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And then, the world developed robust, well-maintained, open source libraries that do all of that for you. Now, in 99% of commercial software engineering, you do

And then, the world developed robust, well-maintained, open source libraries that do all of that for you. Now, in 99% of commercial software engineering, you don't actually need to know any of those details, in the same sense that you no longer need to know exactly how many transistors and diodes are used to build the adder on the CPU. It simply no longer matters in almost all cases. Your time is much better spent moving on to higher level problems. If you're interviewing for the rare 1% case where the job will actually require you to tinker with a TCP stack, then by all means ask about those details. For 99% of programming jobs today, it's irrelevant trivia used as nothing more than an ego measuring device.

vvanders 10y ago
None of that matters, until it does :). I feel like I've seen 2-3 articles alone in the last month that has rediscovered head-of-line blocking and UDP. I'd say 1/10 engineers I talk to even know what cache aware datastructures are. The thing that separates someone who can just string together whatever they find on npm to people who build real systems is this deep understanding. You're not going to need this for your standard LoB apps. However if you're in the business of building software you're definitely going to want people like this.
- pjlegato 10y ago
  There's a vast middle ground between stringing together npm and rewriting the TCP stack. Most jobs that exist today fall firmly in that middle ground. Trying to find the TCP stack engineer to build your app is like hiring a petrochemical engineer to do oil changes. If your pockets are as deep as Google's, yes, you can do that, but it's by no means necessary.
chetanahuja 10y ago
"And then, the world developed robust, well-maintained, open source libraries that do all of that for you. Now, in 99% of commercial software engineering, you don't actually need to know any of those details.." And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how we ended up with npm.
- pjlegato 10y ago
  This is a false dilemma. Npm-level programming and being able to rewrite the whole operating system from scratch are not the only two options.
chetanahuja 10y ago
"Now, in 99% of commercial software engineering" Whatever this thing... this... stringing together a 100 random github projects to get a webpage that kinda of works about 80% of the time is called -- please let's agree not to call it "software engineering".
- wst_ 10y ago
  You are jumping into conclusions too fast. There are plenty of good software engineers who work with high level languages and technologies on a daily basis. You just have to know your tools, no matter what you do.

vvanders 10y ago

None of that matters, until it does :). I feel like I've seen 2-3 articles alone in the last month that has rediscovered head-of-line blocking and UDP. I'd say 1/10 engineers I talk to even know what cache aware datastructures are. The thing that separates someone who can just string together whatever they find on npm to people who build real systems is this deep understanding. You're not going to need this for your standard LoB apps. However if you're in the business of building software you're definitely going to want people like this.

pjlegato 10y ago
There's a vast middle ground between stringing together npm and rewriting the TCP stack. Most jobs that exist today fall firmly in that middle ground. Trying to find the TCP stack engineer to build your app is like hiring a petrochemical engineer to do oil changes. If your pockets are as deep as Google's, yes, you can do that, but it's by no means necessary.

chetanahuja 10y ago

"And then, the world developed robust, well-maintained, open source libraries that do all of that for you. Now, in 99% of commercial software engineering, you don't actually need to know any of those details.." And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how we ended up with npm.

pjlegato 10y ago
This is a false dilemma. Npm-level programming and being able to rewrite the whole operating system from scratch are not the only two options.

chetanahuja 10y ago

"Now, in 99% of commercial software engineering" Whatever this thing... this... stringing together a 100 random github projects to get a webpage that kinda of works about 80% of the time is called -- please let's agree not to call it "software engineering".

wst_ 10y ago
You are jumping into conclusions too fast. There are plenty of good software engineers who work with high level languages and technologies on a daily basis. You just have to know your tools, no matter what you do.