7 ms·

This was an interesting post, and as an older person in the industry, I feel sad for the current times, and where this person landed. Should this person have la

by keyle 3y ago

This was an interesting post, and as an older person in the industry, I feel sad for the current times, and where this person landed. Should this person have landed 20+ years ago, it would have been a much more enriching journey. When I started, the industry was opaque to most, you got in as an intern with the knowledge that you knew nothing. Information was shared freely, things were shown to you. There was none of that third degree shaming "You don't even know about X?". People understood the technology under their own work. They understood that things were complicated and hard. They didn't act like they could do it all, overnight. I hope that this industry turns it around, and refocus on the prime objective: being nerds. Being excited about milliseconds improvements, excited about the small things, discovering and learning through curiosity... and not being insecure cockwits, that have to jam their superiority in other's face at every occasion because they, deeply, know how replaceable they really are. The paragraphs about git were interesting, in the sense that the author, also suffers from the industry's "I'm right and you're wrong" motto; and that is the reason, by the looks, that they've left. There is some unresolved conflict there! "I'm tired of people acting like rockstars", and proceeds on a rant doing the same thing. I suggest you never use those terms of affirmation and ask questions instead. Asking questions is the best way to get an imposter off their track. And if this person actually knows what they're talking about, the answer will enrich you.

paulcole 3y ago
> I hope that this industry turns it around, and refocus on the prime objective: being nerds. That’s not the industry’s prime objective, it just happens to be who it was accessible to early on. If anything, the industry should focus on being more well rounded and less focused on being nerds.
- fritzo 3y ago
  I hear you that it's important for a more diverse set of people to contribute to computing as an increasingly impactful field. The way I read keyle's point is that computing is also a home for many sentient humans who feel awkward in meat space but whose creativity blossoms in regimented systems of abstract logic and in electronic workshops capable of infinitesimally cheap symbolic manipulation and storage. Computing is good for society, and it's also a therapy / practice / haven for a percentage of fringe humans.
  - Clubber 3y ago
    >sentient humans who feel awkward in meat space People like that really need to work on fixing it. It can obviously be crippling to their career and lives.
    - thrway63245 3y ago
      [dead]
    - voakbasda 3y ago
      Those people are not broken and do not need fixing.
      - paulcole 3y ago
        But to be clear, they shouldn't expect high paying computer jobs to be an ivory tower for themselves so they don't have to interact with and get along with a diverse group of people (including gasp extroverts and marketers). Which is the point that the comment I originally replied to was making. "Let's keep tech for just the nerds, as it should be."
      - Clubber 3y ago
        >Those people are not broken and do not need fixing. Stop trying to put words in my mouth to bolster your point, or virtue signal, or whatever your motivations are. I never said they were broken. It's an important skill that needs to be worked on and improved, just like any other life skill.
        paulcole 3y ago
        I mostly agree with you but you did say that this is something they need to work on. Which is definitely not true – just look at the world. Why would there be awkward weirdos if they needed to work on not being awkward weirdos?. The can choose to work on it, but they can also choose not to, by say trying to isolate themselves in an industry where they think they can minimize human interaction. There might be consequences of their choice though. Their personal life might suffer or they might get fired from their cushy job if people don't like working with them. Those things might push them to make a choice to work on their issues or they might not. I think society should create incentives that reward well-rounded people (and to an extent it already does). And I think it's important to realize that people need to do almost nothing.
- chiefalchemist 3y ago
  The industry should focus on solving problems. More specifically solving the right problems, and in ways that are sustainable and maintainable. There an unhealthy obsession with technology for the sake of technology...but no one care. Not a single user is going to say, "I love React" or "Why didn't they use Vue?" A great technical solution to the wrong problem is no solution at all. Clients and users want their problems solved.
- vdqtp3 3y ago
  Why is it so easy for people to accept that someone who truly loves mechanical things and repairing them make for better mechanics, but somehow we shouldn't respect that the people who are viscerally invested in writing better code or developing better systems make better individual contributors in the IT world?
  - paulcole 3y ago
    > Why is it so easy for people to accept that someone who truly loves mechanical things and repairing them make for better mechanics I don’t accept that. I knew a surgeon. He truly loved cutting people open. If you went to see him you were getting cut open. He’d find a reason. Is he a better surgeon than the one across the hall who’d refer you to somebody else if there was a decent chance non-surgical intervention would help?
    - vdqtp3 3y ago
      To use surgery as the example, I would say "someone who truly loves medicine and healing people" not "loved cutting people open", which is the opposite.
      - paulcole 3y ago
        Well yes but there goes your original argument. Don’t show me the person who loves code quality. Show me the person who likes helping people use technology.
giantg2 3y ago
"They didn't act like they could do it all, overnight." This is what companies have come to expect with DevSecOps.
- chii 3y ago
  The people who make management decisions but don't understand the nuances of technical work are to be "blamed" for this outcome.
  - travisgriggs 3y ago
    +1000 This should be at the top of the page
- ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
  Also, almost every lightly-experienced software developer that I encounter, these days, seems to think that they can reproduce what it took me a year to do, in a week, with $BUZZWORD, and looping in $DEPENDENCY. This is not my imagination, as it is usually the basis for them sneering at me, and thinking that I'm somehow going to walk away both chagrined, and impressed by them.
CuriousCosmic 3y ago
> The paragraphs about git were interesting, in the sense that the author themselves suffer from the industry's "I'm right and you're wrong" motto that is the reason, by the looks, that they've left. There is some unresolved conflict there. I don't necessarily think that's "I'm right, you're wrong". Instead it looks more like just being strongly opinionated on the matter. As someone who is very opinionated on git and VCS in general, I get it. The difference in experiences between projects with good, clean, descriptive git histories (see most projects that follow the linux kernel/git patchset approach), projects with linear PR squash histories, and projects with lots of useless "fixup", "fix", "try again" type commits is utterly and entirely massive. It's the type of gripe that I personally would place alongside projects not having good unit testing. A project can still be workable without them but I'm going to fight like hell to get things fixed up so we can move fast in the long run.
- whywhywouldyou 3y ago
  >> The paragraphs about git were interesting, in the sense that the author themselves suffer from the industry's "I'm right and you're wrong" motto that is the reason, by the looks, that they've left. There is some unresolved conflict there. > I don't necessarily think that's "I'm right, you're wrong". Instead it looks more like just being strongly opinionated on the matter. Are you honestly making the claim that the part of the post that repeatedly states "You're doing it wrong" isn't saying "I'm right you're wrong", but rather just being "strongly opinionated on the matter?"
  - CuriousCosmic 3y ago
    Yeah actually. It reads very tongue in cheek to me because I have gone on those types of rants in the past. And I've known a number of other people who hold similar stances and they also do the same thing. Like I've literally gone on a "if you do X you are doing it wrong" rant about git verbatim when trying to explain patchset etiquette in the past. It's not trying to say "you are always wrong for doing it this way", it's just way too long winded and difficult to explain your point about should be versus shouldn't be done in your view while being nuanced and pointing out that they are sometimes okay. You just say "if you are doing X you are wrong" and hope the reader picks up on the subtext that you are just making a point and not trying to be authoritative. It's a lot easier to do in person but alas.
pdimitar 3y ago
> refocus on the prime objective: being nerds I hope not. We need more structured approaches, I personally vote with all hands the amount of "play" we do to be drastically reduced, enforced by revoking a professional license even (if our industry ever gets regulated). I am sick or nerds reinventing wheels because they are privileged and bored. Like I ranted recently here in HN, can we stop with the millionth LISP interpreter already? We have people dying in hospitals because the software of the heart monitor glitched or misread a sensor. Can we get on those problems instead? Like, before the 41th century for example? When will we get to do something genuinely useful that actually, [gasps], helps people? [takes a deep breath] First order of business: rework our interaction with the OS the command line, stop all the legacy lunacy of TTY and many others, and figure out one way of doing things. Do it on Linux. If Windows and macOS don't want to play along then too bad, the devs working there will have a miserable time, and that will introduce pressure from them to Microsoft and Apple to play ball. Let's go. No more nerds. Let's be correctness + simplicity fanatics, I say. > I hope that this industry turns it around It will never do that. Let's not forget we are workers paid to produce value. Let's also not forget that IT is always viewed as an undesired cost center -- I hate it as much as every programmer but it's how people view us and curiously enough, that perception is very persistent. Many people understood we need to "play" to gain more knowledge but these times are mostly over, at least in popular development categories like web and mobile. Most people there -- myself included -- are paid to assemble IKEA furniture, at least 90% of the time. Creative tasks are few and far between, sadly. > The paragraphs about git were interesting, in the sense that the author themselves suffer from the industry's "I'm right and you're wrong" motto that is the reason, by the looks, that they've left. There is some unresolved conflict there. As a guy who started 20+ years ago -- like you alluded to these times being more lax (which I haven't observed but then again I never lived in the USA) -- I stand with OP here; appealing to popularity and cult of personalities are sins I didn't imagine the programming area will suffer from, yet it happens every day. Try criticizing one of Python's many obvious pitfalls (no, I will not elaborate, they have been described a million times, including here on HN) and you'll be buried under a mountain of "millions are using it successfully every day, have you considered that you are the problem?". As if the amount of supporters of a thing ever had any correlation at all with quality but hey, don't tell them that (tidbit: burning the "witches" in the middle ages; I bet 99% of the time somebody had a beef with the neighbor lady and they set her up as a "witch" to get rid of her). -- I share your nostalgia about how things were done long ago but I really hope we emerge more disciplined, structured, and much less bikeshedd-y out of the whole thing. Play on your own time, not during work.
nindalf 3y ago
> There was none of that third degree shaming "You don't even know about X?". This is nonsense based on nostalgia, no better than “I long for the days when men were men” or “kids these days don’t respect their elders like we used to”. To the point specifically about being a newcomer to the software industry, there are definitely challenges that I don’t want to underplay. But there are also more resources, more types of resources available than ever before. Mentoring junior ICs is something that is explicitly rewarded in many tech companies, making it easier for them to find mentors. If you have some actual data that compares the ease of joining the industry compared to 10 and 20 years ago, please share. But if you’re just waxing lyrical about the good old days, please don’t.
taurath 3y ago
> Asking questions is the best way to get an imposter off their track. I think this is more of a function of people who hire than people who work. Its an an interesting industry that obsesses itself with imposters, which is pretty much the experience of working for, or trying to be hired into any tech company.
- LtWorf 3y ago
  There is a certain overlap between those 2 sets.
hcks 3y ago
> I hope that this industry turns it around, and refocus on the prime objective: being nerds. Actually, the prime objective of the industry is to create surplus value for the capitalist ruling class. The second software engineer becomes replaceable by AI they’re all gone.

by keyle 3y ago

paulcole 3y ago

> I hope that this industry turns it around, and refocus on the prime objective: being nerds. That’s not the industry’s prime objective, it just happens to be who it was accessible to early on. If anything, the industry should focus on being more well rounded and less focused on being nerds.

fritzo 3y ago
I hear you that it's important for a more diverse set of people to contribute to computing as an increasingly impactful field. The way I read keyle's point is that computing is also a home for many sentient humans who feel awkward in meat space but whose creativity blossoms in regimented systems of abstract logic and in electronic workshops capable of infinitesimally cheap symbolic manipulation and storage. Computing is good for society, and it's also a therapy / practice / haven for a percentage of fringe humans.
- Clubber 3y ago
  >sentient humans who feel awkward in meat space People like that really need to work on fixing it. It can obviously be crippling to their career and lives.
  - thrway63245 3y ago
    [dead]
  - voakbasda 3y ago
    Those people are not broken and do not need fixing.
    - paulcole 3y ago
      But to be clear, they shouldn't expect high paying computer jobs to be an ivory tower for themselves so they don't have to interact with and get along with a diverse group of people (including gasp extroverts and marketers). Which is the point that the comment I originally replied to was making. "Let's keep tech for just the nerds, as it should be."
    - Clubber 3y ago
      >Those people are not broken and do not need fixing. Stop trying to put words in my mouth to bolster your point, or virtue signal, or whatever your motivations are. I never said they were broken. It's an important skill that needs to be worked on and improved, just like any other life skill.
      - paulcole 3y ago
        I mostly agree with you but you did say that this is something they need to work on. Which is definitely not true – just look at the world. Why would there be awkward weirdos if they needed to work on not being awkward weirdos?. The can choose to work on it, but they can also choose not to, by say trying to isolate themselves in an industry where they think they can minimize human interaction. There might be consequences of their choice though. Their personal life might suffer or they might get fired from their cushy job if people don't like working with them. Those things might push them to make a choice to work on their issues or they might not. I think society should create incentives that reward well-rounded people (and to an extent it already does). And I think it's important to realize that people need to do almost nothing.
chiefalchemist 3y ago
The industry should focus on solving problems. More specifically solving the right problems, and in ways that are sustainable and maintainable. There an unhealthy obsession with technology for the sake of technology...but no one care. Not a single user is going to say, "I love React" or "Why didn't they use Vue?" A great technical solution to the wrong problem is no solution at all. Clients and users want their problems solved.
vdqtp3 3y ago
Why is it so easy for people to accept that someone who truly loves mechanical things and repairing them make for better mechanics, but somehow we shouldn't respect that the people who are viscerally invested in writing better code or developing better systems make better individual contributors in the IT world?
- paulcole 3y ago
  > Why is it so easy for people to accept that someone who truly loves mechanical things and repairing them make for better mechanics I don’t accept that. I knew a surgeon. He truly loved cutting people open. If you went to see him you were getting cut open. He’d find a reason. Is he a better surgeon than the one across the hall who’d refer you to somebody else if there was a decent chance non-surgical intervention would help?
  - vdqtp3 3y ago
    To use surgery as the example, I would say "someone who truly loves medicine and healing people" not "loved cutting people open", which is the opposite.
    - paulcole 3y ago
      Well yes but there goes your original argument. Don’t show me the person who loves code quality. Show me the person who likes helping people use technology.

giantg2 3y ago

"They didn't act like they could do it all, overnight." This is what companies have come to expect with DevSecOps.

chii 3y ago
The people who make management decisions but don't understand the nuances of technical work are to be "blamed" for this outcome.
- travisgriggs 3y ago
  +1000 This should be at the top of the page
ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
Also, almost every lightly-experienced software developer that I encounter, these days, seems to think that they can reproduce what it took me a year to do, in a week, with $BUZZWORD, and looping in $DEPENDENCY. This is not my imagination, as it is usually the basis for them sneering at me, and thinking that I'm somehow going to walk away both chagrined, and impressed by them.

CuriousCosmic 3y ago

> The paragraphs about git were interesting, in the sense that the author themselves suffer from the industry's "I'm right and you're wrong" motto that is the reason, by the looks, that they've left. There is some unresolved conflict there. I don't necessarily think that's "I'm right, you're wrong". Instead it looks more like just being strongly opinionated on the matter. As someone who is very opinionated on git and VCS in general, I get it. The difference in experiences between projects with good, clean, descriptive git histories (see most projects that follow the linux kernel/git patchset approach), projects with linear PR squash histories, and projects with lots of useless "fixup", "fix", "try again" type commits is utterly and entirely massive. It's the type of gripe that I personally would place alongside projects not having good unit testing. A project can still be workable without them but I'm going to fight like hell to get things fixed up so we can move fast in the long run.

whywhywouldyou 3y ago
>> The paragraphs about git were interesting, in the sense that the author themselves suffer from the industry's "I'm right and you're wrong" motto that is the reason, by the looks, that they've left. There is some unresolved conflict there. > I don't necessarily think that's "I'm right, you're wrong". Instead it looks more like just being strongly opinionated on the matter. Are you honestly making the claim that the part of the post that repeatedly states "You're doing it wrong" isn't saying "I'm right you're wrong", but rather just being "strongly opinionated on the matter?"
- CuriousCosmic 3y ago
  Yeah actually. It reads very tongue in cheek to me because I have gone on those types of rants in the past. And I've known a number of other people who hold similar stances and they also do the same thing. Like I've literally gone on a "if you do X you are doing it wrong" rant about git verbatim when trying to explain patchset etiquette in the past. It's not trying to say "you are always wrong for doing it this way", it's just way too long winded and difficult to explain your point about should be versus shouldn't be done in your view while being nuanced and pointing out that they are sometimes okay. You just say "if you are doing X you are wrong" and hope the reader picks up on the subtext that you are just making a point and not trying to be authoritative. It's a lot easier to do in person but alas.

pdimitar 3y ago

> refocus on the prime objective: being nerds I hope not. We need more structured approaches, I personally vote with all hands the amount of "play" we do to be drastically reduced, enforced by revoking a professional license even (if our industry ever gets regulated). I am sick or nerds reinventing wheels because they are privileged and bored. Like I ranted recently here in HN, can we stop with the millionth LISP interpreter already? We have people dying in hospitals because the software of the heart monitor glitched or misread a sensor. Can we get on those problems instead? Like, before the 41th century for example? When will we get to do something genuinely useful that actually, [gasps], helps people? [takes a deep breath] First order of business: rework our interaction with the OS the command line, stop all the legacy lunacy of TTY and many others, and figure out one way of doing things. Do it on Linux. If Windows and macOS don't want to play along then too bad, the devs working there will have a miserable time, and that will introduce pressure from them to Microsoft and Apple to play ball. Let's go. No more nerds. Let's be correctness + simplicity fanatics, I say. > I hope that this industry turns it around It will never do that. Let's not forget we are workers paid to produce value. Let's also not forget that IT is always viewed as an undesired cost center -- I hate it as much as every programmer but it's how people view us and curiously enough, that perception is very persistent. Many people understood we need to "play" to gain more knowledge but these times are mostly over, at least in popular development categories like web and mobile. Most people there -- myself included -- are paid to assemble IKEA furniture, at least 90% of the time. Creative tasks are few and far between, sadly. > The paragraphs about git were interesting, in the sense that the author themselves suffer from the industry's "I'm right and you're wrong" motto that is the reason, by the looks, that they've left. There is some unresolved conflict there. As a guy who started 20+ years ago -- like you alluded to these times being more lax (which I haven't observed but then again I never lived in the USA) -- I stand with OP here; appealing to popularity and cult of personalities are sins I didn't imagine the programming area will suffer from, yet it happens every day. Try criticizing one of Python's many obvious pitfalls (no, I will not elaborate, they have been described a million times, including here on HN) and you'll be buried under a mountain of "millions are using it successfully every day, have you considered that you are the problem?". As if the amount of supporters of a thing ever had any correlation at all with quality but hey, don't tell them that (tidbit: burning the "witches" in the middle ages; I bet 99% of the time somebody had a beef with the neighbor lady and they set her up as a "witch" to get rid of her). -- I share your nostalgia about how things were done long ago but I really hope we emerge more disciplined, structured, and much less bikeshedd-y out of the whole thing. Play on your own time, not during work.

nindalf 3y ago

> There was none of that third degree shaming "You don't even know about X?". This is nonsense based on nostalgia, no better than “I long for the days when men were men” or “kids these days don’t respect their elders like we used to”. To the point specifically about being a newcomer to the software industry, there are definitely challenges that I don’t want to underplay. But there are also more resources, more types of resources available than ever before. Mentoring junior ICs is something that is explicitly rewarded in many tech companies, making it easier for them to find mentors. If you have some actual data that compares the ease of joining the industry compared to 10 and 20 years ago, please share. But if you’re just waxing lyrical about the good old days, please don’t.

taurath 3y ago

> Asking questions is the best way to get an imposter off their track. I think this is more of a function of people who hire than people who work. Its an an interesting industry that obsesses itself with imposters, which is pretty much the experience of working for, or trying to be hired into any tech company.

LtWorf 3y ago
There is a certain overlap between those 2 sets.

hcks 3y ago

> I hope that this industry turns it around, and refocus on the prime objective: being nerds. Actually, the prime objective of the industry is to create surplus value for the capitalist ruling class. The second software engineer becomes replaceable by AI they’re all gone.