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If you become a "language zealot", you are really not helping yourself as a software engineer. The day I get referred to myself as "that Node developer" or "tha

by papito 5y ago

If you become a "language zealot", you are really not helping yourself as a software engineer. The day I get referred to myself as "that Node developer" or "that Python guy", I will consider my career to have taken a wrong turn. Don't get attached to no language, no company, or no lover.

tester34 5y ago
maybe "that Python guy" is poor, but "that guy who's proficent at Python internals and stuff" is infinitely better "that Linux guy" isn't impressive, but "Linux kernel maintainer" is
- papito 5y ago
  I will bet that a Linux kernel maintainer is a more capable coder than someone stitching together web apps with Rails. Besides, something like language and kernel design is computer science, not day-to-day software development that most of us do.
  - tester34 5y ago
    >I will bet that a Linux kernel maintainer is a more capable coder than someone stitching together web apps with Rails. but who's coder? in my opinion definitely Linux kernel maintainer will be better at topics oriented around OSes, low level, hardware, "system" programming, debugging but I doubt he'll be also better at web development, fancy software engineering patterns/architectures (sagas, blabla), microservices, distributed apps, web security I feel like those use different skills / kinds of knowledge. Try using 'goto' around Java/C# people and you'll be considered as a witch, meanwhile I guess it's relatively not rare in Kernel development
  - dagw 5y ago
    I will bet that a Linux kernel maintainer is a more capable coder than someone stitching together web apps with Rails. Unless you actually need a web app. In which case the "Rails guy" will deliver in a couple of days something the kernel maintainer might struggle with for a couple of weeks. Of course given 3-4 month the kernel maintainer could no doubt become a very proficient Rail developer if they felt incentivized to do so. Your average Rails developer probably won't be able to become a proficient kernel hacker in 3-4 month.
    - joelbluminator 5y ago
      The kernel guy will maybe be ok after 3-4 months if he knows web development (which he probably doesn't). I wouldn't trivialize how easy it is to become a Rails dev.
  - joelbluminator 5y ago
    How many kernel maintainers are there as opposed to Rails/web devs? It's not a viable career path for most.
joelbluminator 5y ago
How do you survive in this business when you're getting older if you switch stacks every X years? I have somewhat averagish abilities and I think to get a competitive advantage I better stick to my stack. It's not necessarily being a language zealot, just a decision to go all in on something and become an expert.
- papito 5y ago
  Be careful about becoming an expert. Maybe being "good enough" is a better investment of your time. I once wrote a business-facing app in ExtJS. I played around with it, and I said, "ExtJS is cool, I am going to get good at it". Six months of studying the dark corners of ExtJS and becoming really good at performance challenges and corner cases, ExtJS comes out with version 4, burning the bridges with new paradigms and making my "expertise" obsolete. In general, stick to micro-frameworks. It's much harder to get burned in that world.
  - joelbluminator 5y ago
    Yes it could definitely go wrong. Flash, Perl, 80% of js frameworks etc etc are all kinda dying/dead. But some techs are holding up quite well through time: Java, Unix, SQL, Python, PHP, .NET, Ruby/Rails. I'm betting all of these will still get you jobs 20 years from now. I don't need it to be hot, I just want to be able to make a living.
WesolyKubeczek 5y ago
But frankly, job advertisements that seek a "PHP developer" or "Python developer" or "React guru" don't help. A young developer entering the job market sees those ads, and thinks this is how the things are. I sure was thinking this was normal for a while.
- papito 5y ago
  Yeah, but to be fair, there is only so much you can learn while entering the market, so you only have the bandwidth to grok one language and framework. Companies that look for talented and true language-agnostic quick learners tone down their requirements for a specific technology stack, and sometimes don't even mention it.

by papito 5y ago

tester34 5y ago

maybe "that Python guy" is poor, but "that guy who's proficent at Python internals and stuff" is infinitely better "that Linux guy" isn't impressive, but "Linux kernel maintainer" is

papito 5y ago
I will bet that a Linux kernel maintainer is a more capable coder than someone stitching together web apps with Rails. Besides, something like language and kernel design is computer science, not day-to-day software development that most of us do.
- tester34 5y ago
  >I will bet that a Linux kernel maintainer is a more capable coder than someone stitching together web apps with Rails. but who's coder? in my opinion definitely Linux kernel maintainer will be better at topics oriented around OSes, low level, hardware, "system" programming, debugging but I doubt he'll be also better at web development, fancy software engineering patterns/architectures (sagas, blabla), microservices, distributed apps, web security I feel like those use different skills / kinds of knowledge. Try using 'goto' around Java/C# people and you'll be considered as a witch, meanwhile I guess it's relatively not rare in Kernel development
- dagw 5y ago
  I will bet that a Linux kernel maintainer is a more capable coder than someone stitching together web apps with Rails. Unless you actually need a web app. In which case the "Rails guy" will deliver in a couple of days something the kernel maintainer might struggle with for a couple of weeks. Of course given 3-4 month the kernel maintainer could no doubt become a very proficient Rail developer if they felt incentivized to do so. Your average Rails developer probably won't be able to become a proficient kernel hacker in 3-4 month.
  - joelbluminator 5y ago
    The kernel guy will maybe be ok after 3-4 months if he knows web development (which he probably doesn't). I wouldn't trivialize how easy it is to become a Rails dev.
- joelbluminator 5y ago
  How many kernel maintainers are there as opposed to Rails/web devs? It's not a viable career path for most.

joelbluminator 5y ago

How do you survive in this business when you're getting older if you switch stacks every X years? I have somewhat averagish abilities and I think to get a competitive advantage I better stick to my stack. It's not necessarily being a language zealot, just a decision to go all in on something and become an expert.

papito 5y ago
Be careful about becoming an expert. Maybe being "good enough" is a better investment of your time. I once wrote a business-facing app in ExtJS. I played around with it, and I said, "ExtJS is cool, I am going to get good at it". Six months of studying the dark corners of ExtJS and becoming really good at performance challenges and corner cases, ExtJS comes out with version 4, burning the bridges with new paradigms and making my "expertise" obsolete. In general, stick to micro-frameworks. It's much harder to get burned in that world.
- joelbluminator 5y ago
  Yes it could definitely go wrong. Flash, Perl, 80% of js frameworks etc etc are all kinda dying/dead. But some techs are holding up quite well through time: Java, Unix, SQL, Python, PHP, .NET, Ruby/Rails. I'm betting all of these will still get you jobs 20 years from now. I don't need it to be hot, I just want to be able to make a living.

WesolyKubeczek 5y ago

But frankly, job advertisements that seek a "PHP developer" or "Python developer" or "React guru" don't help. A young developer entering the job market sees those ads, and thinks this is how the things are. I sure was thinking this was normal for a while.

papito 5y ago
Yeah, but to be fair, there is only so much you can learn while entering the market, so you only have the bandwidth to grok one language and framework. Companies that look for talented and true language-agnostic quick learners tone down their requirements for a specific technology stack, and sometimes don't even mention it.