tie to work before... and that's just not fun.
Praseodymium59 is curious about the very first thing you programmed at Gaia.
hard to remember... it was either friendslist, journals, or fishing... i can't remember which was released first. might have been journals. see the next question for more details.
x_Graff_x aks, "Of the different features you have created for Gaia which one if your favorite?"
all of them. smile i've been with the company for so long that i've had a hand in just about everything, if it wasn't in directly fixing or creating it, it was creating support code for it, or fixing bugs related to it. ones i actually created were friendslist (v1, we're on v3 now), journals (v1, on v2 now), fishing (i created / fixed / broke / fixed of the backend code, not the flash code)... then it all gets fuzzy. i spent a lot of time working on backend tools that the moderators use for taking care of the site, botting detection tools, stuff like that. most recently, i did almost all of the backend code for zOMG.
look at that list! it's so hard to pick a favorite, but if i could... it would probably be journals, because that was my baby. i came into the company with 3 different journal type systems behind me (that i wrote for fun) and was an active member in the blogging community (back then). i had this huge vision of what would be the end-all of journal systems, and it made me proud to write it. today, the core journal system is still intact and being used, with the only major change being the backend, which was scaled out to accommodate the millions of users we have today.
Ametan wants to know your worst bug horror story and how long it took you to fix it.
i don't make bugs, i fix them. smile really? i don't know. there's been so many. over the years i've gotten really good at noticing things pretty quickly, and fixing them on the spot. now that we've got a QA team checking everything we release, the "bugs" are nowhere near as bad as they used to be. i think the two worst were these:
+ back in 2004, just after i was hired, we were having issues with concurrency. we'd get 6k users online at one time, and everything would be fine. then we'd release an MC (they were "donation items" back then) and the site would tank, the databases would fail, and everything would crash. we couldn't figure out why. for over a month, [72] and i (both who had just started at gaia) tried everything to fix it, but nothing worked. the site wouldn't stay online with more than 12k users. eventually we figured out that it was because of a setting in-code that was leaving the database connections open for like a half of a second too long, and once we made sure they would close right away, everything was fine. we got up to 15k the next day.
+ as i was fixing something in the trade window (the old trade system, not the new one), i forced the inventory to display my inventory for testing, and accidentally released the code, still displaying my inventory to everyone. i noticed it right away, and fixed it, but for about 2 minutes, anyone who was on the trade screen saw my inventory. the downside to this event was that i had one item that has never been released in my inventory... the fabled angelic fishing rod. we had just released fishing, and i had one of every rod FOR TESTING in my inventory to make sure they worked right. it was for testing, i swear! but, once the screenshots were taken, and the threads started... all hell broke loose. i still get asked to this day for me to give people the angelic rod, even though the item was deleted shortly after.
Andeh Pandeh wonders why there's a 9 at the end of your username...
the name kaia9 is originially from the name of my car... ever since i started driving, i've named my cars "kaia". i came up with the name because my older brother's name is "Kai", and i liked the double a of kaia. the 9 is because i've had or driven (to a point where i called the car "my car" wink 9 cars since i started driving. i've been told that kaia is a girls name, and frankly... i don't care. i like the name. it's mine. i've never met another kaia, and at the office (and my previous job) everyone called me kaia anyways.
in the job previous to working at gaia, i was working for a company called akamai, as one of their network operations monkeys. the day i started, i was introduced to everyone there, and there was already another josh, so they told me to pick another name. i picked kaia (from the car name), and at that point, changed my complete online personality to use that name (i had used the name aryn for online stuff in the past). check my join date for gaia, and the registration date for my domains - (kaia9.com/kaianine.com) were both registered in 2002, and i didn't start working for gaia until 2004.
[ that indirectly answers the fabled question of why did i pick the name kaia just because it's one letter off from gaia... i didn't. smile ]
Kattu-TAN aks: "What has been the most creative use of something you've had a hand in creating that you've seen throughout the years? For example, someone who did something incredibly neat with their journals."
one of the projects that i had a big hand in was the backend code that powers housing and towns. one of the most creative things to date that i've seen where a user or users doing something that was past our wildest dreams was... the Gaia Theater Company (http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/gaia-community-projects/gaian-theatre-company-currently-on-hiatus/t.20369677/) who were holding plays, live, using houses in towns, with sets & all, inviting other users to watch the action just like it was a real theater. they took something that i worked on that was so simple and taking it to a whole new level.
Kairily is an aspiring programmer and has a few questions. First up, whatyou’re your first programming job, and how hard was it to get?
my first programming jobs were small projects during college that i did as a means to learn more, and prove that i could do something on my own. i'd hear that someone wanted to do something with the internet, and told them that i'd figure out how to do it. it's all about putting yourself out there, and learning everything you can. when got out of college, i just applied for jobs that i wanted, and put my best foot forward.
Secondly, Kairily asks: "For all of us new graduates of a computer programming course, do you have any tips on getting into a career for programming when most jobs require at LEAST 5 -10 years experience of programming just to get a junior developer position?"
experience is what you make of it. if you've been taking classes, you've probably also been doing things on your own. that's all experience. if you haven't, it's time to start. the way i see it, the classes are just the start of your learning experience. to keep up to date, and make things work in the industry, you've got to be doing things outside of class. make your own website, write your own applications. take something that someone else wrote (open source stuff is great for this) and change it to either make it do something completely different, or make it better. when i was in school, i spent all my free time teaching myself various web languages by downloading things other people wrote, and modifying it to meet my needs. eventually, i had a whole collection of scripts & websites that i made, and as far as i'm concerned... that's programming experience. the right employer will see that desire to learn, that desire to always get better, and see your potential.
Last up, Kairily wonders: "How do you stay motivated to complete a project when you hit a major roadblock?"
i'm a bit crazy when it comes to projects & roadblocks. i'm obsessive compulsive about figuring things out, and when issues come up, i'll obsess about it until i'm done. it's usually a case of getting motivated to put it down for a minute and remembering to eat. smile sometimes i even figure out problems in my sleep. :lol
iEmoMax has two questions. First up, what was the hardest thing you had to program?
gaia, as a whole makes things really hard to program. take journals for example... it's easy to make a posting system that lets a user post a daily entry. but, as we all know at gaia, it's not just one person making one post a day. in reality, journals gets half a million people making multiple posts a day. if you're just looking at the posts (we're not even starting to think about the comments) that's a couple million rows in a database somewhere... that's just putting them into the database... then you have to think about how many times those same posts are being viewed by others... and so on. with every feature we make, we have to make sure it can handle millions of people using it, and using it with a frequency that's mind boggling. if there's one thing that i've learned in my time here... it's how to think about something to make it scalable for the gaia community.
Secondly, iEmoMax wants to know what inspires you to do the work that you do.
on gaia, the users inspire me. every comment, every question, every time someone enjoys something i had a part in. being a programmer, i always want to be better. there's always something new to learn, a better way to do something. the best developers are always trying to be better, trying make what they've made just that little bit better, just that little bit faster.
LifereaperSoulstealer wonders what you do for fun when you're bored at the office.
when i'm bored, i wander around to the other developers cubes, seeing what they're working on, seeing if i can help. i'll stop by the artists area, or the UI team and see what's coming up next, making suggestions when i can.
Iifawku asks, "what are your hobbies other than Gaia?"
i'm an active member of one other major forum, advrider.com - a adventure motorcycling enthusiast site. i enjoy reading about other people's adventures all over the world. i just got into motorcycling last year, and it's become a huge part of my life. the Adventure Riding community fits right in with my personality and the things i enjoy. motorcycling, photography, and being an explorer!
Riyko asks, "how long have you been taking pictures and what got you into photography?"
i've been shooting for about 16 years now. when i was a sophomore in high school, i found a box of old black & white negatives from photos that my mother had taken. i spent weeks looking through them, seeing my family before i was born, through my mother's eyes. at that point, something clicked in me, and i set out to learn as much as i could. i took photo classes in high school & college, getting my first camera just after graduating high school. as soon as digital cameras came out, i switched to digital, as the biggest drawback up until then was the cost of developing film. i'm now on my sixth or seventh digital camera, just having fun... it's the same for me as programming, there's always something new to learn, a new technique, a different way to look at things. that perfect shot is out there, and i'm searching for it.
Update! kaia9 got so many great questions from members that he decided to keep on answering them in his journal. For more enlightening answers, check out this entry.
