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I don’t buy it. As software developers we learn technologies for breakfast. We learn them, and then we forget them. We recollect the wisdom gained and apply it

I don’t buy it. As software developers we learn technologies for breakfast. We learn them, and then we forget them. We recollect the wisdom gained and apply it in our next gig using a different technology. It works for mobile development, for frontend, for backend, for infra, for almost anything. I have worked for years with PHP, Apache, Ansible and MySQL. Nowadays not anymore. And in 7 years I’ll be using something else. Learn the fundamentals (which is not a one-time job, btw) and you’ll be fine. If someone asks for technology X in their job offers when you know Y, but you know you won’t have difficulty in learning X, just take a few days in learning X and then put it in your CV. You’ll get pass HR screening and then you’ll have a chance to explain in tech interview that your are more of a technology-agnostic dev. You’ll do fine.

littlecranky67 3y ago
I agree, but unfortunately hiring managers, recruiter etc. don't think like this. If you happen to find a person that is tech-savy, they can asses your true skillsets and capabilitiy of solving problems. Hiring managers and recruiter match buzzwords in your CV. I recently got rejected for a project from an agency (am a contractor) because I did not have provable skills or knowledge in "CI/CD". Stupid me, made the mistake of putting extensive details about creating build and deployment pipelines with Travis, GitLab, GitHub Actions, Azure Pipelines for each past project going back to 2012, but did not specify the right buzzword "CI/CD" for the recruiter...
- tkiolp4 3y ago
  > Hiring managers and recruiter match buzzwords in your CV So? You put those buzzwords in your CV. What’s difficult about that? You feel like being dishonest? If so, again, just explain in the next stage of the interview (with real engineers) that you do have real world experience in similar but not exactly the same technologies listed in your CV. You just did so to pass through HR. Not a big deal (as long as you’re confident and believe you can learn technologies easily)
  - dwattttt 3y ago
    I would assume the problem comes up the next time his CV gets rejected for not having "Continuous Integration" on it.
    - littlecranky67 3y ago
      I have made some "SEO" optimizations as some agencies use text-based CV matching. Some are upfront with it, with others I observe it because I get a lot of Java project requests (I never coded Java, but as a FE dev, have lots of JavaScript in my CV text). I'm gladly looking forward 3-5 years, when AI will handle this CV analysis and match a project description from a company to a proper candidate. Basic GPT can tell right now if CI/CD matches "Azure Pipelines". Then we can fire the lower 50-80% of unskilled recruiters that do not provide any value to the market right now.
  - manfre 3y ago
    Blatantly lying on the CV is an instant rejection at the places I've worked. It's one thing to stretch your contributions on past projects, but to outright lie about the technologies used is a huge red flag. It's easy to teach a person the company tech stack, but I'm not sure it's possible (or worthwhile) to try and teach some one to be honest.
    - throwaway80492 3y ago
      You don't need to make up projects you worked on with the technology, you can just add it to your list of skills.
- deleted 3y ago
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demarq 3y ago
Absolutely, I feel I could be employed tomorrow in a language or stack that I haven’t even heard of and start being productive by the end of the week! I seriously think you owe it to yourself to practice learning something new every week. It often takes one afternoon to get a “taste” and small side project to get beyond that. Every programming language. Is literally just a template for instructions, and every technology just an abstraction over some crud somewhere.
- scarface_74 3y ago
  So could you be a productive iOS/Android developer in a week with no previous experience?
  - ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
    My experience is that learning a new language -at a basic level- can be done quickly (like a couple of weeks, not days). But learning it at an advanced level, is a whole different matter. I've been writing Swift since, literally, a few hours after it was announced, in 2014. I write Swift every day (like, seven days a week), and have been, since that first day. I feel as if I have only had "mastery" of the language for the last couple of years. There's still plenty for me to learn, and they keep adding more stuff. But the language isn't the big deal. The deal for me, is the fundamental SDK/API/Framework. That has been an ongoing project since 1986. As soon as I learn one API, they change it up (and sometimes, the entire OS). During that time, I've written in 68K ASM, Pascal, Object Pascal, C, C+- (the weird THINK C variant), C++. ObjC, and Swift. I've worked with MacApp, OpenDoc(!), Think Libraries (Pascal and C), PowerPlant, and Cocoa (and its expression in iOS, WatchOS, AppKit, and TVOS). I've always considered hiring folks to be an investment. As a manager, I always looked for folks that had the fundamentals down, and assumed that I could train them into what we need. Most of the work we did, was way beyond anything you'd find in textbooks. I was under no illusion that I could hire folks that would be able to start on it right away. That was why my team was always one that I wanted to keep whole and cohesive, over many years. I can't even imagine today's 18-month engineer lifetime. I kept my engineers for many years, and that wasn't easy.
scarface_74 3y ago
Yes because I know Java (hypothetically I haven’t touched Java since two years after it was introduced) I can become an efficient Android developer “in a few days”. Better yet, since I did Windows CE development for ruggedized devices using C# Compact framework back between 2007-2010, I should have no problem picking up iOS development “in a few days” and start being a productive member of a team right? Or better yet, leading a team? Third thing, I know the fundamentals of web development including JavaScript, HTML and CSS. But I haven’t done anything on the front end since 2012. Are you going to hire me to help create your website when you’re looking for a modern web developer? Learning a language is easy. Modern development requires knowing the toolchain framework, idiosyncrasies, foot guns, best practices, etc. These days, I am only looking for jobs where I have some type of team lead/architect position. Are you going to hire me to lead a team working on a 10 year old complicated Java app when all of my “enterprise” experience is in the .Net ecosystem? On another note: I haven’t randomly submitted my job to an ATS worrying about an “HR” screen since 2008 across 5 jobs. I’ve always either reached out to my network or had someone reach out to me.
- ianlevesque 3y ago
  > Are you going to hire me to lead a team working on a 10 year old complicated Java app when all of my “enterprise” experience is in the .Net ecosystem? Yes. The skills are fungible.
  - mgkimsal 3y ago
    While that might be the 'right' answer, it's also in the minority for many job openings/postings.
    - ianlevesque 3y ago
      You're not wrong, but thankfully job openings are more fungible than ever too, with remote positions open at plenty of companies that won't make that particular (not-)hiring mistake.
      - 3y ago
shipscode 3y ago
Oh come on. Language specific knowledge is a game changer in programming speed & efficiency. Likewise the level of effort to understand modern React concepts has gone way up. Deep React specialization is a great way to get most tech jobs. Some interviewers literally just want to see if you can use hooks in a solution. Applying a learners mindset in the middle of an interview comes off as amateur. Learn the tech stack you’ll use on the job. It’ll get you tons of mid grade offers.
nicechianti 3y ago
[dead]
m3kw9 3y ago
Sure, but say you focused as a iOS developer you definitely cannot tell the recruiter doing Android are the same. They wont hire you if you say you have no Android experience, same thing
BiteCode_dev 3y ago
It's one thing knowing the language, it's another being productive with the ecosystem. One takes between a few days and a few months. The other is a few years, unless you get pro training. I guarantee most people starting with Python from another language will be productive quickly. But they will curse the packaging ecosystem because they will follow a lot of tutorials that don't follow this: https://bitecode.substack.com/p/why-not-tell-people-to-simply-use https://bitecode.substack.com/p/why-not-tell-people-to-simpl... And they'll get screwed. They will have a hard time learning this: https://www.bitecode.dev/p/relieving-your-python-packaging-pain https://www.bitecode.dev/p/relieving-your-python-packaging-p... It will take a long time of trials and errors, suffering all the way. And this is true for many other aspects: good editor config, good web deployment story, good app sharing system, good tooling setup, etc A runtime or a stlib is quite small and stable. But an ecosystem is gigantic and moving.
- dmix 3y ago
  Yeah I learned Ruby on Rails very quickly a long time ago, it's probably one of the most accessible frameworks to learn, but it took me years to master all the weird quirks, dev environment stuff, debugging, production deployment etc. Plus from all the years doing it I'm familiar with all the old libraries so when you join a company with a large legacy code base, which at this point is very common for rails, I don't have to spend forever learning the details of some 7yr old implentation no one uses anymore. Working with senior devs who have only been doing it for 1-2yrs is where you see the small productivity differences that aren't simply being a newbie programmer.
- BlargMcLarg 3y ago
  You're seriously arguing that someone with general knowledge of programming is going to get hard-stuck not knowing specifics of a language you and thousands of others have blogposted about for years, while linking your own posts? Let's be real here. What percentage of companies are in dire need of 'experienced [language] programmers' who know these specifics that haven't already been set by previous devs or have another developer present to make the decisions? That's a tiny, tiny percentage of the entire job market, with much of the demand coming from companies with incredibly shaky foundations. Almost the entirety of this is a luxury problem put on the individual. The moment the job market says they can't demand it anymore, they won't.
ransom1538 3y ago
"you won’t have difficulty in learning X, just take a few days in learning X" It isn't 2020 anymore. No. No, one is going to hire someone that is going to learn "react on the fly".
chaostheory 3y ago
The probability of success is largely is based on the available supply of developers vs the demand for them. Canada’s market is ok, but not great which is probably why so many Canadian programmers immigrated south.
o_m 3y ago
Everyone goes through this once. A lot of your knowledge suddenly aren't needed anymore because of external factors. For me it was Flash. I've seen colleges being afraid of learning new technology after being burned once. Now my skills are learning new skills.
- coffeebeqn 3y ago
  I also did Flash for a long time. 10 years later it’s not like that experience is mostly lost. When I write typescript I get a dejavú to AS3. Plus knowledge of VMs, garbage collection and all the other programming concepts translates to most languages
hamburglar 3y ago
> As software developers we learn technologies for breakfast. ... > I have worked for years with PHP, Apache, Ansible and MySQL. As much as I agree with your general sentiment that adaptation is one of our primary skills in this industry, these two statements combine to sound like parody. You “eat new technologies for breakfast” but PHP and Apache are in your short list of technologies you’ve used for years? > And in 7 years I’ll be using something else. And 7 years for your prediction of when you’ll be using a different technology is both oddly specific and oddly long. Apologies if this comment actually is parody and it’s just flown over my head.
mathisfun123 3y ago
>don’t buy it. As software developers we learn technologies for breakfast. This is such a funny mantra. Okay learn how nuclear fission works. Or EUV lithography. Or power transmission across superconductors. All of these are extant, commercial, technologies (yes even the last one). Too much? How about something more pedestrian like overhead cams and electric fuel injection? Too far afield? Okay learn how DMA works on a GPU - not how to call `copy(host, device)` but what actually happens and more importantly why. The truth is software developers learn APIs, not technologies (and not over breakfast either). Point being, it's not good to be haughty because if tomorrow you were out of a job and the only place hiring was the Ford motor plant I think you'd be just as fucked as the author of the post.
- somsak2 3y ago
  You're just arguing semantics. And the example given can go the other way: if your Ford motor plant closes and the only places hiring are software shops, you'd also be "fucked".
  - mathisfun123 3y ago
    > You're just arguing semantics I never have any clue what this retort means: when exactly are semantics (the meanings of things) not important? > Ford motor plant closes and the only places hiring are software shops, you'd also be "fucked". That's one hundred percent true but the difference is I don't see assembly plant workers going around claiming they learn technologies for breakfast (or lunch or dinner).
    - johnnyanmac 3y ago
      >when exactly are semantics (the meanings of things) not important? arguing over meanings when we should understand the meanings tends to mean you're nitpicking instead of clarifying. There's clarification and then there's bike shedding.
- mtizim 3y ago
  As software developers we learn software technologies for breakfast, not entire industrial processes...
tester756 3y ago
I don't agree. My really-learned language is C# The biggest money I've made technology on is C, which I don't really know, just basics. I've wrote some js, ts, c++, lua, used some postgres+mssql+mongo, yada yada and stuff but when writing CV I'm not saying that I know those, just that I have experience with those. It is probably bad strategy cuz people inflate their skills, but who knows. There's giant difference between person who "can use tech" and person who "understands to the point that he/she feels particular tech". "Feeling" technology takes years because you need to understand its ecosystem, why some approaches to some problems are more common within this tech, historical context, internals, etc, etc. I feel C#, but I only can use C.

littlecranky67 3y ago

I agree, but unfortunately hiring managers, recruiter etc. don't think like this. If you happen to find a person that is tech-savy, they can asses your true skillsets and capabilitiy of solving problems. Hiring managers and recruiter match buzzwords in your CV. I recently got rejected for a project from an agency (am a contractor) because I did not have provable skills or knowledge in "CI/CD". Stupid me, made the mistake of putting extensive details about creating build and deployment pipelines with Travis, GitLab, GitHub Actions, Azure Pipelines for each past project going back to 2012, but did not specify the right buzzword "CI/CD" for the recruiter...

tkiolp4 3y ago
> Hiring managers and recruiter match buzzwords in your CV So? You put those buzzwords in your CV. What’s difficult about that? You feel like being dishonest? If so, again, just explain in the next stage of the interview (with real engineers) that you do have real world experience in similar but not exactly the same technologies listed in your CV. You just did so to pass through HR. Not a big deal (as long as you’re confident and believe you can learn technologies easily)
- dwattttt 3y ago
  I would assume the problem comes up the next time his CV gets rejected for not having "Continuous Integration" on it.
  - littlecranky67 3y ago
    I have made some "SEO" optimizations as some agencies use text-based CV matching. Some are upfront with it, with others I observe it because I get a lot of Java project requests (I never coded Java, but as a FE dev, have lots of JavaScript in my CV text). I'm gladly looking forward 3-5 years, when AI will handle this CV analysis and match a project description from a company to a proper candidate. Basic GPT can tell right now if CI/CD matches "Azure Pipelines". Then we can fire the lower 50-80% of unskilled recruiters that do not provide any value to the market right now.
- manfre 3y ago
  Blatantly lying on the CV is an instant rejection at the places I've worked. It's one thing to stretch your contributions on past projects, but to outright lie about the technologies used is a huge red flag. It's easy to teach a person the company tech stack, but I'm not sure it's possible (or worthwhile) to try and teach some one to be honest.
  - throwaway80492 3y ago
    You don't need to make up projects you worked on with the technology, you can just add it to your list of skills.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

demarq 3y ago

Absolutely, I feel I could be employed tomorrow in a language or stack that I haven’t even heard of and start being productive by the end of the week! I seriously think you owe it to yourself to practice learning something new every week. It often takes one afternoon to get a “taste” and small side project to get beyond that. Every programming language. Is literally just a template for instructions, and every technology just an abstraction over some crud somewhere.

scarface_74 3y ago
So could you be a productive iOS/Android developer in a week with no previous experience?
- ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
  My experience is that learning a new language -at a basic level- can be done quickly (like a couple of weeks, not days). But learning it at an advanced level, is a whole different matter. I've been writing Swift since, literally, a few hours after it was announced, in 2014. I write Swift every day (like, seven days a week), and have been, since that first day. I feel as if I have only had "mastery" of the language for the last couple of years. There's still plenty for me to learn, and they keep adding more stuff. But the language isn't the big deal. The deal for me, is the fundamental SDK/API/Framework. That has been an ongoing project since 1986. As soon as I learn one API, they change it up (and sometimes, the entire OS). During that time, I've written in 68K ASM, Pascal, Object Pascal, C, C+- (the weird THINK C variant), C++. ObjC, and Swift. I've worked with MacApp, OpenDoc(!), Think Libraries (Pascal and C), PowerPlant, and Cocoa (and its expression in iOS, WatchOS, AppKit, and TVOS). I've always considered hiring folks to be an investment. As a manager, I always looked for folks that had the fundamentals down, and assumed that I could train them into what we need. Most of the work we did, was way beyond anything you'd find in textbooks. I was under no illusion that I could hire folks that would be able to start on it right away. That was why my team was always one that I wanted to keep whole and cohesive, over many years. I can't even imagine today's 18-month engineer lifetime. I kept my engineers for many years, and that wasn't easy.

scarface_74 3y ago

Yes because I know Java (hypothetically I haven’t touched Java since two years after it was introduced) I can become an efficient Android developer “in a few days”. Better yet, since I did Windows CE development for ruggedized devices using C# Compact framework back between 2007-2010, I should have no problem picking up iOS development “in a few days” and start being a productive member of a team right? Or better yet, leading a team? Third thing, I know the fundamentals of web development including JavaScript, HTML and CSS. But I haven’t done anything on the front end since 2012. Are you going to hire me to help create your website when you’re looking for a modern web developer? Learning a language is easy. Modern development requires knowing the toolchain framework, idiosyncrasies, foot guns, best practices, etc. These days, I am only looking for jobs where I have some type of team lead/architect position. Are you going to hire me to lead a team working on a 10 year old complicated Java app when all of my “enterprise” experience is in the .Net ecosystem? On another note: I haven’t randomly submitted my job to an ATS worrying about an “HR” screen since 2008 across 5 jobs. I’ve always either reached out to my network or had someone reach out to me.

ianlevesque 3y ago
> Are you going to hire me to lead a team working on a 10 year old complicated Java app when all of my “enterprise” experience is in the .Net ecosystem? Yes. The skills are fungible.
- mgkimsal 3y ago
  While that might be the 'right' answer, it's also in the minority for many job openings/postings.
  - ianlevesque 3y ago
    You're not wrong, but thankfully job openings are more fungible than ever too, with remote positions open at plenty of companies that won't make that particular (not-)hiring mistake.
    - 3y ago

shipscode 3y ago

Oh come on. Language specific knowledge is a game changer in programming speed & efficiency. Likewise the level of effort to understand modern React concepts has gone way up. Deep React specialization is a great way to get most tech jobs. Some interviewers literally just want to see if you can use hooks in a solution. Applying a learners mindset in the middle of an interview comes off as amateur. Learn the tech stack you’ll use on the job. It’ll get you tons of mid grade offers.

nicechianti 3y ago

[dead]

m3kw9 3y ago

Sure, but say you focused as a iOS developer you definitely cannot tell the recruiter doing Android are the same. They wont hire you if you say you have no Android experience, same thing

BiteCode_dev 3y ago

It's one thing knowing the language, it's another being productive with the ecosystem. One takes between a few days and a few months. The other is a few years, unless you get pro training. I guarantee most people starting with Python from another language will be productive quickly. But they will curse the packaging ecosystem because they will follow a lot of tutorials that don't follow this: https://bitecode.substack.com/p/why-not-tell-people-to-simply-use https://bitecode.substack.com/p/why-not-tell-people-to-simpl... And they'll get screwed. They will have a hard time learning this: https://www.bitecode.dev/p/relieving-your-python-packaging-pain https://www.bitecode.dev/p/relieving-your-python-packaging-p... It will take a long time of trials and errors, suffering all the way. And this is true for many other aspects: good editor config, good web deployment story, good app sharing system, good tooling setup, etc A runtime or a stlib is quite small and stable. But an ecosystem is gigantic and moving.

dmix 3y ago
Yeah I learned Ruby on Rails very quickly a long time ago, it's probably one of the most accessible frameworks to learn, but it took me years to master all the weird quirks, dev environment stuff, debugging, production deployment etc. Plus from all the years doing it I'm familiar with all the old libraries so when you join a company with a large legacy code base, which at this point is very common for rails, I don't have to spend forever learning the details of some 7yr old implentation no one uses anymore. Working with senior devs who have only been doing it for 1-2yrs is where you see the small productivity differences that aren't simply being a newbie programmer.
BlargMcLarg 3y ago
You're seriously arguing that someone with general knowledge of programming is going to get hard-stuck not knowing specifics of a language you and thousands of others have blogposted about for years, while linking your own posts? Let's be real here. What percentage of companies are in dire need of 'experienced [language] programmers' who know these specifics that haven't already been set by previous devs or have another developer present to make the decisions? That's a tiny, tiny percentage of the entire job market, with much of the demand coming from companies with incredibly shaky foundations. Almost the entirety of this is a luxury problem put on the individual. The moment the job market says they can't demand it anymore, they won't.

ransom1538 3y ago

"you won’t have difficulty in learning X, just take a few days in learning X" It isn't 2020 anymore. No. No, one is going to hire someone that is going to learn "react on the fly".

chaostheory 3y ago

The probability of success is largely is based on the available supply of developers vs the demand for them. Canada’s market is ok, but not great which is probably why so many Canadian programmers immigrated south.

o_m 3y ago

Everyone goes through this once. A lot of your knowledge suddenly aren't needed anymore because of external factors. For me it was Flash. I've seen colleges being afraid of learning new technology after being burned once. Now my skills are learning new skills.

coffeebeqn 3y ago
I also did Flash for a long time. 10 years later it’s not like that experience is mostly lost. When I write typescript I get a dejavú to AS3. Plus knowledge of VMs, garbage collection and all the other programming concepts translates to most languages

hamburglar 3y ago

> As software developers we learn technologies for breakfast. ... > I have worked for years with PHP, Apache, Ansible and MySQL. As much as I agree with your general sentiment that adaptation is one of our primary skills in this industry, these two statements combine to sound like parody. You “eat new technologies for breakfast” but PHP and Apache are in your short list of technologies you’ve used for years? > And in 7 years I’ll be using something else. And 7 years for your prediction of when you’ll be using a different technology is both oddly specific and oddly long. Apologies if this comment actually is parody and it’s just flown over my head.

mathisfun123 3y ago

>don’t buy it. As software developers we learn technologies for breakfast. This is such a funny mantra. Okay learn how nuclear fission works. Or EUV lithography. Or power transmission across superconductors. All of these are extant, commercial, technologies (yes even the last one). Too much? How about something more pedestrian like overhead cams and electric fuel injection? Too far afield? Okay learn how DMA works on a GPU - not how to call `copy(host, device)` but what actually happens and more importantly why. The truth is software developers learn APIs, not technologies (and not over breakfast either). Point being, it's not good to be haughty because if tomorrow you were out of a job and the only place hiring was the Ford motor plant I think you'd be just as fucked as the author of the post.

somsak2 3y ago
You're just arguing semantics. And the example given can go the other way: if your Ford motor plant closes and the only places hiring are software shops, you'd also be "fucked".
- mathisfun123 3y ago
  > You're just arguing semantics I never have any clue what this retort means: when exactly are semantics (the meanings of things) not important? > Ford motor plant closes and the only places hiring are software shops, you'd also be "fucked". That's one hundred percent true but the difference is I don't see assembly plant workers going around claiming they learn technologies for breakfast (or lunch or dinner).
  - johnnyanmac 3y ago
    >when exactly are semantics (the meanings of things) not important? arguing over meanings when we should understand the meanings tends to mean you're nitpicking instead of clarifying. There's clarification and then there's bike shedding.
mtizim 3y ago
As software developers we learn software technologies for breakfast, not entire industrial processes...

tester756 3y ago

I don't agree. My really-learned language is C# The biggest money I've made technology on is C, which I don't really know, just basics. I've wrote some js, ts, c++, lua, used some postgres+mssql+mongo, yada yada and stuff but when writing CV I'm not saying that I know those, just that I have experience with those. It is probably bad strategy cuz people inflate their skills, but who knows. There's giant difference between person who "can use tech" and person who "understands to the point that he/she feels particular tech". "Feeling" technology takes years because you need to understand its ecosystem, why some approaches to some problems are more common within this tech, historical context, internals, etc, etc. I feel C#, but I only can use C.