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Today’s Top Tech Skills

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231–240 of 373 posts

Re: Today’s Top Tech Skills

#231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a mechanical engineer. Mechanical engineering jobs ask for SolidWorks/AutoCAD/CATIA/Creo/etc experience, not just computer-aided design; ANSYS/ABAQUS/NASTRAN/etc expertise, not just finite element method; Fluent/CFX/OpenFOAM/etc knowledge, not just computational fluid dynamics. With the exception of OpenFOAM, all of these software are proprietary, largely non-interoperable, and expensive—like thousands to tens o…

>Outside of programming, this is the norm. The number of free and/or open-source tools available to a mechanical engineer or an electrical engineer are infinitesimally small and it is almost impossible to do a serious engineering project with only free tools. >Since this is quite lucrative for the companies making those tools, I can only imagine tech companies would be more than happy to lead us to a future where sof…

> I wonder sometimes about the fact that SW engineers are capable of making their own tools in a way that we are not. Do you think this helps to combat some of the super high pricing associated with their tooling?

I can only speculate, since I am not a software engineer, but I think part of maturing is things get more complex and making things more difficult and expensive. Thirty years ago, someone could say "Fuck it! I'm fucking sick of Unix! I'll just go write my own fucking operating system!" and actually do it. Today, operating systems are so complex and large that this is not feasible anymore. Maybe you can write your own AWS replacement today, but would you able to write a replacement for AWS of 2050 in 2050?

It it one of those things that I would be happy to be proven wrong about, but as of now, I am not super optimistic that the current state of freedom of software engineering tools would continue indefinitely.

Re: Today’s Top Tech Skills

#232

In Java I'm a big fan of using SQL directly versus ORM. To that end I highly recommend JOOQ. I library that allows for object oriented SQL. Its not ORM, so you still compose SQL, you just get a lot objects and methods to allow you to construct your SQL in an OO, and functional, programming type way. It also is a DB first approach. Where you construct your DB schemas and tables first, then use JOOQ to create objects t…

With jOOQ you still don't write SQL, you write the DSL and still spend a lot of time looking up docs for how to write the query in the DSL, when all you really want is to write the SQL query without the ugliness of JDBC. To this end I highly recommend JDBI.

If the Java proposal for multi-line strings ever gets done it will make writing SQL queries a lot nicer.

Re: Today’s Top Tech Skills

#233
I got back into java recently and am appreciating how you can define an interface reference type super class then swap out the different data structure subclasses as their implementation. E.g. make a queue refer to either PriorityQueue or LinkedList. Or make a Map a HashMap or TreeMap. It kind of provides an "aha!" moment in deeper understanding of why there are so many Datastructures and why it actually matter to pick 1 over the other if in the end they are both implementing the same functionality. With python/js , yes those DS are still there but they are most of the time hidden for your convenience (which is great sometimes when you just wanna pump out some idea). The Accidental joy of Java (with its verbosity) is that by pushing the DS choice to time of reference setting, it makes me have to actually think about the choice more and what it would mean.

Re: Today’s Top Tech Skills

#234
post #16

Java is still undisputed in the enterprise. Node.js was a contender but lost steam. May be .net once it becomes truly platform neutral have a chance to take on Java. Until then most probably it will remain widely popular.

I figured that was mostly due to legacy code at this point; is it undisputed for new code too?

Java is hot again.

Re: Today’s Top Tech Skills

#235
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My go to interview question to test basic SQL knowledge is use of “HAVING”. It’s a surprisingly good filter. EDIT: To clarify since this got more attention than I expected...I don’t disqualify any candidate based on the answer to a single question. I just use that question to assess their actual SQL experience. If you’ve spent any amount time writing raw queries by hand for reports or just to pass through to a web se…

I can barely get candidates to join two tables.

[deleted]

Re: Today’s Top Tech Skills

#236
I've tried several times to switch the URL to https://www.hiringlab.org/2019/11/19/today's-top-tech-skills..., which is the source that this one is copying from, but our software insists on escaping the apostrophe to %27 and hiringlab.org won't unescape it, resulting in a 404. I don't think I've seen that before.

Edit: never mind, taking out the apostrophe works! URL changed from https://spectrum.ieee.org/view-from-the-valley/at-work/tech-..., which points to this.

Re: Today’s Top Tech Skills

#237

In Java I'm a big fan of using SQL directly versus ORM. To that end I highly recommend JOOQ. I library that allows for object oriented SQL. Its not ORM, so you still compose SQL, you just get a lot objects and methods to allow you to construct your SQL in an OO, and functional, programming type way. It also is a DB first approach. Where you construct your DB schemas and tables first, then use JOOQ to create objects t…

With jOOQ you still don't write SQL, you write the DSL and still spend a lot of time looking up docs for how to write the query in the DSL, when all you really want is to write the SQL query without the ugliness of JDBC. To this end I highly recommend JDBI. If the Java proposal for multi-line strings ever gets done it will make writing SQL queries a lot nicer.

Never heard of JDBI before. Will check it out. Its true there is a lot of DSL looking up. It does decrease over time, but then ramps back up as you do more complicated SQL... lol.

Re: Today’s Top Tech Skills

#238
post #14

It remains weird and disturbing to me that "AWS" is treated as a skill. Not "cloud system management", but " AWS ". Edit: I do understand why it can be lucrative to have expertise with a specific cloud provider. It's just the status quo of these services being their own unique silos that disturbs me: I would personally be wary of making "ability to effectively use Amazon's servers" a pillar of my career.

Twas ever thus

For as long as I been working job adverts have been asking for vendor specific skills

Oracle vs SQL Visual C vs C SAP vs ,..

It can be risky, and in my experience skills are less important than general technical experience, as it’s easier to teach someone specific skills rather than teach them general aptitude.

Having said that, if you are moving to AWS and have no one with AWS experience in your organisation, then it may make sense to hire someone with relevant experience.

Re: Today’s Top Tech Skills

#239
post #121
post #76

Seems to me that Java is also still one of the most supplied tech skills. So this does not necessarily make it a market you want to be in. Good SQL skills don't tend to be that common though, but I think a lot of the demand is more for CRUD-level operations than for complex analytics or performance-sensitive stuff.

Most people don't know Java as well as they think they do.

Do they need that though? Will they be paid for that expert Java knowledge?

Re: Today’s Top Tech Skills

#240

In Java I'm a big fan of using SQL directly versus ORM. To that end I highly recommend JOOQ. I library that allows for object oriented SQL. Its not ORM, so you still compose SQL, you just get a lot objects and methods to allow you to construct your SQL in an OO, and functional, programming type way. It also is a DB first approach. Where you construct your DB schemas and tables first, then use JOOQ to create objects t…

With jOOQ you still don't write SQL, you write the DSL and still spend a lot of time looking up docs for how to write the query in the DSL, when all you really want is to write the SQL query without the ugliness of JDBC. To this end I highly recommend JDBI. If the Java proposal for multi-line strings ever gets done it will make writing SQL queries a lot nicer.

Please note the DSL is a one-to-one mapping to SQL. So its still SQL, you just have to identify the correct method that maps to your SQL element.
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