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What NYT thinks devs are doing in Silicon Valley: AI and machine learning hacking in VR 3D What devs are really doing in Silicon Valley: debugging yet another

by hudo 8y ago

What NYT thinks devs are doing in Silicon Valley: AI and machine learning hacking in VR 3D What devs are really doing in Silicon Valley: debugging yet another "undefined is not an function"

aleden 8y ago
Most of programming is just moving shit around; not interesting mathematics like knuth has done
- m_fayer 8y ago
  We're 21st century plumbers.
  - aphextron 8y ago
    >We're 21st century plumbers. I tell people this all the time when they ask what I do. I've met quite a few master plumbers, and they are extremely intelligent technical geniuses for the most part. I'm completely convinced that I would have been one of them (or some other trade craft) if I were born 50 years ago.
    - jamiek88 8y ago
      Modest too, most of ‘em.
- time-domain0 8y ago
  - IT: Sanitation engineers - Developers: Hazmat engineers - CS: Civil engineers
  - fouc 8y ago
    Sounds accurate to me, but I'm interested if people will downvote you because they don't like the IT line.
    - delinka 8y ago
      Looks like it gets worse down the list, so I don't think the IT folk will complain too much. edit: Yes, whether you feel "Civil engineering" is worse than "Hazmat engineering" is a subjective matter.
  - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
    IT: Garbage truck operators Developers: Garbage truck service/maintenance department Devops: Mechanic's apprentice who sometimes has to fill in for garbage truck drivers who no-show. Contractor: Mobile service tech gets called in to weld up stuff when it's broken beyond what the in-house team can handle. CS: Guys who plan the garbage trucks' route. Not everything is "engineering". Edit: You people take yourselves too seriously.
  - plausibilities 8y ago
    - IT: Deployment - Dev: Implementation - CS: Design
drugme 8y ago
What NYT thinks devs are doing in Silicon Valley: AI and machine learning hacking in VR 3D. Funny, the article doesn't mention any of those topics at all (except for AI - but only as a way of introducing John McCarthy). Meanwhile we do do things like "finding all occurrences of a given word or pattern of letters in a text" quite frequently. And we are utterly dependent on technologies (e.g. databases, networks) based very strongly on the bread-and-butter content of Knuth's books. I agree, though that for most of us, chasing down "undefined is not a function" and its variants tends to rule the day.
commandlinefan 8y ago
> debugging yet another "undefined is not an function" Hey, you're lucky. I'm not in silicon valley, so I spend all my time debugging "I had a problem with the app but it hasn't happened in about a week and I can't remember exactly what the problem was, I need you to fix it or I'm going to escalate to your manager"
sf_rob 8y ago
My favorite one of these was from a coworker having trouble getting his presentation up. "People outside the tech industry ask 'Will a computer take my job?'; people inside the tech industry ask 'why won't this damn projector work?'"

by hudo 8y ago

What NYT thinks devs are doing in Silicon Valley: AI and machine learning hacking in VR 3D What devs are really doing in Silicon Valley: debugging yet another "undefined is not an function"

aleden 8y ago

Most of programming is just moving shit around; not interesting mathematics like knuth has done

m_fayer 8y ago
We're 21st century plumbers.
- aphextron 8y ago
  >We're 21st century plumbers. I tell people this all the time when they ask what I do. I've met quite a few master plumbers, and they are extremely intelligent technical geniuses for the most part. I'm completely convinced that I would have been one of them (or some other trade craft) if I were born 50 years ago.
  - jamiek88 8y ago
    Modest too, most of ‘em.
time-domain0 8y ago
- IT: Sanitation engineers - Developers: Hazmat engineers - CS: Civil engineers
- fouc 8y ago
  Sounds accurate to me, but I'm interested if people will downvote you because they don't like the IT line.
  - delinka 8y ago
    Looks like it gets worse down the list, so I don't think the IT folk will complain too much. edit: Yes, whether you feel "Civil engineering" is worse than "Hazmat engineering" is a subjective matter.
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  IT: Garbage truck operators Developers: Garbage truck service/maintenance department Devops: Mechanic's apprentice who sometimes has to fill in for garbage truck drivers who no-show. Contractor: Mobile service tech gets called in to weld up stuff when it's broken beyond what the in-house team can handle. CS: Guys who plan the garbage trucks' route. Not everything is "engineering". Edit: You people take yourselves too seriously.
- plausibilities 8y ago
  - IT: Deployment - Dev: Implementation - CS: Design

drugme 8y ago

What NYT thinks devs are doing in Silicon Valley: AI and machine learning hacking in VR 3D. Funny, the article doesn't mention any of those topics at all (except for AI - but only as a way of introducing John McCarthy). Meanwhile we do do things like "finding all occurrences of a given word or pattern of letters in a text" quite frequently. And we are utterly dependent on technologies (e.g. databases, networks) based very strongly on the bread-and-butter content of Knuth's books. I agree, though that for most of us, chasing down "undefined is not a function" and its variants tends to rule the day.

commandlinefan 8y ago

> debugging yet another "undefined is not an function" Hey, you're lucky. I'm not in silicon valley, so I spend all my time debugging "I had a problem with the app but it hasn't happened in about a week and I can't remember exactly what the problem was, I need you to fix it or I'm going to escalate to your manager"

sf_rob 8y ago

My favorite one of these was from a coworker having trouble getting his presentation up. "People outside the tech industry ask 'Will a computer take my job?'; people inside the tech industry ask 'why won't this damn projector work?'"