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Everything I googled in a week as a professional software engineer

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Re: Everything I googled in a week as a professional software engineer

#221

Post by Rapzid »

inimino wrote: post #206
Rapzid wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, you're linking TO something and not FROM something so target seems more accurate(they are essentially pointers). I'm honestly surprised about the help confusion though: ln --help Usage: ln [OPTION]... [-T] TARGET LINK_NAME (1st form)

That is the symlink target, not the ln target, which is exactly why the "target" nomenclature is confusing. Also note that not every "ln" has a "--help" or uses that help message as the output. For example, try on OS X `/bin/ln -h`.

Yes, it would be platform specific as the OSX ln command would not be the same program as the GNU coreutils ln program.

For GNU ln at least I don't find it confusing at all particularly considering the only other option is LINK_NAME. I guess YMMV though and it seems kinda pointless to argue whether it is or is not confusing. Perhaps a poll could quantify it.

Re: Everything I googled in a week as a professional software engineer

#222

Post by red75prime »

aloknnikhil wrote: post #7

On the list of things I always Google, is how to create a symbolic link under Linux. I just can't figure out a way to remember what comes first; the source or the destination. The man pages add to the confusion by calling the "source" the target. So, the rule of thumb I now follow is cp or mv semantics.

Busybox's ln --help is straight to the point

  Usage: ln [OPTIONS] TARGET... LINK|DIR
  Create a link LINK or DIR/TARGET to the specified TARGET(s)

Re: Everything I googled in a week as a professional software engineer

#223

Post by harrisonjackson »

ma2rten wrote: post #207
dajohnson89 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

could you give an example of a complex search? I've never bothered using advanced Google search patterns

I personally just use "site", "inurl" and the minus sign. Example: site:news.ycombinator.com -inurl:item google operators

Did not know about inurl - very cool! Thanks

Re: Everything I googled in a week as a professional software engineer

#224

Post by flixic »

alpb wrote: post #218

"professional software engineer" > writing cookies > string contains > how to see request headers in chrome I mean, obviously I'm trying to be snarky here, but I'm not sure how a professional "software engineer" focused on web development types such generic queries into the browser after working on it long enough to be "professional".

I've been developing for the web for about 15 years, and I totally can see myself googling "writing cookies". It's not a thing you do that often, and even if you do, perhaps it just doesn't stick in your mind.

There should be no shame in googling things.

Re: Everything I googled in a week as a professional software engineer

#225

Post by 19ylram49 »

alpb wrote: post #218

"professional software engineer" > writing cookies > string contains > how to see request headers in chrome I mean, obviously I'm trying to be snarky here, but I'm not sure how a professional "software engineer" focused on web development types such generic queries into the browser after working on it long enough to be "professional".

Your comment is why they wrote this piece

Re: Everything I googled in a week as a professional software engineer

#226

Post by NoodleIncident »

sharadov wrote: post #138
blackflame7000 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that what a whiteboard interview is? Proving you can do things without google or else you aren't a proper engineer? (For the record I disdain whiteboard interviews as the accepted metric for testing one's ability)

Every engineer on HN (several threads that I've browsed) seems to have a serious disdain for coder-pad interviews/whiteboard sessions. And I think HN has a good representation of software engineers. So, who are these companies hiring?

I'm not sure HN is representative of anything, especially if you only look at what's upvoted. If I had to guess, I'd say that this sentiment is posted by people with 10 years of experience who feel like they should be talking about something else during interviews, but that it's being upvoted by college students or recent grads (no matter what you're asked to learn, a large fraction of the group will be frustrated by it)

Re: Everything I googled in a week as a professional software engineer

#227

Post by lioeters »

aasasd wrote: post #39

My web search activity went up a lot with experience. Back in the day, almost all of my work consisted of cranking out stuff in the main language (PHP or Python), spiced up with SQL and occasional web or db server setup. I needed manuals sometimes, but not web searches so much. After the hipster-programming/devops explosion of the early 2010s and my dive into highly optimized heterogeneous solutions, the work switche…

Well-deserved naming of an era: "the hipster-programming/devops explosion of the early 2010s"

Re: Everything I googled in a week as a professional software engineer

#228

Post by InitialLastName »

wil421 wrote: post #197
setr wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm of the opinion that not googling stuff means you're not a proper engineer. And from what I've seen, those who don't google consistently also fail to understand the answers they find when they do google things. It is, in fact, an essential skill.

I’ve asked pre-internet programmers and they said they used to keep reference books at their desk or even a small library/book room at their employers. I’ve heard some government contractors can’t google because they work on non-internet connected computers. They probably keep a lot of books.

A friend works at a military contractor doing (effectively) windows GUIs for power system controls. His only access to an internet-connected computer is on his breaks, where he has to wait in line to use one of a very small number of computers in a special room to google things.

I don't think he has books, but he has an enormous amount of documentation (something like the whole MSDN library, a bunch of internal documentation and reference info, and other documentation) installed on his computer.

Re: Everything I googled in a week as a professional software engineer

#229

Post by munchbunny »

Infinitesimus wrote: post #198
munchbunny wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO it's not. I've never given or taken a whiteboard interview where the I (or the candidate) was not allowed to either google things or to make assumptions about how certain things worked. For example, if your solution involved generating all permutations of a sequence, and you didn't remember how to do that efficiently, I would let you make up a black box function that just does it. We might come back to this later…

> if your solution involved generating all permutations of a sequence, and you didn't remember how to do that efficiently, I would let you make up a black box function that just does it But sometimes, the interview question is generating all the permutations :(

True... but that does mean they're not expecting that you can remember the algorithm. :)

Re: Everything I googled in a week as a professional software engineer

#230

Post by TrackerFF »

blackflame7000 wrote: post #115
abalone wrote: post #75

This is great but the premise seems kind of straw man. I don’t know a single developer that thinks “googling stuff means you’re not a proper engineer.” Perhaps this is a reference to the interviewing process. Tests are a different thing, though. I’ve been on practical technical screens where you can google, because the test was about building a larger system, and they don’t care if you don’t remember this or that API…

Isn't that what a whiteboard interview is? Proving you can do things without google or else you aren't a proper engineer? (For the record I disdain whiteboard interviews as the accepted metric for testing one's ability)

A good interviewer will not care about syntactic things, but rather try to sniff out your workflow and thoughts / processing when breaking down a process. It should be a proper two-way interaction.

A shitty interviewer will follow a rigid script and "ding" you on trivial errors.

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