4 ms·

The rule of thumb is to understand before you decide you've understood. Yeah, no. The rule of thumb ought to be find your own path, go with what works for yo

by iamdave 16y ago

The rule of thumb is to understand before you decide you've understood. Yeah, no. The rule of thumb ought to be find your own path, go with what works for you and forget everyone else's establishments. Clearly this guy saw a job with a culture and environment that he got a good vibe from, he liked their approach, he liked their people, he chose them. On the flip side, I personally don't know where this attitude comes from that the younger generations should have to toil and sweat and bleed before they get that opportunity engage in something that clicks with them. Life is short, but JUST long enough to get those experiences in whatever way they come along in our lives. Personally, I'm just as sick of old curmudgeons coming along dictating to young people how they should run a career just because said old fogie had to go in a different direction just to get his in the world as you are with recent grad students and their "entitlement".

barista 16y ago
Not toil and sweat but as a fresh graduate do you really have enough experience to make decision about culture? And that too based only on a couple of interviewers? Not working on windows because you don't agree with its design philosophies is ridiculous. It's not that you are working on building windows. It's just a platform. You select the tool that works best to get the job done. Not because you agree with the tools philosophy. If I got such a letter I'd actually retract offer to this candidate. Flexibility and eagerness to take on challenges and learn goes a long way in your initial days as a developer. Lacking these qualities is a big no-go for me at least.
- tomjen3 16y ago
  >Flexibility and eagerness to take on challenges and learn You are right in principle, but to you these things mean "compromising on what I want to do to please the corp", Eagerness means "I don't care whether I do something that I want, I will be happy to do whether they will let me", learning means "Accepting the decree I am given as the right thing". All of these are horrible, grotesque deformations which caries just enough of the original truth to work as sound-bites but will wreak the life of those who labor under them.
- davidw 16y ago
  I've been working in this industry for a while, and I've never regretted my decision to pretty much be a Linux-only guy. You can't do everything, and I like working with tools that are pleasing to me. I felt that way when I started working and I feel that way now. Sure, I probably lose out on some jobs because I'm not a Windows guy, but I'm also not an Oracle guy or a SAP guy or a Cobol guy or a Fortran guy either. It's a big field, and there's lots of room. As of late, I've found that even here in Italy there are plenty of Rails jobs, so, despite knowing it, I've also made a decision to not be a "PHP guy" either. So I don't think that sort of choice is merely lack of experience. I think the only reason for worry is if someone decides they're an XYZ guy, and that's all they do. I've used many languages professionally, and find learning new ones fun. I have more time for that if I spend less screwing around with things I don't like.
  - barista 16y ago
    > I think the only reason for worry is if someone decides they're an XYZ guy, and that's all they do. That's exactly I will retract offer to this guy if I ever got such a letter. I don't really object his position to not program on a specific platform. It's themindset.
  - skorgu 16y ago
    Absolutely. When I interviewed for my current job one of the interviewers walked in, looked at my resume and said "Wow a resume with no Windows on it. Nice." Not that I'm bashing the Microsoft stack mind you, it just doesn't interest me. I'd do it to pay the bills if I had to but there's enough depth in the industry that, as you say, I'm not terribly worried by not knowing everything.
- jodrellblank 16y ago
  Flexibility and eagerness to take on challenges and learn goes a long way in your initial days as a developer. But don't forget the maxim that you are what you repeatedly do (and other people will give you more of the work you have demonstrated enthusiasm and ability with). If you accept to be flexible and take on challenges means you take on the Perl/CGI company website with the flat-file back-end feeding the 3rd party ActiveX display, you will become skilled at dealing with Perl/CGI, fakeabases and ActiveX. What you do shapes your future, and it's quite reasonable to say "I choose not to head towards that kind of life, because I dislike X philosophy" - you may be misinformed about X, but it's not a "ridiculous" position to take unless you are struggling for money or alternative options. as a fresh graduate do you really have enough experience to make decision about culture? That's not really a valid question - you can't fault inexperienced people for making decisions without experience, that's circular.
  - barista 16y ago
    If you are asked to do perl, fakebases nad activeX in your early days and enjoy it. That's fine. If you don't like it you can always reject the next assignemtn .But you have rejected after knowing that you did it and you didn't like it. That lad, has probably not even worked on say Windows. Its premature to reject that platform based only on "design principles" it follows >>as a fresh graduate do you really have enough experience to make decision about culture? >That's not really a valid question - you can't fault inexperienced people for making decisions without experience, that's circular. You are generalizing my statement. I am specifically referring to judging culture. You can't even figure out let alone make judgements based on that if you are fresh out of college because you have barely seen any corporate culture by that time.
- hga 16y ago
  I'm late to this discussion but I'm a bit appalled that no one has cited pg's Great Hacker's essay, which makes nearly the same point on platforms (it's a little stronger in that it was talking about delivery platforms as well): http://paulgraham.com/gh.html http://paulgraham.com/gh.html Windows with an X server to the machine I'm actually doing the work on is just fine (there are still some important things that run best on Windows), but any company that otherwise chooses Windows as a software development platform is saying a whole lot about themselves and pretty much nothing good.
rasur 16y ago
>On the flip side, I personally don't know where this attitude comes from that the younger generations should have to toil and sweat and bleed before they get that opportunity engage in something that clicks with them. It's that whole "paying your dues" mentality, isn't it? Which might be fine, if we weren't all participating in an industry where a well executed idea can turn things upside down.
nupark2 16y ago
Personally, I'm just as sick of old curmudgeons coming along dictating to young people how they should run a career just because said old fogie had to go in a different direction just to get his in the world as you are with recent grad students and their "entitlement". ... and as an "old curmudgeon" who runs a small company and has been working in technology for nearly 15 years, I'm bemused and slightly weary of young graduates who seems to know everything and seem to have a very difficult time listening to senior engineers and managers when they're told differently. The end result is that we have to be exceedingly careful to maintain a high ratio of senior to junior engineers, lest we be overwhelmed with individuals campaigning for some technology of the date -- be it NoSQL, switching the whole company to some new VCS, or otherwise -- instead of applying their experience to making carefully reasoned choices to actually getting the job done. There is always room for change and innovation, but after you've been around long enough to see the cyclic trends in the re-invention of software technology, you become more conservative about spending resources leaping on hyperbole of "next big thing."
- rmgraham 16y ago
  Good examples. I was the junior at my company championing a new VCS for the entire company (5 years ago), and more recently even NoSQL (2 years ago) for almost everything. Fortunately, people change. I don't know about others, but it took me the better part of 8 years of post-school professional experience to finally realize my immaturity and arrogance.
- iamdave 16y ago
  I think this reflects an attitude of the world that I disagree with. Youth does not imply ignorance; they can be naturally coupled together, but the automatic assumption from older managers and developers that "He's young, he doesn't know what he's doing" needs to die a horrible death in a house fire. I'm sorry, you may disagree and that's your prerogative but I've worked with some incredibly intelligent, skilled, and forward thinking individuals who some "curmudgeons" might think are just inexperienced buffoons who defied the status quo and in a few cases have actually managed to save their department thousands of dollars. Youth is vitality, youth is energy, youth is a fresh perspective. Sometimes that birdcage NEEDS to be rattled. It's like Wayne Gretzky said, "I missed 100% of the shots I didn't take" Exactly, Wayne. You miss 100% of the shots you don't take.

by iamdave 16y ago

barista 16y ago

Not toil and sweat but as a fresh graduate do you really have enough experience to make decision about culture? And that too based only on a couple of interviewers? Not working on windows because you don't agree with its design philosophies is ridiculous. It's not that you are working on building windows. It's just a platform. You select the tool that works best to get the job done. Not because you agree with the tools philosophy. If I got such a letter I'd actually retract offer to this candidate. Flexibility and eagerness to take on challenges and learn goes a long way in your initial days as a developer. Lacking these qualities is a big no-go for me at least.

tomjen3 16y ago
>Flexibility and eagerness to take on challenges and learn You are right in principle, but to you these things mean "compromising on what I want to do to please the corp", Eagerness means "I don't care whether I do something that I want, I will be happy to do whether they will let me", learning means "Accepting the decree I am given as the right thing". All of these are horrible, grotesque deformations which caries just enough of the original truth to work as sound-bites but will wreak the life of those who labor under them.
davidw 16y ago
I've been working in this industry for a while, and I've never regretted my decision to pretty much be a Linux-only guy. You can't do everything, and I like working with tools that are pleasing to me. I felt that way when I started working and I feel that way now. Sure, I probably lose out on some jobs because I'm not a Windows guy, but I'm also not an Oracle guy or a SAP guy or a Cobol guy or a Fortran guy either. It's a big field, and there's lots of room. As of late, I've found that even here in Italy there are plenty of Rails jobs, so, despite knowing it, I've also made a decision to not be a "PHP guy" either. So I don't think that sort of choice is merely lack of experience. I think the only reason for worry is if someone decides they're an XYZ guy, and that's all they do. I've used many languages professionally, and find learning new ones fun. I have more time for that if I spend less screwing around with things I don't like.
- barista 16y ago
  > I think the only reason for worry is if someone decides they're an XYZ guy, and that's all they do. That's exactly I will retract offer to this guy if I ever got such a letter. I don't really object his position to not program on a specific platform. It's themindset.
- skorgu 16y ago
  Absolutely. When I interviewed for my current job one of the interviewers walked in, looked at my resume and said "Wow a resume with no Windows on it. Nice." Not that I'm bashing the Microsoft stack mind you, it just doesn't interest me. I'd do it to pay the bills if I had to but there's enough depth in the industry that, as you say, I'm not terribly worried by not knowing everything.
jodrellblank 16y ago
Flexibility and eagerness to take on challenges and learn goes a long way in your initial days as a developer. But don't forget the maxim that you are what you repeatedly do (and other people will give you more of the work you have demonstrated enthusiasm and ability with). If you accept to be flexible and take on challenges means you take on the Perl/CGI company website with the flat-file back-end feeding the 3rd party ActiveX display, you will become skilled at dealing with Perl/CGI, fakeabases and ActiveX. What you do shapes your future, and it's quite reasonable to say "I choose not to head towards that kind of life, because I dislike X philosophy" - you may be misinformed about X, but it's not a "ridiculous" position to take unless you are struggling for money or alternative options. as a fresh graduate do you really have enough experience to make decision about culture? That's not really a valid question - you can't fault inexperienced people for making decisions without experience, that's circular.
- barista 16y ago
  If you are asked to do perl, fakebases nad activeX in your early days and enjoy it. That's fine. If you don't like it you can always reject the next assignemtn .But you have rejected after knowing that you did it and you didn't like it. That lad, has probably not even worked on say Windows. Its premature to reject that platform based only on "design principles" it follows >>as a fresh graduate do you really have enough experience to make decision about culture? >That's not really a valid question - you can't fault inexperienced people for making decisions without experience, that's circular. You are generalizing my statement. I am specifically referring to judging culture. You can't even figure out let alone make judgements based on that if you are fresh out of college because you have barely seen any corporate culture by that time.
hga 16y ago
I'm late to this discussion but I'm a bit appalled that no one has cited pg's Great Hacker's essay, which makes nearly the same point on platforms (it's a little stronger in that it was talking about delivery platforms as well): http://paulgraham.com/gh.html http://paulgraham.com/gh.html Windows with an X server to the machine I'm actually doing the work on is just fine (there are still some important things that run best on Windows), but any company that otherwise chooses Windows as a software development platform is saying a whole lot about themselves and pretty much nothing good.

rasur 16y ago

>On the flip side, I personally don't know where this attitude comes from that the younger generations should have to toil and sweat and bleed before they get that opportunity engage in something that clicks with them. It's that whole "paying your dues" mentality, isn't it? Which might be fine, if we weren't all participating in an industry where a well executed idea can turn things upside down.

nupark2 16y ago

Personally, I'm just as sick of old curmudgeons coming along dictating to young people how they should run a career just because said old fogie had to go in a different direction just to get his in the world as you are with recent grad students and their "entitlement". ... and as an "old curmudgeon" who runs a small company and has been working in technology for nearly 15 years, I'm bemused and slightly weary of young graduates who seems to know everything and seem to have a very difficult time listening to senior engineers and managers when they're told differently. The end result is that we have to be exceedingly careful to maintain a high ratio of senior to junior engineers, lest we be overwhelmed with individuals campaigning for some technology of the date -- be it NoSQL, switching the whole company to some new VCS, or otherwise -- instead of applying their experience to making carefully reasoned choices to actually getting the job done. There is always room for change and innovation, but after you've been around long enough to see the cyclic trends in the re-invention of software technology, you become more conservative about spending resources leaping on hyperbole of "next big thing."

rmgraham 16y ago
Good examples. I was the junior at my company championing a new VCS for the entire company (5 years ago), and more recently even NoSQL (2 years ago) for almost everything. Fortunately, people change. I don't know about others, but it took me the better part of 8 years of post-school professional experience to finally realize my immaturity and arrogance.
iamdave 16y ago
I think this reflects an attitude of the world that I disagree with. Youth does not imply ignorance; they can be naturally coupled together, but the automatic assumption from older managers and developers that "He's young, he doesn't know what he's doing" needs to die a horrible death in a house fire. I'm sorry, you may disagree and that's your prerogative but I've worked with some incredibly intelligent, skilled, and forward thinking individuals who some "curmudgeons" might think are just inexperienced buffoons who defied the status quo and in a few cases have actually managed to save their department thousands of dollars. Youth is vitality, youth is energy, youth is a fresh perspective. Sometimes that birdcage NEEDS to be rattled. It's like Wayne Gretzky said, "I missed 100% of the shots I didn't take" Exactly, Wayne. You miss 100% of the shots you don't take.