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>But for the ones you do use, yes, you should have a good working knowledge of their spec, and should be able to look up details when you need to, and not depen

>But for the ones you do use, yes, you should have a good working knowledge of their spec, and should be able to look up details when you need to, and not depend on someone on Twitter (or Stack Overflow, for that matter) to do it. The staffers don't depend on Twitter to do their job, and software engineers don't need to depend on Stack Overflow to use it. To say that people who ask questions on Stack Overflow aren't yet software engineers is asinine. >If you're at the stage where you're having to ask people on the Internet about such things, you aren't yet a software engineer. You're just an aspiring one. If your definition of proficiency is "never asks questions", then your definition is a bad one. Otherwise, it makes no difference whether questions are asked on the Internet or not. >If they were doing their jobs, their response to him would be something like "Wow, you have a level of knowledge of this stuff pretty close to ours." Not "Hey, can we ask you questions because we can't be bothered to do our jobs ourselves?" They are doing their jobs. The responsibility for the job falls on them. And if they can use a resource (an enthusiastic savant, Twitter, reddit, ChatGPT, ...) that allows them to do it faster, they're doing a good job. As a software engineer, if you are spending an hour on something you could find out by asking in 5 minutes (taking 5 minutes of your time, and 5 minutes of someone else's), you are a bad software engineer, and are wasting your employer's money.

pdonis 3y ago
> The staffers don't depend on Twitter to do their job Sure looks to me like they are. I guess we'll just have to disagree.
- romwell 3y ago
  Fair. Seems like that's the root of disagreement. If they can't do their job without Twitter, then I can agree with the rest of what you said. Sadly, the entire Congress is so dysfunctional that it's very hard to determine whether the staffers do or don't do a good job (and which of these possibilities is a better one). That's the part which the UK student doesn't seem to get (and which makes me feel the savant label is fitting): knowing all the rules doesn't matter when playing by the rules isn't a goal. Same goes for having the power which they never intended to use in the first place, because the unwritten rules matter more. The whole thing about rules is that without a central enforcement mechanism, it's all about whether you have enough clout and chutzpah to use or break a certain rule. Just because a rule exists (and has been enacted before), doesn't mean invoking it isn't free. It's just cheaper than doing the same thing against the rules.

pdonis 3y ago

> The staffers don't depend on Twitter to do their job Sure looks to me like they are. I guess we'll just have to disagree.

romwell 3y ago
Fair. Seems like that's the root of disagreement. If they can't do their job without Twitter, then I can agree with the rest of what you said. Sadly, the entire Congress is so dysfunctional that it's very hard to determine whether the staffers do or don't do a good job (and which of these possibilities is a better one). That's the part which the UK student doesn't seem to get (and which makes me feel the savant label is fitting): knowing all the rules doesn't matter when playing by the rules isn't a goal. Same goes for having the power which they never intended to use in the first place, because the unwritten rules matter more. The whole thing about rules is that without a central enforcement mechanism, it's all about whether you have enough clout and chutzpah to use or break a certain rule. Just because a rule exists (and has been enacted before), doesn't mean invoking it isn't free. It's just cheaper than doing the same thing against the rules.