How do IT professionals work? Igor Sysoev - Founder and Service Station at Nginx

On November 7 and 8, the HighLoad ++ 2016 conference was held in Skolkovo . More than 200 experts made presentations on highly loaded services, problems with working with them, administration and much more.

On the spot, we were able to chat with different experts. Most of them write code, or wrote it in the past. They told us about their work and leisure routines, professional habits, the tools they use, and much more.

We conducted an interview with everyone in the format of a blitz survey. It will be interesting to find out what brings these IT professionals together, what they look like. Perhaps their answers will help to identify some general patterns, useful tips that will help many of us.

Our guest today is Igor Sysoev, creator of the nginx web server.

What do you do in the company?

At the moment: development of the javascript engine for nginx, plus one secret project.

One word that best describes how you work:

I don’t know, maybe disorganization.

How many hours a day do you devote to work?

In different ways, it depends on the drive, it can be 10 hours a day, or maybe 0.

How many hours do you sleep?

6 to 8.

How do you have breakfast?

Porridge with honey: buckwheat, millet, oatmeal, or sometimes cottage cheese with honey. Tea, a sandwich with sausage, fish or caviar.

What are you doing along the way to / from work?

I travel by metro, so I usually read or think.

Which todo manager do you personally use?

Regular files.

What task manager / issue-tracker / repository do you use?

Internal tracker JIRA, external - trac. Version Control System - Mercurial.

Work environment (tools and software)?

Mac OS X, Terminal, vim.

Does the company have internal projects?

Not.

What annoys you the most when you work?

Sounds and smells.

What kind of professional literature would you recommend?

It depends on who to recommend. If we talk about UNIX and network programming, then:

» man7.org/tlpi/index.html
» www.apuebook.com
» www.unpbook.com

If about algorithms, then en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Introduction_to_Algorithms

I would not advise Knuth: the threshold for entry also rises significantly due to the need to read the assembler he invented, which is strange for the 21st century.

What do you prefer: electronic readers or paper books?

I prefer to read on the iPhone, but some books exist only on paper.

What technique and why do you prefer at work and at home?

I have one laptop that I use at home and at work - the MacBook Pro Retina 13 ": compact, has a long battery life, fast enough.

What do you listen to when you work?

Different, now favorite - Rammstein, Eisbrecher, Depeche Mode, Pink Floyd, a popular classical

music.What applications and services you can not do?

Terminal, ssh, vim, browser (now Firefox), mail (now Mail.app). From the services - I'm looking at Google, reading LJ, listening to Apple Music.

Which life hack allows you to be more effective?

There is no such life hack.

What professional advice from the past could you give yourself?

Do not waste time on DOS and Windows.

What would you recommend to a person trying to go the same way?

I do not know. Time is different.