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Old Geek Jobs: fighting against ageism in the industry

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Re: Old Geek Jobs: fighting against ageism in the industry

#331

Post by driverdan »

Torgo wrote: post #104
rdtsc wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Personally, I dislike places where people are provincial and close-minded, so I'll stick to the rural countryside and leave SF to the bigots. I like that quote. Copied it to my notes for future reference. To expand more on the topic, I wonder if remote workers are a good way to bring some revival for smaller rural communities. I visit some of those places and many have a beautiful setting, everyone knows each other…

It's still hard to get good Internet in many rural-ish areas, which makes this really hard. I tried, multiple times. We were supposed to get a modern "rural electrification project" in the 90s for broadband, but cable companies stole the money, aided and abetted by Congress.

I guess it depends on how rural you are and the companies that service the area. For as much as Comcast deserves its hate they provide my parents in rural MA with fast cable internet. We weren't even able to get cable when I was growing up there and part of their road is still dirt.

Re: Old Geek Jobs: fighting against ageism in the industry

#332

Post by zubat »

flukus wrote: post #326
eric_h wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> conflate academic computer science with software engineering Which is mind boggling. I took an introductory "software engineering" class in (a reasonably prestigious) university ~15 yrs ago which was ostensibly about learning how to use the right tool for the right job, and one of the assignments was to build a web application in C++! Perhaps the intent of that assignment was to show that it wasn't the right tool,…

Would modern c++ with a decent framework be that bad for web development? I imagine you'd have to do a bit more wiring due to the lack of reflection etc, but that isn't an insurmountable problem. Edit - There a quite a few frameworks out there. This one seemed quite nice: https://github.com/ipkn/crow

It would usually be a wrong tool for all of these reasons:

1. There isn't a low-level performance bottleneck within most web-dev code. It's almost all occurring at levels slightly above that(disk access, network bandwidth, database queries, horizontal scaling). The stuff that needs to eke out another 50% in an inner loop through optimizing cache access or careful use of hardware parallelism tends to be a single algorithm or batch process that can be developed independently of the larger application.

2. For eliminating whole categories of errors, there is a bounty of options out there that can claim to improve on C++ through better tools, type systems, and compiler technologies. Even Java, as maligned as it is, can constitute a credible step forward.

3. Good C++ developers aren't that common. There are plenty of junior developers who are eager and ignorant of the potential dangers, though - they will make a mess in any environment, but they'll make a bigger one when given power tools. (This is the argument for Go, and w/r to the case of low-pass-filtering junior devs it definitely makes sense.)

Re: Old Geek Jobs: fighting against ageism in the industry

#333

Post by driverdan »

clifanatic wrote: post #134
abz10 wrote: post #83

I worked at Microsoft Redmond in 2009. They have a private uber like transport system. Around once a week the driver would hand me their resume and ask that I pass it on to my manager. It turns out that many of them had worked in the industry and were trying to get back in. They had a lot of experience and big important job titles etc. Mostly from the 2001 tech boom. That was my wake up call. If I'm not careful somed…

> you get left out of company politics And if you work 80 hours a week, you get paid 2x as much.

And if you work 10 hours a week, you get paid 25% as much.

This isn't a dig at freelancing / contracting. I did it for a while and it was great. But you have to be realistic. Also, billing 80h per week would be near impossible unless you had someone else managing your business for you.

Re: Old Geek Jobs: fighting against ageism in the industry

#334

Post by LargeCompanies »

tjic wrote: post #2

I think that the "Bay Area scene" is different from much of the world. I think that part of human nature is that people like people who are like themselves, so you sometimes get these insular / discriminatory sub cultures that judge people on superficial traits instead of the quality of their minds. From both this article and the tales of many friends, San Francisco strikes as one of these low-tolerance / high-discri…

Me too happy to work for the fed in the mid Atlantic region where the pay is almost as good as the valley and the age ranges from 30 to 65.

Re: Old Geek Jobs: fighting against ageism in the industry

#335

Post by feklar »

jnbiche wrote: post #306
tjic wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, the way to compete with someone who's charging $10/hr for crappy code is to do what they can't or won't do: * be an excellent communicator * be high bandwidth. F2F, skype, etc. * be a whole stack developer * manage "up". Think of things before your manager does, alert the manager to dangers and problems, give expert advice, avoid the problems. Managers love people who solve the total problem; they hate people w…

> * be high bandwidth. F2F, skype, etc. * I agree, and I hate it. What happened to the days when I could just be productive? Now, I have to spend hours "working as a team" (ie, socializing) on Slack. I hate it so much that I've dramatically cut down on the work I do. It's not that I'm asocial, it's just that I don't want to be exchanging memes when there's work to be done. I want to do the work, and do it well, so I…

Another annoying trend is only offering remote workers half vacation as the other half is 'a paid company retreat with the team!'. I do not want to ride bikes or go sailing with my coworkers and boss in Thailand for 2 weeks I want time off to see my family.

Re: Old Geek Jobs: fighting against ageism in the industry

#336

Post by sidlls »

zubat wrote: post #332
flukus wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would modern c++ with a decent framework be that bad for web development? I imagine you'd have to do a bit more wiring due to the lack of reflection etc, but that isn't an insurmountable problem. Edit - There a quite a few frameworks out there. This one seemed quite nice: https://github.com/ipkn/crow

It would usually be a wrong tool for all of these reasons: 1. There isn't a low-level performance bottleneck within most web-dev code. It's almost all occurring at levels slightly above that(disk access, network bandwidth, database queries, horizontal scaling). The stuff that needs to eke out another 50% in an inner loop through optimizing cache access or careful use of hardware parallelism tends to be a single algor…

Some counterpoints:

1. There are a number of reasons one might choose C++ that aren't related to low-level performance in almost any application. For a particular web application it may or may not be a good choice, but I wouldn't categorically reject it, even for a class project or assignment web app.

2. Any language or suite of them has whole categories of errors, deficiencies in tooling and other issues that can make it suitable or not in the hands of a given team. C++ has more or fewer of these than other languages depending on the context.

3. This seems to be hurling a pretty broad insult at many C++ developers, and "good" requires context.

Re: Old Geek Jobs: fighting against ageism in the industry

#337

Post by Zpalmtree »

SomeCallMeTim wrote: post #297
tjic wrote: post #2

I think that the "Bay Area scene" is different from much of the world. I think that part of human nature is that people like people who are like themselves, so you sometimes get these insular / discriminatory sub cultures that judge people on superficial traits instead of the quality of their minds. From both this article and the tales of many friends, San Francisco strikes as one of these low-tolerance / high-discri…

It's the rural countryside around here that put up gigantic Trump posters on their farms, so unless you're talking about some other definition of bigotry, I don't you can generalize "rural" as "not bigoted." Also: I have never had trouble getting jobs in the Bay Area, though I moved before I turned 45. I did however work with people who were late 40s/early 50s and engineers, so I didn't see a huge age prejudice.

I'd rather keep politics off here, but implying trump=bigoted is a rather SF view :^)

Re: Old Geek Jobs: fighting against ageism in the industry

#338

Post by biafra »

pc86 wrote: post #195
ravenstine wrote: post #60

It's too bad that many of us(in general, not on HN) are too lazy to judge a person based on what they actually offer vs a number attributed to them. People who are 50+ are perfectly capable at learning and writing good code, and it really isn't hard to recognize someone with a sharp mind. However, lots of people allow their minds and bodies to rot as they get older. My parents, as much as I love them, are not very em…

I never exercised or ate well, even as a child and adolescent. I look better now at 30 than I ever did at 18 or 20 or 25. Exercise and physical activity are supremely important.

Did you forget to mention that you do exercise now?

Re: Old Geek Jobs: fighting against ageism in the industry

#339

Post by mattdeboard »

sjdchid wrote: post #270
mattdeboard wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, tuition was cheaper. Doesn't mean it was cheap. And when future you is talking to a 20-year-old, they'll be lambasting you about how easy your life was when a 4-year degree from a public instituion only cost you $80,000. If you're truly ignorant of the subprime mortgage crisis a few years back, you can check out The Big Short (book or movie, but I'm told the book is much better) for good insight into history an…

I'm aware that home prices dropped in 2008. I'm also aware that they settled at a level significantly above the prices of 2000. Check any of the home price indices if you don't believe me.

Yes, home prices tend to increase on average. Not sure what your point is. Are you implying that when you are ready to buy a house they will start depreciating?
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