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Things I Don’t Know as of 2018

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Re: Things I Don’t Know as of 2018

#161

Post by yakshaving_jgt »

jf- wrote: post #159
yakshaving_jgt wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is disgusting. I’m not condemning you for finding a gap in the market — that’s totally fair play. But the fact that this can exist and that we have a culture of celebrity in software development at all (especially in such a dishonest way) is just disgusting.

It also didn’t happen. This guy is trolling HN. Maybe it breaks the guidelines to post this, but take a look through his history, he just posts conflicting, self aggrandising statements and low content noise. It’s a shame to see people wasting their effort replying to him.

Oh. In that case, I’ve been “Punk’d”.

Re: Things I Don’t Know as of 2018

#162

Post by TeMPOraL »

commandlinefan wrote: post #112
sidcool wrote: post #73

This is a very good article. What stumps me though is how the 10x engineers/architects make such sound technical choices without knowing a lot of things. I perennially feel ignorant of Computer Science concepts that many others seem to possess. This article helps me to understand it's not only me. But I would still like to make the best tech choices most of the times...But the problem is..WHAT TO LEARN NEXT? THERE'S…

I first started coding professionally in the early 90’s, just as “the web” started to take off. I found myself surrounded by people who talked about the network stack all the time; I put together that there was an important concept called “TCP/IP” in there. So I did what I thought was the most logical thing: I picked up a copy of Richard Steven’s “TCP/IP Illustrated” and read it cover to cover. Then a funny thing hap…

I think a corollary here is that reading a technical book cover to cover isn't really that hard. Personally I'm trying to make it my default approach for learning things - books over articles (where that makes sense; books on continuously changing software are a waste of paper).

Re: Things I Don’t Know as of 2018

#163

Post by yawaramin »

Two things come to mind:

> I was considered by all my masters and my father a very ordinary boy, rather below the common standard of intellect.

-Charles Darwin

> That any civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth travelled round the sun appeared to be to me such an extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize it.

> “You appear to be astonished,” he said, smiling at my expression of surprise. “Now that I do know it I shall do my best to forget it.”

> “To forget it!”

> “You see,” he explained, “I consider that a man’s brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose…”

> “But the Solar System!” I protested.

> “What the deuce is it to me?” he interrupted impatiently; “you say that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work.”

-Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet

Re: Things I Don’t Know as of 2018

#164

Post by danabramov »

RonanTheGrey wrote: post #160
plahteenlahti wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to his tweet [1], there is a separate hiring track for front end engineers that does not include that much algorithmic knowledge. I was surprised too. [1] https://twitter.com/dan_abramov/status/1078658656344903683?s...

Facebook can afford (nay, NEEDS) to rise to that level of specialization. But that's only going to be true at the level of a megacorp, like Facebook, or Google, or Microsoft. For even moderately sized companies, someone with wider knowledge will fare better, because such companies aren't going to spend $500k/yr on someone who doesn't know algorithms (or on someone who ONLY knows algorithms). The marginal cost to Face…

To be clear, once you get in, there is no actual distinction. People can choose any team, and "front end" people sometimes work on the backend or mobile or services or IDE or a compiler, etc. We try to hire generalists.

Re: Things I Don’t Know as of 2018

#165

Post by danabramov »

guelo wrote: post #150
danabramov wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve been learning programming since 12, got first software job at 18. I’m 26 now. So depends on how you count.

And not that many technologies.

No, not that many. I've worked with C# and .NET ecosystem (WinForms, ASP .NET MVC, NHibernate, EF, MSSQL), later Django/Flask/Python, later Xamarin/Cocoa and Rx, yet later Backbone, AngularJS, React. Haven't worked with low-level stuff at all.

Re: Things I Don’t Know as of 2018

#166

Post by Spearchucker »

simplecomplex wrote: post #129
Spearchucker wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be great if we all met each others' expectations. And yet it doesn't work that way. A step up from where you're at is to realize that tech, ANY tech, is easy. If brute-forced by rote it can be even be learnt by those without the aptitude. What IS difficult to master, is people.

No, tech is not easy. I dont think I’ve met a software engineer in my entire 20 year career who would characterize programming as “easy”. I don’t think of law, medicine, and architecture as easy either. I’m sure I could have been an architect, if I spent years learning it like I did programming. But that doesn’t make it easy. Software engineers command huge salaries because it’s not easy. Just because anyone can lear…

Mastering tech is easy relative to mastering people. I know. I've done the former for 32 years at companies like Microsoft and Nokia. Still learning the latter. Not sure how this celebrates amateurism or ignorance.

Re: Things I Don’t Know as of 2018

#167

Post by munchbunny »

ahoka wrote: post #154
matchagaucho wrote: post #149

There's a risk of being a "Jack of all trades, master of none" in Software Engineering. Companies pressure Engineers to be "Generalists" because it lowers salary rates and makes people more replaceable. But it's the Specialists (like Dan) that drive actual innovation.

What about 'T-shaped' people?

I bet if you got fifty programmers (as a representative sample) in a room and asked them to define "T-shaped" you'd get a wide range of answers that generally reflect a T shape but don't really align on what the horizontal part should be.

Re: Things I Don’t Know as of 2018

#168

Post by Viliam1234 »

ahoka wrote: post #154
matchagaucho wrote: post #149

There's a risk of being a "Jack of all trades, master of none" in Software Engineering. Companies pressure Engineers to be "Generalists" because it lowers salary rates and makes people more replaceable. But it's the Specialists (like Dan) that drive actual innovation.

What about 'T-shaped' people?

There is still the trade-off between the generalist part and the specialist part. (And other things, such as family.)

Re: Things I Don’t Know as of 2018

#169

Post by InGodsName »

jf- wrote: post #159
yakshaving_jgt wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is disgusting. I’m not condemning you for finding a gap in the market — that’s totally fair play. But the fact that this can exist and that we have a culture of celebrity in software development at all (especially in such a dishonest way) is just disgusting.

It also didn’t happen. This guy is trolling HN. Maybe it breaks the guidelines to post this, but take a look through his history, he just posts conflicting, self aggrandising statements and low content noise. It’s a shame to see people wasting their effort replying to him.

I am not trolling anyone. Some people have more stories to tell because of their experience.

I've already made it clear, i don't just write code like other programmers. If you are envious of that it's fine, no need to take others down.

I feel sad that you don't have any such stories. If you make less assumptions about others, it will probably help your career.

Even your Karma is low for a user who has spent 6 months here. Probably that explains who got low content noise

Your history reveals what you post are mostly assumptions which are often false and are heavily downvoted.

Re: Things I Don’t Know as of 2018

#170

Post by exogen »

commandlinefan wrote: post #108
azizinnnjo wrote: post #107

I very much enjoy working as a programmer, but, to be honest, there is constantly a little anxiety in the back of my mind that I do not get FP/docker/devops/insert-latest-buzzword-here enough not to look like a clueless coder in a watercooler-side chat with a fellow. So I really appreciated this article, it made me feel better about myself :-)

It’s deeper than that - you won’t just look like a “clueless coder”, you’ll find yourself unemployable. I learned early on that it doesn’t matter what credentials you have or how much experience you have, never admit there’s anything you don’t know, or they’ll pass on you to hire somebody else who confidently insists that he does know absolutely every single thing there is to know. I feel bad for the author of this p…

This is honestly the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. You think it's acceptable to never admit that you don't know something? You're advising people to pretend to know everything?

I would immediately try to get you fired for lying about your knowledge and qualifications.

One of the best possible things you can do is admit when you don't know something. That should always be safe to do at any GOOD employer.

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