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This speaks to the point in the article "The real problem is that C++ is neither easy nor loved," which they offset with "The language may be hard. But it's als
by wwweston 4y ago
This speaks to the point in the article "The real problem is that C++ is neither easy nor loved," which they offset with "The language may be hard. But it's also worth it."
The problem is that there's a law of diminishing returns to compensation. If you can work with a tool you like that helps you meet milestones and general expectations for $X00k generally leading to pleasant days, or can work with a tool that makes your life harder and leads to higher stress fewer pleasant days for $2X00k... sure there's going to be people who take the extra money. But there's also going to be people who say to themselves "yeah, it turns out I'm plenty well compensated at $X00k I'll take the extra quality of life."
"Worth it" is a value judgment. How many people managing the financial firms decided it was worth it to invest in C++?
- bfung 4y agoTo further the idea, C++ can be loved if the firms invest dollars, invest marketing (open source, other ways) of it. They should support/invest in the community they want to hire from.
- klyrs 4y agoThey're focused on the language. The language isn't the problem. Of the people I've met in finance, there are some really strong and offputting trends: they're uniformly dismissive of work/life balance, they're almost uniformly the worst stereotype of tech-bro, and aside from the rampant cocaine use, they're hugely socially conservative, and every single one values profit over ethics. It's not the language, it's the extremely toxic culture. Any programmer worth their salt can march into a nasty codebase of whatever language, and make it dance. But financial folk don't want to employ humans with all their complexity, they want robots who will run themselves into the ground for cash. So they get young men who burn out quickly and retire ASAP. The problem isn't the language. The problem isn't the pay. The problem is the extractive culture. Finance folks focus on short term profits to the detriment of their future. And now they're wondering "where can we find programmers" after they've been burning them like so many trees. Go figure.
- dennis_jeeves1 4y ago> Any programmer worth their salt can march into a nasty codebase of whatever language, Correct, I wonder why people both technical and non-technical focus on this aspect a lot. ( my guess is that they are incompetent themselves). Agreed, if you want someone for two or three months you probably want someone who knows the language and it's ecosystem pretty well. Any work that is more than six months should be nearly language independent.
- klyrs 4y agoIt really makes me wonder. I see so many job ads where specific-language mastery is a top-line requirement. And I know people who know that this is not justified, but keep doing it...
- conductr 4y ago> Any work that is more than six months should be nearly language independent. I'm not sure this is true in finance. Speed matters. A lot. It's called high frequency trading for a reason. These firms will spend a million bucks just to make their fiber optic cables 1 foot shorter.
- klyrs 4y agoJust the kind of short-sighted idiocy that keeps good people out of the industry. How long does it take to get that network upgrade installed? It doesn't happen overnight. It takes me a week to get decent at a new language, a month to get good. That's, what, $10-20k on "training" assuming an output of zero in that first month? That's peanuts.
- dennis_jeeves1 4y ago>I'm not sure this is true in finance. So if it's not 6 months, how much will it take for a seasoned programmer to learn the stuff?