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Signaling in tech is some fucked up shit (2016)

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Re: Signaling in tech is some fucked up shit (2016)

#51

Post by freetime2 »

This article was written in 2016. A couple years later in 2018, the last couple times I've heard Clojure mentioned it was it was to sarcastically mock the trendiness of the industry. E.g. "My side project is a social media platform that leverages big data, machine learning, and blockchain... and it's written in Clojure".

Has Clojure already lost its cool mystique in the 2 years since this was written? If so I think that further proves the point that assuming good/bad things about a person's talents based on the tools they have used in the past is foolish.

Re: Signaling in tech is some fucked up shit (2016)

#52

Post by d3sandoval »

sverige wrote: post #22
fermienrico wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I presume the hatred comes from the purists looking down on the entire mess of web stack: PHP gets a bad rep, JavaScript is at the butt of every joke from an embedded C developer, and the front end of the stack is a total nightmare - CSS, w3c and all. Web Dev is hard __precisely__ because of this mess!

I think it's the fact that it's a mess that makes people who strive to write correct code and keep it all neat and tidy look down on webdev. It's sort of a variation of the "clean" vs. "messy" roommate conflict. Messy loses status in an industry that aspires to be "scientific." Not that it should be that way, just my take on similar observations.

You're definitely onto something here. "Messy" makes money. An obsession with "correctness" can kill a business, especially in its early stages.

Fail early and fail often. Web dev has very low (technical) overhead and aligns with "startup" mentality. The good news is that the customer has different expectations every 6 months so it's not the worst thing in the world to have a slightly different set of technologies to meet those needs.

Re: Signaling in tech is some fucked up shit (2016)

#53

Post by sonnyblarney »

SCdF wrote: post #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…

It's a little less baffling when one realizes that 'front end' work often involves dealing with more arbitrary and byzantine rubbish than in other areas (I'm looking at you HTML 5).

The lack of respect for how difficult it can be to make a smooth user experience is in a way understandable. But the truth is front-end people spend at least 1/2 their time in Chinese finger traps ...

Re: Signaling in tech is some fucked up shit (2016)

#54

Post by js2 »

Where are these horrible places that people work and hang out? I’ve worked at places as small as a tiny ISP where I was basically the only tech employee, startups with a dozen employees to companies as large as HP and everything in between. I’ve worked on the east coast and west coast. I’ve worked for private companies and public ones. Ive been on small teams and large. Ive had dozens of managers. I’ve been an SA and a programmer and sometimes the jack of all trades who’s responsible for IT and the web farm. I’ve racked and stacked gear. I’ve punched down Ethernet. I’ve got a CS degree from a state school. I’ve coded in Basic, assembly, C, C++, scheme, Perl 4 and 5, python 1, 2 and 3, Java, JavaScript, PHP, Shell, TCL, Pascal, Fortran, Lua, and on and on. I’ve contributed to open source small (chpasswd) and large (Apache, git).

I don’t ever recall running into someone who would treat me badly based on what I do. I’m not arguing it doesn’t exist. I certainly believe the author. I just haven’t experienced it myself. Have I just been lucky?

Re: Signaling in tech is some fucked up shit (2016)

#55

Post by mrexroad »

MusaTheRedGuard wrote: post #36
machiavelli1024 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. Funny that HackerNews seem to be unable to wrap their head around the fact that prejudice is just applied Bayesian statistics.

I'm gonna say prejudice is actually not applied Bayesian statistics

I’d argue that prejudice and bias applies most all statistics, but most often we just don’t notice or care. E.g. The biases inherent to specific domain, of those who captured the data, those who selected the data, selection of statistical techniques, real-world outcomes reinforced by usage of these statistics, etc.

Re: Signaling in tech is some fucked up shit (2016)

#56

Post by nine_k »

A general advice: don't be, or position yourself, as a "programmer in ${language}". Your value proposition as an engineer is ability to comprehend and solve problems.

Learn enough concepts from a few different schools of thought to be able to make sense of a language in a reasonable time. Master a few, eventually.

An ability to use a semi-obscure language to solve a problem, and an ability to explain why it is superior for the task is indeed an important signal of the above-mentioned abilities, and a costly one. Costly also for the employer (in terms of your negotiated salary).

Re: Signaling in tech is some fucked up shit (2016)

#57

Post by expertentipp »

Zelphyr wrote: post #48
expertentipp wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t using Java, PyTorch, Elasticsearch, and neural networks for a TODO iOS app the same?

Why would you use any of those technologies to build a TODO app?

My point is that overengineering and CV- or grant- driven development is not exclusive to the web.

Re: Signaling in tech is some fucked up shit (2016)

#58

Post by amalcon »

Zelphyr wrote: post #16
axlee wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not to mention; web developers are constantly having to context switch between HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Old school days they also had a backend language like PHP or Perl. Many still do. Then there was/is SQL. By my count, that's at least five different languages to know all at once.

It's a little weird to count a markup language, a presentation language, and a query language on the same axis as Turing-complete programming languages. If we go by that metric, the average sysadmin knows dozens of languages all at once. Yet sysadmin work is also often looked down on for some reason.

I don't have a good explanation for either of those phenomena, but I think language-counting isn't a good way to combat them.

Re: Signaling in tech is some fucked up shit (2016)

#59

Post by Zelphyr »

dkarl wrote: post #46
SCdF wrote: post #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…

The attitude has changed as people have realized the web isn't going away and isn't qualitatively changing. Fifteen years ago you could ask, "Why on earth would a programmer put up with that incoherent mishmash of shitty technologies? For God's sake, if you have any taste at all, work in a different domain." Now the why is clear, and anyone who had a snobbish attitude (I won't hold my breath while the rest of us out…

As someone who has slogged through it for 20 years, I wouldn't say I've earned much other than to realize that its all an even bigger mess than what it used to be. The solutions people come up with to combat it (frameworks, JSX, CSS-in-JS) only exacerbate the complexity in my opinion. I truly feel like we're headed in the wrong direction when it comes to web development. I haven't figured out what the right direction is yet, short of going back to the drawing board with HTML.

Re: Signaling in tech is some fucked up shit (2016)

#60

Post by _qhtn »

EngineerBetter wrote: post #29

Maybe it's my age, and a youth of grunge, metal, hardcore and punk, but whatever happened to doing what you love and not giving a shit what naysayers think?

Because in a capitalist dystopia or an anarchist commune, I need other people to want to help me.
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