Signaling in tech is some fucked up shit (2016)
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Re: Signaling in tech is some fucked up shit (2016)
#2I know this is a bit off topic, but I'm curious what stack you're using for your blog. I like the minimalism of it, and I've been looking for a lower-effort way to maintain something like that.
RE: your actual post, I've also personally noticed this, and a similar concept that when you reveal that the bulk of your experience is on a "dinosaur" language, you are automatically lumped into the set of less competent programmers. It pretty explicitly informed my choice of programming language for interviews.
Fortunately, I've found that there's a fairly direct correlation between people you would want to work with and learn from and how much this signalling affects them. Many of the programmers I respect most openly don't care what your language background is, just that you can wrestle your tech stack into good software. That's been my experience too: the good ones can ship great software on pretty much any (reasonable) stack. The okay ones ship okay software on pretty much any stack.
Re: Signaling in tech is some fucked up shit (2016)
#3> when I told other software people I’m a web developer, I got treated like shit. I was a lower class of coder because I wasn’t “solving cool problems” because making web sites is easy.
Of all the stupid arrogant awfulness in tech that has crossed my path this one is definitely high on the list of the most baffling. Web dev is the hardest and most intimidating dev work I've ever done, by a country mile.
(Whether that complexity is 'justified' is an entirely different discussion that, while no doubt interesting, has nothing to do with this person's post)
Re: Signaling in tech is some fucked up shit (2016)
#4This was entertaining to read, I like your style.
I also find the webdev low status pretty unjustified. It's true that it's less mathy than other disciplines, but at scale, "webdev" is every bit as architecturally challenging as anything else, and in some cases moreso because of the sheer number of different technologies and stacks you have to be fluent in to make it all work together.
Re: Signaling in tech is some fucked up shit (2016)
#5> when I told other software people I’m a web developer, I got treated like shit. I was a lower class of coder because I wasn’t “solving cool problems” because making web sites is easy. Of all the stupid arrogant awfulness in tech that has crossed my path this one is definitely high on the list of the most baffling. Web dev is the hardest and most intimidating dev work I've ever done, by a country mile. (Whether that…
Whoever says web is "easy" never had to build or maintain a large web application. The ecosystem is incredibly deep and constantly evolving, to the point where best practices change every six months.
Re: Signaling in tech is some fucked up shit (2016)
#6> It’s fucked up that being interested in this random programming language, not even for the reasons the fangirls love it
I'd argue that the real signaling here is the op showed genuine curiosity. This is hard to fake, and the "fangirls" in this example could be people pretending to like Clojure because that's the hip language/framework of the day.
Maybe people respect you more for being genuine.
Re: Signaling in tech is some fucked up shit (2016)
#7I was (am maybe.) one of those douches that looked down on webdevs. I was so, so wrong. It came from fetishizing complexity and "smartness".
Even setting aside the issue of complexity, from a business perspective, web dev is immensely valuable and only becoming more so.
And as for complexity, I always thought I could learn it easily because its "not real CS" but man its a huge, complex, ever-changing ecosystem and not at all easy. And it takes a much broader set of skills (both technical and non-technical) than pure backend programming or whatever.
Mad respect to all web devs, and all devs. The sooner we get rid of the caste system within software the better.
Re: Signaling in tech is some fucked up shit (2016)
#8I know this is a bit off topic, but I'm curious what stack you're using for your blog. I like the minimalism of it, and I've been looking for a lower-effort way to maintain something like that. RE: your actual post, I've also personally noticed this, and a similar concept that when you reveal that the bulk of your experience is on a "dinosaur" language, you are automatically lumped into the set of less competent prog…
Re: Signaling in tech is some fucked up shit (2016)
#9> when I told other software people I’m a web developer, I got treated like shit. I was a lower class of coder because I wasn’t “solving cool problems” because making web sites is easy. Of all the stupid arrogant awfulness in tech that has crossed my path this one is definitely high on the list of the most baffling. Web dev is the hardest and most intimidating dev work I've ever done, by a country mile. (Whether that…
I’m there and cannot stand it. In my company, for the native apps each problem has it’s own dedicated team. Including ML team which doesn’t have any results yet. I’m the only „cloud” person, everyone assumes that anyting „web” takes 0 time and effort to complete. I truly hate these people. BTW it’s Germany - when they hear „internet” their brains turn into a pile of rotten cabbage.
Re: Signaling in tech is some fucked up shit (2016)
#10I know this is a bit off topic, but I'm curious what stack you're using for your blog. I like the minimalism of it, and I've been looking for a lower-effort way to maintain something like that. RE: your actual post, I've also personally noticed this, and a similar concept that when you reveal that the bulk of your experience is on a "dinosaur" language, you are automatically lumped into the set of less competent prog…
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