6 ms·

I see what you mean and am often equally frustrated, but you know what this reminds me of? The state of infrastructure in a booming underdeveloped country, whic

by Iv 11y ago

I see what you mean and am often equally frustrated, but you know what this reminds me of? The state of infrastructure in a booming underdeveloped country, which is a good thing. Let me explain it a bit further. Have you tried hiring a programmer lately? It is very hard, there is a huge demand and most programmers I know receive several offers a month. The demand for software is CRAZY. So we all do what we can: quick and dirty when it is good enough. Just like in a country with no roads, any dirt road and crappy pavement is better than nothing if you have hundreds of trucks that need to go through RIGHT NOW. So here it is, websites are made hastily, tech half work, but are better than nothing. How much of the things you screencaped have more than 5 years of existence? Like you said, we are software developers. We write software and we write bugs. Right now, there is far more need to implement new features than to correct bugs. Hopefully it will change at one point but right now this is the crazy race forward, and that is a good thing!

nightski 11y ago
I think it's fine we are using what we have to make things work today. But it seems like very little research and development is being performed to build a brighter future. Computer science is a field seemingly led by the loudest voices, not necessarily the brightest. It feels like OS, language, database, and other computer science research is at an all time low and instead is being driven by ad-hoc open source development for better or for worse.
- ewjordan 11y ago
  Money is the loudest voice, every time. And nobody has lost a single dollar because OS or database research is lacking. Even a major revolution in database tech would maybe reduce costs, downtime, or latency by 10% or so, max. Since that sort of expense is never the dominant factor in a company's success, it will never be worth serious commercial investment. And as far as academia goes, there is research happening, it's just a slog because all the low hanging fruit has been picked and now people are just optimizing. Fields always slow down after the good stuff is discovered. IMO AI is the only pure CS field worth studying right now, that tree has barely been touched at all. The mundane stuff like OS, databases, and languages have been studied to death, and unless an Einstein comes along, there's not going to be any serious motion unless the AI nut gets cracked first.
dschiptsov 11y ago
That's probably true only inside the valley, otherwise there will be a market for contract-based remote coding, a-la "pay per github commits (which passes all tests). Back in 90s one could easily land a job or a subcontract if one is capable to do so. I used to be UNIX system administrator and Informix DBA, and there were literally tons of requests for complex database server setups and performance tuning even in such shithole like Russia. That was the market. Nowadays, except for bunch of valley startups and megacorps, which routinely select top graduates from the ivy league universities (as we have seen in now famous salary disclosure posts), there is no real demand for programming. There is no demand for high-quality components or specialized solutions outside established insanely beurocratized packer's ecosystems, such as Java EE, MS, etc, which allows middle-aged mediocrity to get its salary. Suppose you are a freelance programmer, who has that golden classic CS education (algorithms, data structures, programming languages). Is there any offers beside Jomla theming or JS or occasionally Android coding? Nope. All remaining software engineering action is inside startups or megacorps, and even it is usually nothing but piling up layers upon layers of Java (or nowadays Node) crap, which can't even be polit-cortectly called "over-engineered", because it is simply arrogantly-stupid. The mantra "write your own Nginx first" does not work either. Igor had a nice sysadmin's job in an oil company so he was able to spend couple of years for prototyping and slow knowledge-based engineering, as opposed to fast and "productive" copy-pasting in an IDE. If there is a real demand, there must be the market for it. Have you seen any demand for good stuff (Erlang, Haskell, CL, Golang, kernel-quality C)? Me neither. What we see is mere evolution of valley's sweatshops for top graduates we call startups.
turaw 11y ago
> most programmers I know receive several offers a month :'| Could you take a look at how they're receiving offers and perhaps put some suggestions together on how to duplicate that effect? Most programmers I know have had extreme difficulty getting a job, especially one that would pay at-or-above the average rate (per Glassdoor).
- not_kurt_godel 11y ago
  The programmers you know aren't very good, sorry.
  - nikofeyn 11y ago
    i am very good at what i do but when software engineers try to act like they know how to hire people, you have problems. i have been interviewed by a company that prided themselves on hiring smart, diverse people who weren't necessarily experienced in a certain field and language. they literally called this out in the job description. the interviewer proceeded to ask me a deluge of very specific questions about said language, including implementation details of the language itself! all of the questions could have been looked up by an intelligent person online within minutes. and this was a well established, small, but well known company. all of my software interviews can be summed up with two words: algorithm questions. but yet, my skills lie in architecture, writing bug free code, general design skills, testing, UI dev and client feedback, etc. none of these skills have never had the chance to be discussed in an interview. i came from another field and haven't spent a lot of time in the algorithm space. i can work through them as needed in interviews just as i do in a job, but that is rarely cared about in interviews. people want binary answers.
    - WalterBright 11y ago
      It's often possible for you to drive the interview rather than waiting for the interviewer to ask your questions. Bring up and expound on your skills if they're not asking the right questions.
      - 11y ago
zappo2938 11y ago
There is a saying in professional kitchens. You can make the best soup in the world but if it takes you all day to make it, you will never make a money in this industry.
Udo 11y ago
There is a drastic oversupply of programmers, and I firmly believe more than half of us should not be in software development at all. I think you have a choice to make as a programmer: a) do something interesting b) do good/high-quality work c) be excellently paid - pick two. Unsurprisingly, most people choose high-paying jobs that sound interesting, resulting in shitty bloatware from hell. Of course, many programmers don't even get to choose at all, they can call themselves lucky if their job has one of these benefits.
ArkyBeagle 11y ago
"Several offers a month" != "several emails about job postings a month".
finishingmove 11y ago
> you know what this reminds me of? The state of infrastructure in a booming underdeveloped country Here's what it reminds me of: "jungle capitalism".
anonymous41 11y ago
>there is a huge demand and most programmers I know receive several offers a month You mean recruiter spam? That's not a job offer. At best it's a liberally-dispensed invitation to submit yourself to some company's drawn-out, degrading, and ultimately capricious interview process. The "huge demand" is for 20-somethings who graduated from top schools who are "passionate" and can be over-worked and under-paid.

by Iv 11y ago

nightski 11y ago

I think it's fine we are using what we have to make things work today. But it seems like very little research and development is being performed to build a brighter future. Computer science is a field seemingly led by the loudest voices, not necessarily the brightest. It feels like OS, language, database, and other computer science research is at an all time low and instead is being driven by ad-hoc open source development for better or for worse.

ewjordan 11y ago
Money is the loudest voice, every time. And nobody has lost a single dollar because OS or database research is lacking. Even a major revolution in database tech would maybe reduce costs, downtime, or latency by 10% or so, max. Since that sort of expense is never the dominant factor in a company's success, it will never be worth serious commercial investment. And as far as academia goes, there is research happening, it's just a slog because all the low hanging fruit has been picked and now people are just optimizing. Fields always slow down after the good stuff is discovered. IMO AI is the only pure CS field worth studying right now, that tree has barely been touched at all. The mundane stuff like OS, databases, and languages have been studied to death, and unless an Einstein comes along, there's not going to be any serious motion unless the AI nut gets cracked first.

dschiptsov 11y ago

That's probably true only inside the valley, otherwise there will be a market for contract-based remote coding, a-la "pay per github commits (which passes all tests). Back in 90s one could easily land a job or a subcontract if one is capable to do so. I used to be UNIX system administrator and Informix DBA, and there were literally tons of requests for complex database server setups and performance tuning even in such shithole like Russia. That was the market. Nowadays, except for bunch of valley startups and megacorps, which routinely select top graduates from the ivy league universities (as we have seen in now famous salary disclosure posts), there is no real demand for programming. There is no demand for high-quality components or specialized solutions outside established insanely beurocratized packer's ecosystems, such as Java EE, MS, etc, which allows middle-aged mediocrity to get its salary. Suppose you are a freelance programmer, who has that golden classic CS education (algorithms, data structures, programming languages). Is there any offers beside Jomla theming or JS or occasionally Android coding? Nope. All remaining software engineering action is inside startups or megacorps, and even it is usually nothing but piling up layers upon layers of Java (or nowadays Node) crap, which can't even be polit-cortectly called "over-engineered", because it is simply arrogantly-stupid. The mantra "write your own Nginx first" does not work either. Igor had a nice sysadmin's job in an oil company so he was able to spend couple of years for prototyping and slow knowledge-based engineering, as opposed to fast and "productive" copy-pasting in an IDE. If there is a real demand, there must be the market for it. Have you seen any demand for good stuff (Erlang, Haskell, CL, Golang, kernel-quality C)? Me neither. What we see is mere evolution of valley's sweatshops for top graduates we call startups.

turaw 11y ago

> most programmers I know receive several offers a month :'| Could you take a look at how they're receiving offers and perhaps put some suggestions together on how to duplicate that effect? Most programmers I know have had extreme difficulty getting a job, especially one that would pay at-or-above the average rate (per Glassdoor).

not_kurt_godel 11y ago
The programmers you know aren't very good, sorry.
- nikofeyn 11y ago
  i am very good at what i do but when software engineers try to act like they know how to hire people, you have problems. i have been interviewed by a company that prided themselves on hiring smart, diverse people who weren't necessarily experienced in a certain field and language. they literally called this out in the job description. the interviewer proceeded to ask me a deluge of very specific questions about said language, including implementation details of the language itself! all of the questions could have been looked up by an intelligent person online within minutes. and this was a well established, small, but well known company. all of my software interviews can be summed up with two words: algorithm questions. but yet, my skills lie in architecture, writing bug free code, general design skills, testing, UI dev and client feedback, etc. none of these skills have never had the chance to be discussed in an interview. i came from another field and haven't spent a lot of time in the algorithm space. i can work through them as needed in interviews just as i do in a job, but that is rarely cared about in interviews. people want binary answers.
  - WalterBright 11y ago
    It's often possible for you to drive the interview rather than waiting for the interviewer to ask your questions. Bring up and expound on your skills if they're not asking the right questions.
    - 11y ago

zappo2938 11y ago

There is a saying in professional kitchens. You can make the best soup in the world but if it takes you all day to make it, you will never make a money in this industry.

Udo 11y ago

There is a drastic oversupply of programmers, and I firmly believe more than half of us should not be in software development at all. I think you have a choice to make as a programmer: a) do something interesting b) do good/high-quality work c) be excellently paid - pick two. Unsurprisingly, most people choose high-paying jobs that sound interesting, resulting in shitty bloatware from hell. Of course, many programmers don't even get to choose at all, they can call themselves lucky if their job has one of these benefits.

ArkyBeagle 11y ago

"Several offers a month" != "several emails about job postings a month".

finishingmove 11y ago

> you know what this reminds me of? The state of infrastructure in a booming underdeveloped country Here's what it reminds me of: "jungle capitalism".

anonymous41 11y ago

>there is a huge demand and most programmers I know receive several offers a month You mean recruiter spam? That's not a job offer. At best it's a liberally-dispensed invitation to submit yourself to some company's drawn-out, degrading, and ultimately capricious interview process. The "huge demand" is for 20-somethings who graduated from top schools who are "passionate" and can be over-worked and under-paid.