5 ms·

I think you are making the mistake that enterprises who employ thousands of developers are looking for quality over butts in seats.

rubicon33 7y ago
Yup. And they're missing the point that this isn't 1985 anymore. A high school student with a week of JavaScript and HTML could write AirBnB. Or at least, JavaScript and similar languages make programming much, much easier (and hence the barrier to entry much easier). As coding difficulty drops, and supply increases, the net effect will be a much higher demand for jobs than supply. And that's exactly where big tech wants it to be. edit: here comes the javascript developer downvotes.
- 0_gravitas 7y ago
  I see this hyperbole a lot, any kid within a week can copy an online tutorial on how to make a static site, but it takes a long time to begin to think in a way that let's you do interesting/useful things on your own.
  - ntsplnkv2 7y ago
    I fall victim to it myself at times. It's classic expert talk, "oh, that's easy." Perhaps to you :)
- antt 7y ago
  >Yup. And they're missing the point that this isn't 1985 anymore. A high school student with a week of JavaScript and HTML could write AirBnB. Sorry is this a joke? Because I'm missing it.
  - TuringNYC 7y ago
    I dont think this is a joke -- because sellers (workers) believe it and because buyers (employers) believe it...until they realize the project - crashes under load, - cannot scale to even 5% the traffic, - doesnt have all the myriad required compliance and transnational side systems - has underinvested in accounting and all support systems - is un-maintainable, etc. etc. And that is when serious businesses realize you get what you pay for and that you need to pay for real experience to real systems.
- arcticfox 7y ago
  > A high school student with a week of JavaScript and HTML could write AirBnB. Yeah, that could definitely happen. /s
  - krob 7y ago
    All I can say is LOL.. good luck with that. Maybe if they were Little Man Tate. Knowing where to start, the permutations of frameworks & libraries & algorithmic knowledge & design patterns etc.. That's like the whole.. I know how to build a blog when all you did was click a button on digital ocean to deploy wordpress and now you think you know how to deploy it. Then client says they need it to be on GCE or AWS. Yes you can always use PAAS products, but experience plays a role.
- rdiddly 7y ago
  You're exaggerating, but it's basically true that on the technical side everything from AirBnB to Zillow are just CRUD apps, with varying degrees of nice UI stuff on the front-end. Once you've built one, you could kind of build any of them. (Not sure a high-schooler with a week of JS would be up to it though, LOL.) Anyway it's important to note that coming up with the business idea and then executing it well is kinda where the money comes from, not from the app itself per se. A business may have a website; it might even use a web app to deliver its core business value; but having a website or web app doesn't necessarily mean you have a business.
- swoongoonz 7y ago
  These kids would be competing with incredibly prolific web developers who not only output an insane amount of code themselves but manage OSS at massive scales. One example is Jordan Harband, responsible for: 1. Enzyme, the current top used React testing library 2. NVM, kind of the only game in town for managing node versions 3. qs, a tool for converting search to json objects and back 4. tc39 proposals, the committee that determines new JS features This is all in addition to his developer work at Airbnb. I would like to see a high schooler have that kind of maturity, drive, and focus.
  - chrisweekly 7y ago
    nit: `n` is way better than `nvm`
    - swoongoonz 7y ago
      +1 to n for the homebrew installation. nvm team is notoriously hardheaded about not wanting to maintain availability through different tools.
  - roenxi 7y ago
    I disagree with the direction gp is taking, big projects involving money and people are not easy. On the other hand your example might support his argument. You've drawn attention to an Airbnb engineer with a bunch of other interests that don't seem directly related to the infrastructure behind the company. I'm sure they use these things, but they aren't going to be critical to the success or failure of the site. That suggests the technical challenges of Airbnb aren't enough to keep someone with a large amount of maturity, drive and focus busy and interested.
    - swoongoonz 7y ago
      That's totally possible but if you're the CTO of Airbnb would you want the high schooler for cheap (who may be unreliable when it comes to managing schedules, following protocols, having the maturity to deal with failing systems) or do you want the guy who's been managing all of these OS products for years? It's a person issue, not really a competency issue.
- seattle_spring 7y ago
  > A high school student with a week of JavaScript and HTML could write AirBnB I actually love it when a developer says something like this, because it tells me way more than even 2 full days of pairing or interviewing could: They know absolutely nothing about software at scale, and are probably extremely arrogant to boot.
  - ReptileMan 7y ago
    I don't know - I still think that you can replace twitter in a weekend. You just need a couple of markov chain outrage bots shouting at each other, porn scraping bot and a bare metal web server that can process couple of million requests per second. Jokes aside - the biggest error this software developer makes is not realizing that software is not the crtitcal part of AirBNB success. It is the thousand manyears of boots in streets promoting the app and getting people onboard.
    - antt 7y ago
      Great software has never cause a company to succeed. Bad enough software will always cause a company to fail.
  - seattle_spring 7y ago
    Wow, looks like "here cometh the downvotes" homeboy couldn't take the criticism and flagged every comment he disagreed with.
    - rubicon33 7y ago
      You can't downvote a direct sub-comment.
  - rubicon33 7y ago
    I actually love it when I get a response just like yours. It informs me that you're probably a JQuery developer, personally offended because you believe that your work is incredibly advanced and challenging. In reality, what you do is probably some of the easiest "coding" to have ever come to fruition. Yet, you toss out the "at scale" comment ad nauseam because you think it'll make you sound important. Just by the fact that you denounce anyone who recognizes the simplicity of it modern development tools shows me you probably fail to recognize the simplicity yourself. Or you don't want to admit the simple fact that programming has gotten much easier. That's been intent of so many modern languages, yet we're always going to have someone like you who claims we all don't know what we're talking about because we've never built anything "at scale". Your 10,000 hits / day blog isn't "scale" buddy.

rubicon33 7y ago

Yup. And they're missing the point that this isn't 1985 anymore. A high school student with a week of JavaScript and HTML could write AirBnB. Or at least, JavaScript and similar languages make programming much, much easier (and hence the barrier to entry much easier). As coding difficulty drops, and supply increases, the net effect will be a much higher demand for jobs than supply. And that's exactly where big tech wants it to be. edit: here comes the javascript developer downvotes.

0_gravitas 7y ago
I see this hyperbole a lot, any kid within a week can copy an online tutorial on how to make a static site, but it takes a long time to begin to think in a way that let's you do interesting/useful things on your own.
- ntsplnkv2 7y ago
  I fall victim to it myself at times. It's classic expert talk, "oh, that's easy." Perhaps to you :)
antt 7y ago
>Yup. And they're missing the point that this isn't 1985 anymore. A high school student with a week of JavaScript and HTML could write AirBnB. Sorry is this a joke? Because I'm missing it.
- TuringNYC 7y ago
  I dont think this is a joke -- because sellers (workers) believe it and because buyers (employers) believe it...until they realize the project - crashes under load, - cannot scale to even 5% the traffic, - doesnt have all the myriad required compliance and transnational side systems - has underinvested in accounting and all support systems - is un-maintainable, etc. etc. And that is when serious businesses realize you get what you pay for and that you need to pay for real experience to real systems.
arcticfox 7y ago
> A high school student with a week of JavaScript and HTML could write AirBnB. Yeah, that could definitely happen. /s
- krob 7y ago
  All I can say is LOL.. good luck with that. Maybe if they were Little Man Tate. Knowing where to start, the permutations of frameworks & libraries & algorithmic knowledge & design patterns etc.. That's like the whole.. I know how to build a blog when all you did was click a button on digital ocean to deploy wordpress and now you think you know how to deploy it. Then client says they need it to be on GCE or AWS. Yes you can always use PAAS products, but experience plays a role.
rdiddly 7y ago
You're exaggerating, but it's basically true that on the technical side everything from AirBnB to Zillow are just CRUD apps, with varying degrees of nice UI stuff on the front-end. Once you've built one, you could kind of build any of them. (Not sure a high-schooler with a week of JS would be up to it though, LOL.) Anyway it's important to note that coming up with the business idea and then executing it well is kinda where the money comes from, not from the app itself per se. A business may have a website; it might even use a web app to deliver its core business value; but having a website or web app doesn't necessarily mean you have a business.
swoongoonz 7y ago
These kids would be competing with incredibly prolific web developers who not only output an insane amount of code themselves but manage OSS at massive scales. One example is Jordan Harband, responsible for: 1. Enzyme, the current top used React testing library 2. NVM, kind of the only game in town for managing node versions 3. qs, a tool for converting search to json objects and back 4. tc39 proposals, the committee that determines new JS features This is all in addition to his developer work at Airbnb. I would like to see a high schooler have that kind of maturity, drive, and focus.
- chrisweekly 7y ago
  nit: `n` is way better than `nvm`
  - swoongoonz 7y ago
    +1 to n for the homebrew installation. nvm team is notoriously hardheaded about not wanting to maintain availability through different tools.
- roenxi 7y ago
  I disagree with the direction gp is taking, big projects involving money and people are not easy. On the other hand your example might support his argument. You've drawn attention to an Airbnb engineer with a bunch of other interests that don't seem directly related to the infrastructure behind the company. I'm sure they use these things, but they aren't going to be critical to the success or failure of the site. That suggests the technical challenges of Airbnb aren't enough to keep someone with a large amount of maturity, drive and focus busy and interested.
  - swoongoonz 7y ago
    That's totally possible but if you're the CTO of Airbnb would you want the high schooler for cheap (who may be unreliable when it comes to managing schedules, following protocols, having the maturity to deal with failing systems) or do you want the guy who's been managing all of these OS products for years? It's a person issue, not really a competency issue.
seattle_spring 7y ago
> A high school student with a week of JavaScript and HTML could write AirBnB I actually love it when a developer says something like this, because it tells me way more than even 2 full days of pairing or interviewing could: They know absolutely nothing about software at scale, and are probably extremely arrogant to boot.
- ReptileMan 7y ago
  I don't know - I still think that you can replace twitter in a weekend. You just need a couple of markov chain outrage bots shouting at each other, porn scraping bot and a bare metal web server that can process couple of million requests per second. Jokes aside - the biggest error this software developer makes is not realizing that software is not the crtitcal part of AirBNB success. It is the thousand manyears of boots in streets promoting the app and getting people onboard.
  - antt 7y ago
    Great software has never cause a company to succeed. Bad enough software will always cause a company to fail.
- seattle_spring 7y ago
  Wow, looks like "here cometh the downvotes" homeboy couldn't take the criticism and flagged every comment he disagreed with.
  - rubicon33 7y ago
    You can't downvote a direct sub-comment.
- rubicon33 7y ago
  I actually love it when I get a response just like yours. It informs me that you're probably a JQuery developer, personally offended because you believe that your work is incredibly advanced and challenging. In reality, what you do is probably some of the easiest "coding" to have ever come to fruition. Yet, you toss out the "at scale" comment ad nauseam because you think it'll make you sound important. Just by the fact that you denounce anyone who recognizes the simplicity of it modern development tools shows me you probably fail to recognize the simplicity yourself. Or you don't want to admit the simple fact that programming has gotten much easier. That's been intent of so many modern languages, yet we're always going to have someone like you who claims we all don't know what we're talking about because we've never built anything "at scale". Your 10,000 hits / day blog isn't "scale" buddy.