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Account created: 91 days ago We've been talking a lot lately about the decline of quality commentary on HN, and the increase of negativity and snarkiness. Par

by drgath 14y ago

Account created: 91 days ago We've been talking a lot lately about the decline of quality commentary on HN, and the increase of negativity and snarkiness. Parent is a great example. OP, I enjoyed the post and forwarded it on to some friends. Nice work!

eswangren 14y ago
I have been reading HN for years, my account creation date is irrelevant. However, I agree with you; my comment was terse, snarky, and didn't allow for any real debate. However, I my stance doesn't change one bit. Six months is not enough time to learn enough to be a good software developer, period. I am a self taught software engineer, but it took a long time before I was capable of writing production quality code (certainly more than 6 months) and I am of course still learning. We don't need more people like this in the field. I interview enough of them and I can't stand it. Great, so you can write a basic website propped up by a massive framework. Do you know how to troubleshoot performance problems? Can you diagnose non-trivial issues, perhaps relating to the underlying hardware? Is your code maintainable? Does it account for edge cases properly? Is it robust enough to withstand serious use? Probably not. I am 100% behind anyone who wants to learn how to program. I am not behind hiring them at the size month mark. I used RoR in a pejorative manner because it is kiddie stuff. Anyone can teach themselves to use it pretty quickly, but that doesn't make you a good engineer ("programmer", whatever.) Our industry is full of incompetent people, we don't need more of them. I work in a systems group and I don't see this problem in mechanical or electrical engineering. Sure, there will always exist people who are in the lower ranks of their respective field, but in software we are inundated by people who simply have no clue what they are doing beyond the most basic of tasks. This is a problem, so when I see "How to get a developer job in six months" it makes me cringe. It trivializes what we do and no one is ready for prime time after six months.

by drgath 14y ago

eswangren 14y ago

I have been reading HN for years, my account creation date is irrelevant. However, I agree with you; my comment was terse, snarky, and didn't allow for any real debate. However, I my stance doesn't change one bit. Six months is not enough time to learn enough to be a good software developer, period. I am a self taught software engineer, but it took a long time before I was capable of writing production quality code (certainly more than 6 months) and I am of course still learning. We don't need more people like this in the field. I interview enough of them and I can't stand it. Great, so you can write a basic website propped up by a massive framework. Do you know how to troubleshoot performance problems? Can you diagnose non-trivial issues, perhaps relating to the underlying hardware? Is your code maintainable? Does it account for edge cases properly? Is it robust enough to withstand serious use? Probably not. I am 100% behind anyone who wants to learn how to program. I am not behind hiring them at the size month mark. I used RoR in a pejorative manner because it is kiddie stuff. Anyone can teach themselves to use it pretty quickly, but that doesn't make you a good engineer ("programmer", whatever.) Our industry is full of incompetent people, we don't need more of them. I work in a systems group and I don't see this problem in mechanical or electrical engineering. Sure, there will always exist people who are in the lower ranks of their respective field, but in software we are inundated by people who simply have no clue what they are doing beyond the most basic of tasks. This is a problem, so when I see "How to get a developer job in six months" it makes me cringe. It trivializes what we do and no one is ready for prime time after six months.