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Being a Developer After 40

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Re: Being a Developer After 40

#481

Post by JoeAltmaier »

MisterBastahrd wrote: post #370
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. The term is just too loaded, designed to irritate. For instance the 'privilege' part. A word loaded to mean 'undeserved advantage'. The advantages are supposed to accrue to everyone; being white means being a whole person. Being black means having less than that. But the differences aren't undeserved; they are owed to everybody. So the term seems to call out white people for stealing stuff they aren't entitle…

Designed to irritate? Good. Maybe it's a start of a conversation. What white people have SHOULD not be an undeserved advantage, but that's not the reality we live in. Imagine being black with a black sounding name, or latino with a latino sounding name, and having to deal with people making fun of the name you didn't choose while growing up, and then having to deal with the consequences of discrimination when it come…

Using loaded terms to begin the conversation, is going to put the dialog into a different place. Someplace that might not be productive.

Hey, I'm not some fragile guy that can't hear about what inequalities are present in society. But I may listen only so far and just say "screw you" and walk away. So no dialog occurs. How is that helping?

Re: Being a Developer After 40

#482

Post by willtim »

pasquinelli wrote: post #438

"you were, are and will be a software developer, that is, a relatively expensive factory worker, whose tasks your managers would be happy to offshore no matter what they tell you." this is exactly my experience. writing software really doesn't require any great creative mind or cleverness. i'm a pretty mediocre programmer. i got roped into programming as a kid by, first of all because i wanted to make video games, bu…

You're describing the lower tier jobs in an industry of disposable software. There are software jobs out there that do value experienced and skilled developers.

Re: Being a Developer After 40

#483

Post by flexie »

AlexeyBrin wrote: post #445
flexie wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, please. From my experience living in the US and now living in the capital of Bulgaria I know that the price of food, housing etc. is way lower here than in the valley or NYC. Easily 3 times cheaper. And the tax is lower too. But don't take my word for it: https://www.expatistan.com/cost-of-living/comparison/sofia/s... ? A decent full stack developer in his early 20s with no or little college education and 2-4 yea…

I was talking about the average cost of life in North America, I think Montreal and Toronto can be considered about average. The cost of living in the Valley is not representative for medium to large cities of USA or Canada.

That only weakens the argument. Cost of living in Toronto is nearly 2.5 times higher than Sofia: https://www.expatistan.com/cost-of-living/comparison/sofia/t...

But median salary in Toronto is merely around USD 50,000 before tax according to payscale: http://www.payscale.com/research/CA/Job=Software_Developer/S...

That leaves Toronto developers with significantly less than Sofia developers when you adjust for taxes and purchasing power.

Re: Being a Developer After 40

#485

Post by Chris2048 »

hnthrow165038 wrote: post #428
Chris2048 wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

lots of people don't get that nuance, because that nuance doesn't generally exist and was just made up now to win the argument. "white male in the abstract sense" ffs!

Oh, definitely. I don't believe in the religion myself. I have heard that cop-out before though: "but we're only talking about the successful white males". I think the term for the argument technique / fallacy is motte-and-bailey (you might be aware but for the benefit of anyone reading): http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/03/all-in-all-another-bric...

upboat for a brilliant article there!

Re: Being a Developer After 40

#486

Post by sklogic »

riskable wrote: post #457
sklogic wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're designing algorithms even when you're coding a FizzBuzz or a "Hello, world". And most of the business logic is by far more complex than FizzBuzz.

Hah, I was just discussing something like this with a coworker this morning. We both agreed that the business logic we're dealing with is actually less complex than FizzBuzz! We work for a huge bank where nearly all (our) business logic boils down to boolean conditionals. There's almost no math at all and if there is it's all addition and subtraction. Writing front-end JavaScript is vastly more complicated than the b…

Everything I witnessed was not just a bunch of boolean conditions, but a mess of boolean conditions. This is where complexity comes from.

And, think about the awful stuff like derivatives, taxes, etc.

Re: Being a Developer After 40

#487

Post by Kequc »

iLemming wrote: post #384

you know what? f... you people. I was hoping to know your opinions about technological choices and things you think would be relevant 20 years from now. And what do I get? 40 f...ing pages of gender and race inequality crap. The article is not about that, damn it!

Don't put things into articles people are going to talk about that you don't want people to talk about. There are two topics in the article and the discussion here broaches both.

Re: Being a Developer After 40

#488

Post by shostack »

jdcarter wrote: post #470
heckerboy wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious, where did you move to? I am also looking to leave the valley someday, but am afraid that the jobs won't be as plentiful as they are here.

I left the valley in 1991, right before the "web 1.0" bubble burst. I moved to Boulder, Colorado. It's wonderful here. There's tech companies--including an active startup scene--but people are far more balanced, even the nerds.

Unfortunately the housing prices in Boulder are pretty close the Bay Area but I've heard the pay has not even come close.

Thoughts on that?

Re: Being a Developer After 40

#489

Post by some-guy »

CamperZero wrote: post #421
african_cheetah wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> everyone has the same opportunities. Not really. That's what it means. Being white makes it slightly easier to get some opportunities.

Two people of the same socioeconomic standing but of different races. One has a lower bar to entry into college because of affirmative action and a easier time getting a high paying job because of diversity needs. Who has the privilege here?

There's no exact solution to these problems, and I will admit that affirmative action is more of a band-aid than anything else, but POC (I only speak for the US here) in general are worse off economically, have a criminal justice system that disproportionately incarcerates POC for similar non-violent crimes as whites through stop-and-frisk and racial profiling, are stripped of their voting rights

The concept of white privilege makes a lot of white people uncomfortable, including myself for a long while. It's not simple: white privilege is a result of centuries of structural oppression against non-whites. It doesn't guarantee that all white folks are better off than some POC, but the overall differences are stark. Nor does it guarantee that your life was easy.

Saying "I had a hard life and I'm white" is a single-data point of a very, very large structural problem. Maybe affirmative action isn't the answer, and I'm not certain that it is. But to say that all other things equal, a white person and a black person of the same economic status is equal in our society is blatantly false.

Re: Being a Developer After 40

#490

Post by jazzyk »

dgacmu wrote: post #477
jazzyk wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The market (not society) is treating us developers pretty >well. I am on the East Coast (outside of NYC, though), have been in the software business for 20+ years and know a lot of smart /accomplished people. I don't know a single software engineer who makes more than $200K/year in a senior engineering role, as an employee. (We are comparing salaries, not consulting income or stock options here, which can disappear…

Please include stock grants , because otherwise it's a silly comparison. With that included, I know a lot of people in SV, NYC, and even Pittsburgh who meet that bar. Google, Facebook, Dropbox, Microsoft -- all of these places pay over $200k total compensation for senior engineers. A grant of shares of GOOG or MSFT every year isn't likely to completely disappear within the vesting period...

Stock grants for non-executive employees are rather rare (at least on the East Coast).

And even then, once the bubble pops, if you don't sell (there is usually a vesting period), they could be worth much, much less than today. Remember 2000-2001?

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