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I don’t want to be a software developer anymore

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Re: I don’t want to be a software developer anymore

#121

Post by pfarnsworth »

zimablue wrote: post #107
pfarnsworth wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is absolutely incorrect. First off he never said anything about natural aptitude. That is patently false. You didn’t read the article or you read it poorly. He said change the nature of programming jobs. Make it more social, more collaborative (ie pair programming), better work life balance, etc. Having people sitting in a chair for 8-10 hours a day 7 days a week with high stress and terrible work life balance i…

This is a pretty aggressive tone, and it's kind of unwarranted. I did read it, and well. Saying that women have higher innate neuroticism is saying that they have less natural aptitude for stressful jobs. Saying that men have a wider bell curve in abilities is saying that you'll find less women at the extreme end of the aptitude curve necessary to work at Google (and be as good as the mean). There will never be a tim…

You didn’t read it well. You are misrepresenting what he wrote and propagating lies.

“Higher neuroticism” and “natural aptitude” doesn’t mesh. Maybe you don’t understand what “aptitude” or “neuroticism” means, but neuroticism is a clinical term. It means the tendency to have negative feelings. It is entirely orthogonal to aptitude. So your conclusion is false.

You are confusing “traits” with “aptitude”. Again, maybe you don’t understand what the term “aptitude” means. Nowhere does he say women have less aptitude for programming. Traits are different from aptitude.

He never said men have a wider bell curve of abilities. He said men have a different distribution of traits than women. You clearly didn’t comprehend what he wrote.

Please read what he wrote more carefully. You are a clear example of how fake news propagates. Taking a precisely written article and then twisting what was written and then believing you actually understood it, and the propagating your misunderstanding, is exactly what causes fake news.

As I said, I don’t agree with what James Damore wrote, but I actually do understand what he wrote precisely. The biggest problem with his article is that people like you don’t read what he wrote properly and then argue on points he never actually made.

Re: I don’t want to be a software developer anymore

#122

Post by danieka »

The author may not have intended it as such, but what I read is a excellent argument for a shorter work week.

She writes that if she won the lottery she would still program, but fewer hours. And I wonder how her work related injuries would look if she had worked say six or five hours per day. I'm guessing a shorter work week would have been cheaper for both her and her employer and that she would have been more efficient at her job. There is certainly a price to be paid for working long hours, and for each additional hour you have a lower output. There are many companies that don't get this and (hopefully unconsciously) treat their employees like disposables. Work 'em to the bone and replace 'em when they break. Companies can easily form a toxic culture around working long hours.

I guess my point is that most people would probably be happier if they traded a little income for a little free time. And they may just find that it makes sense financially as well, both for individual and company.

Re: I don’t want to be a software developer anymore

#123

Post by tormeh »

jameskegel wrote: post #70
fpisfun wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's still a huge divide in terms of talent, the vast majority of programming jobs outside silicon valley seem to be working on legacy code that is terribly architected (think Java apps written in a procedural style, etc) whereas top companies are making full use of more modern approaches and tools. It will be a very long time things even out and programming jobs are similar across the board.

> the vast majority of programming jobs outside silicon valley seem to be working on legacy code that is terribly architected How can you say things like this? The internet is the great equalizer of distances; it does not matter what geographic location you live in, you could be working on anything. On a sidenote, I can't tell if you are trying to be deliberately offensive or if you're someone who's never left SV.

>How can you say things like this? The internet is the great equalizer of distances; it does not matter what geographic location you live in, you could be working on anything.

It really is not. Culture matters. If you're from a conservative place, your boss and colleagues are likely to be conservative. It'll be JEE for you until the end of time.

Re: I don’t want to be a software developer anymore

#124

Post by phkahler »

Assuming she passed our interview process - which I think she would - I would gladly hire the author into a software development position that is entirely different from her previous experience. It's not all roses - work is work - but I feel like everything she complained about is different where I work.

Re: I don’t want to be a software developer anymore

#125

Post by sctb »

cup-of-tea wrote: post #26

> I just found out some guy who does the same work as me is getting paid 20% more. Yeah and there's probably some guy getting paid 20% less than you for the same job and some woman getting paid 100% for an easier job. Maybe it's best to quit software if you don't even understand basic statistics. This is a great profession which pays very well and has very flexible hours. Go shovel shit if you want. The author just d…

This is not a civil or substantive comment. Could you please take a look at the guidelines and then follow them? We're trying to do better than drive-by personal attacks and dismissals here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: I don’t want to be a software developer anymore

#126

Post by [deleted] »

jameskegel wrote: post #11

I read the article; I'm not sure this is so much a criticism of the industry as it is an examination of this developer's personal anecdotal experience. As developers, we lead a very charmed life that others sometimes aren't even born with the chance to intellectually compete for; the author neglects to address how lucky we are to be able to do this at all, let alone to then find employment in it. If it's not an indus…

[deleted]

Re: I don’t want to be a software developer anymore

#127

Post by jib »

fdej wrote: post #93
jib wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shittier jobs I've had than a desk job: 5-6 hours a day biking in -15C snow with wet feet (Mailman). 8 hours a day moving chips one by one in and out of an EPROM writer because it was cheaper to have me do that than pay the extra 2c to have them preprogrammed. The chips were 25c without programming and 27c with. (Ericson subcontractor). And I am privileged as hell, coming from Sweden with a good education and a famil…

> 5-6 hours a day biking in -15C snow with wet feet (Mailman). As a Swede, aren't you familiar with the saying "There's no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothes"? :-) I did spend one summer planting trees in Sweden. It was miserable, but in a good way: I'd sleep well every night. I'm not sure how well I'd put up with something like that over an extended period of time though.

Hehe, yeah. It is a pain in the ass to try to cycle in anything other than sneakers though imo. Especially when you need to get off the bike and run up stairs fairly often. Better to be cold and wet than be on the bike in boots.

It was actually a good job most days. Certainly made me more fit than before. I think most work is like that right? Some crappy things and some cool things. But like you say, doing that for 20 years or more I am not sure about.

I did it for a year and a half full time and then part time for two years while working on a CS degree.

Re: I don’t want to be a software developer anymore

#128

Post by uneducatedthrwy »

cyberpunk0 wrote: post #74
ironjunkie wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. I find it very difficult to complain as a coder given the conditions at the moment. Companies battle to hire people and the pay is globally extremely good. Most of the time it is easy to get time off or to accommodate "errands" during the day. As you said, I think a lot of us are out of touch about what it is to get a job outside of tech (and a couple other high demand privileged examples). You want to work fro…

No they compete for unicorns. Normal developers who were privileged enough to be born in silicon valley and go to mit/Stanford/Caltech and aren't willing to work 16 out 24 hours of the day might as well not apply because you just get told to fuck off in every application

I disagree with your point even if it's exaggerated. I'm a HS grad with about a decade of experience. At least for the past five years, I can find a decent job at a startup making well into the six figures at will. Last time I got laid off, I had multiple competitive offers a little over a week later. This was all from cold online applications, and I was not living in a strong market like San Francisco or Boston. I have no LinkedIn or references and I don't network. Granted, I'm pretty good at this and interview _really_ well, but what I just described would be impossible in most other white collar-ish industries, and a total pipe dream for a HS grad.

Re: I don’t want to be a software developer anymore

#129

Post by zimablue »

pfarnsworth wrote: post #121
zimablue wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a pretty aggressive tone, and it's kind of unwarranted. I did read it, and well. Saying that women have higher innate neuroticism is saying that they have less natural aptitude for stressful jobs. Saying that men have a wider bell curve in abilities is saying that you'll find less women at the extreme end of the aptitude curve necessary to work at Google (and be as good as the mean). There will never be a tim…

You didn’t read it well. You are misrepresenting what he wrote and propagating lies. “Higher neuroticism” and “natural aptitude” doesn’t mesh. Maybe you don’t understand what “aptitude” or “neuroticism” means, but neuroticism is a clinical term. It means the tendency to have negative feelings. It is entirely orthogonal to aptitude. So your conclusion is false. You are confusing “traits” with “aptitude”. Again, maybe…

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/aptitude

maybe you're getting angry because you're assuming the I'm using definition of aptitude as "quickness to learn" and not "suitability". I was using the word to mean "suitability", and it's kind of unarguable that saying that a job is very stressful and a person has a low tolerance for stress is saying that to some extent they're unsuitable for the job.

He did say that men have a wider bell curve of abilities, here is the precise line which you can find on his site:

Among most psychological characteristics, including IQ, populations of men have higher variance than women even when the average is the same: there are more men on both the top and the bottom of the curve.

I'm going to stop replying now as I've had my fill of being called a stupid liar for the day.

Re: I don’t want to be a software developer anymore

#130

Post by jib »

kazinator wrote: post #90
jib wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shittier jobs I've had than a desk job: 5-6 hours a day biking in -15C snow with wet feet (Mailman). 8 hours a day moving chips one by one in and out of an EPROM writer because it was cheaper to have me do that than pay the extra 2c to have them preprogrammed. The chips were 25c without programming and 27c with. (Ericson subcontractor). And I am privileged as hell, coming from Sweden with a good education and a famil…

I don't see how the 2c saving per chip, multiplied by any reasonable number of chips a person can swap in and out could pay for the work (in the so-called developed world, at that)? There are other good reasons to be doing that, like nearly instant turnaround time if a change in the firmware occurs in early production runs.

Yeah there was a sizing thing to it too. It was for a specific build of headsets that didnt go out in huge numbers each batch, so buying in bulk was risky and the lead time from Taiwan was significant.

You can do a lot of chips in a day though, I did around 10k per day if I remember right, so there was still some profit.

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