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Ask HN: What current companies have the best software engineering culture?

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Re: Ask HN: What current companies have the best software engineering culture?

#211

Post by singingfish »

8a wrote: post #56
singingfish wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always maintained that python is perl for bureaucrats, so that makes total sense :)

Can you expand on this? Also, what do you prefer over Python?

Python and perl are very very similar. Python prioritises expressiveness over uniformity, perl is the opposite. Perl's original OO mechanism was stolen from pythons, but due to the greater flexibility it means that there's a lot of choice and perl's extended OO capabilities exceed that of python. Personally I hate the way that the python people keep bagging out perl when it's clear they know little about it.

I don't have preferences as such. My main problem is that over the past few years my perl skills have been in such high demand that I haven't had much time to do substantial other programming stuff (this is a class of problem you want to have). I have been playing with python's maths libraries (particularly sympy) lately, and along with jupyter it's pretty neat stuff.

Re: Ask HN: What current companies have the best software engineering culture?

#212

Post by idlewords »

ma2rten wrote: post #122
United857 wrote: post #22

I'm biased, but I'd say out of all the "big" tech companies, FB has the best engineering culture. * With few exceptions, engineers aren't hired for a specific team; they go through bootcamp where they get exposure to all parts of the stack and tasks from different teams. * Ideas usually come from engineers. Managers are there to be a sounding board/connect you with people resources as needed. * Moving fast is valued…

All these things also apply to Google, except: * you decide on a team before you start, but after you know you passed the interview * moving fast is not valued as much I would also add that Facebook uses a lot of Open Source, meaning your experience will be applicable elsewhere. Here are some potential advantages about working at Google: * Being ethical is a core value of the company. * Google/Alphabet is more divers…

"Being ethical is a core value of the company."

Google's business model is pervasive surveillance, so that's a pretty odd thing to brag about.

Re: Ask HN: What current companies have the best software engineering culture?

#213

Post by idlewords »

zamalek wrote: post #73
bluesilver07 wrote: post #15

Valve's new employee handbook looks pretty interesting - http://www.valvesoftware.com/company/Valve_Handbook_LowRes.p...

According to Newell[1], Valve aggressively fires as it hires. It's not based on stack-ranking bullshit - more of a cultural and disciplinary fit. If you have the right personality you could thrive there, but if you need a manager to help you shine it's best to look elsewhere. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8QEOBgLBQU

It's based on capricious and cliquish factors that aren't documented anywhere. Having the "right personality" to thrive there means knowing who to ingratiate yourself with.

Source: close friend is an ex-valver.

Re: Ask HN: What current companies have the best software engineering culture?

#214

Post by singingfish »

singingfish wrote: post #211
8a wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you expand on this? Also, what do you prefer over Python?

Python and perl are very very similar. Python prioritises expressiveness over uniformity, perl is the opposite. Perl's original OO mechanism was stolen from pythons, but due to the greater flexibility it means that there's a lot of choice and perl's extended OO capabilities exceed that of python. Personally I hate the way that the python people keep bagging out perl when it's clear they know little about it. I don't…

umm uniformity over expressiveness

Re: Ask HN: What current companies have the best software engineering culture?

#215

Post by danpalmer »

mi100hael wrote: post #129
danpalmer wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've spoken to Facebook engineers who work on their internal source control systems, and it was pretty obvious from talking to them that Git wouldn't work for their purposes. There is plenty of writing about this topic that explains in some detail why Git is unsuitable, and why Mercurial was a better option for them. As for the 18k classes in their iOS app, I don't see why this is a sign of bad engineering? I'd expec…

Auto-generated code shouldn't be checked in.

I believe the 15k number came from decompiling the binary, not from looking at source control.

Re: Ask HN: What current companies have the best software engineering culture?

#216

Post by vickychijwani »

prohor wrote: post #3

Spotify sounds very interesting to me. But I don't work there, so cannot really tell if it really works as they describe. https://labs.spotify.com/2014/03/27/spotify-engineering-cult... https://labs.spotify.com/2014/09/20/spotify-engineering-cult...

I'm also biased in favour of Spotify because Mattias P Johansson works there. FunFunFunction [1] is one of my favourite programming channels.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCO1cgjhGzsSYb1rsB4bFe4Q

Re: Ask HN: What current companies have the best software engineering culture?

#217

Post by nailer »

blakeyrat wrote: post #210
nailer wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how unmaintained Sourcetree is.

Sourcetree is a pretty crummy product regardless of how maintained it is. It reveals a culture that seems to hold basic usability testing & concepts almost in contempt.

It's one of the only git UIs hat has proper rebase functionality.

Re: Ask HN: What current companies have the best software engineering culture?

#218

Post by nailer »

Psilidae wrote: post #171
nailer wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unreal Engine.

Based on their documentation—which, albeit, I know has many classes omitted—Unreal Engine has ~6900 classes. That number probably gets greatly multiplied, though, if you count generated classes.

And it's managed in git.

Re: Ask HN: What current companies have the best software engineering culture?

#219

Post by lingua_franca »

United857 wrote: post #22

I'm biased, but I'd say out of all the "big" tech companies, FB has the best engineering culture. * With few exceptions, engineers aren't hired for a specific team; they go through bootcamp where they get exposure to all parts of the stack and tasks from different teams. * Ideas usually come from engineers. Managers are there to be a sounding board/connect you with people resources as needed. * Moving fast is valued…

FB's culture is ... immature. That's the best way I can put it.

Re: Ask HN: What current companies have the best software engineering culture?

#220

Post by jansanchez »

exfacebook wrote: post #191
jansanchez wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is the work / life balance at Facebook?

It's whatever you want it to be. You're responsible for the impact you make, not how long you're at your desk. Facebook has high impact expectations, but if you're smart, you can have a big impact and still have a life. Facebook culture also has a big social aspect. I think I made more personal friends at Facebook than I made in the entire rest of my career. One downside (according to some people) of this effect is t…

Thanks for taking the time of answering my question.
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