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I get where you're coming from, but this should really be qualified by acknowledging that the overwhelming majority of software work is not "modern" by that def

by guscost 11y ago

I get where you're coming from, but this should really be qualified by acknowledging that the overwhelming majority of software work is not "modern" by that definition and has nothing to do with any of those newer technologies. Most software products will never have to be deployed on 1,000 AWS instances. For example, I've never used a DevOps stack, a JS module loader or build manager, or an AWS instance in a professional setting. And if I didn't feel like researching those technologies on my own it would be totally fine as long as I didn't try to get hired as a DevOps guru or whatever. I am using React/Flux a lot lately, but that is just one straightforward JS platform, and since in my opinion they absolutely nailed the "pit of success" it's no problem to learn it by making real applications.

seiji 11y ago
Rampant proliferation of "new" also breaks the hiring process. Companies (i.e. "in-demand startups") want new stacks, and they want to hire people who are experts in everything that didn't exist 2-3 years ago (literally, 5 years experience with a 2 year old platform). When that's the case, you're either a high school or college kid who can spend all their time learning new things, or you are old and learn new things a few hours a week, maybe nights and weekends. You can't compete with someone learning (and iterating!) 40-60 hours a week when you yourself can't throw away all your 40-50 hour per week obligations and responsibilities just to keep up with them.
- notahacker 11y ago
  I'm going to go out on a limb and say the bigger problem with 40-50 hour per week obligations is that it doesn't leave you free to work 80 hour weeks. A lot of startups really aren't doing anything that technically exceptional, but if you want someone to spend their evenings fixing bugs in your bog-standard Rails app, it's much easier to persuade the guy that spends them fixing bugs in bleeding edge javascript frameworks than the guy that spends them with his wife and kids.

by guscost 11y ago

seiji 11y ago

Rampant proliferation of "new" also breaks the hiring process. Companies (i.e. "in-demand startups") want new stacks, and they want to hire people who are experts in everything that didn't exist 2-3 years ago (literally, 5 years experience with a 2 year old platform). When that's the case, you're either a high school or college kid who can spend all their time learning new things, or you are old and learn new things a few hours a week, maybe nights and weekends. You can't compete with someone learning (and iterating!) 40-60 hours a week when you yourself can't throw away all your 40-50 hour per week obligations and responsibilities just to keep up with them.

notahacker 11y ago
I'm going to go out on a limb and say the bigger problem with 40-50 hour per week obligations is that it doesn't leave you free to work 80 hour weeks. A lot of startups really aren't doing anything that technically exceptional, but if you want someone to spend their evenings fixing bugs in your bog-standard Rails app, it's much easier to persuade the guy that spends them fixing bugs in bleeding edge javascript frameworks than the guy that spends them with his wife and kids.