Not being a bother to your boss is more valuable than the quality of work provided you don't seriously suck.
Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?
351–360 of 757 posts
Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?
#352After almost 3 decades in software/systems domain, three things (which admittedly I'm guessing other people have landed at as well):
1) It's almost never about the engineering, and almost always about the people doing the engineering.
2) Actual innovation is exceedingly rare. That vast majority of output in the form of software, services, etc is optimization.
3) We've failed dramatically as a business domain to recognize what is truly valuable and what is actually harmful to the culture and the species.
Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?
#353Everything is a system. The economy, society, relationships, nature, traffic. You don't need math to reverse engineer a system. You just need to pay attention to it. You can say the right words to make a date happy. You can figure out which lane is the fastest route, better than Google Maps can. You don't need an app or data - your brain is a wonderful data processing machine. Don't be angry at the people who are ben…
This is a great point. I read Thinking in Systems a few years ago and it changed how I observe and try to influence (or not) existing systems. Highly recommend. https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Systems-Donella-H-Meadows/dp...
I highly recommend this as well. Coming at this with a background in mechanical engineering, ie, familiar with formal definitions of control systems, feedback loops, delays, etc, this book did a fantastic job showing how all those same concepts apply to nontraditional systems without requiring any deep technical knowledge of control systems.
Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?
#354Earlier quoted context omitted.
Very well put. What I noticed is that every discipline invents their own lingo to describe the systems in play at the ethos of their discipline and they often manifest as some sort of law, principle or concept. What I'm really curious about learning is to see if there's some sort of overarching discipline that focuses on these sort of systems as a meta and finds improvement points or market opportunities based on a g…
I've thought about this a lot, it's my goto "one day I'll write a book about this". I frame the problem slightly different (heh): Different disciplines, branching out, will (or so says my hypothesis) discover the same topologies, but express them differently due to different scopes (perspective, dimensionality, DSLs [...]). What I'm thinking about is: how can we parametrize the manifestations of these scopes, and, ub…
Your comment made me think of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bond_graph
“Multi modal” system representation in graph format. You can represent an electric, hydraulic and mechanical system in one graph. Anything really by relating them to the substituent energy and power. Its representation allows you to easily extract the differential equation. Neat stuff.
Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?
#355just today I talked with a colleague of mine and told her that you try and do the best work possible and put a lot of effort in it and will be considered shit by others. And, you do a sloppy job with minimum effort and it will be regarded as awesome. Is it luck? Even if you like what you do and are passionate about it, there's just element of chance, though "luck" is never a thing to consider or even mention at meeting and in plans. Common consensus holds it that you you should always "try and do the best work possible and put a lot of effort in it" but that's just not the case since when everything's awesome nothing is awesome and doing something repeatedly is in between shit and awesome. You just gather feedback on what works and try to repeat it and stop doing what has negative feedback (you change according to feedback)
smth like that
Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?
#3561. Look at things in entirety--from end-to-end, when you see the complete picture, it becomes much easier to grasp anything.
2. Research matters A LOT. I remember an incident where my Design lead called us all into a room (about 12 people.) He gave each one of us a chocolate--none were of the same kind. Then, he asked, "how many of you don't like what you got" Couple of us raised our hands. He then said, "go ahead and exchange it with someone"--people unhappy with their chocolates exchanged. Once everyone was done, He asked the same question again. This time only one person who did not like the chocolate raised their hand. Then he said "Welcome to user research 101" -- The biggest mistake companies make today, is shovelling down what they think is right onto their users, just like I did. Now, when you guys exchanged and got what you wanted it just goes onto show that it's not like you don't like chocolates, it's just that you wanted a different kind. About the one who did not like anything, he asked her why--She said, she doesn't like chocolates; for this he said--well, there also are people, who don't want your product at all!
These two have really helped me understand things better.
Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?
#357Company representatives and management will outright lie to you about the things they claim the company values. Things like "people come first", "we work hard and play hard", "work/life balance is crucial" and "code maintenance is important". If you want to find out what a company actually values, pay attention to what it incentivizes, and also where it deploys it's leukocytes. Often, people who work for a company assume the company values some concept or principal we shall call "X". In reality, the company doesn't actually value X. Oftentimes the company could not care less about X or even disdains X. But: they value VALUING X! (Go ahead and read that twice). The meta-valuing of things often produces a much different, often opposite result on the ground than the valuing of things - an important distinction.
Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?
#358I'm a developer like many people here. One thing that people who don't program don't realize is that its a laborious job. It seems like its a fun job with lots of 'hanging out' but its more like 4-5 hours a day / 5 days week looking at a text editor and a terminal trying to focus and not be distracted. At the end of the day, I'm exhausted
I've done all kinds of jobs. I'd take a 14 hour physical labor job over a 8 hour mental labor job anytime. Mental labor is painful... in the form that stalling the main thread of something is. But that's data entry. Development is much less mental labor, and I'd agree with the 4-5 hours/day assessment. Most people can't actually do this, which is why a lot of people hate math. Math class is dealing with intense focus…
>I'd take a 14 hour physical labor job over a 8 hour mental labor job anytime.
No you wouldn't. Physical labor varies in difficulty somewhat depending on the type of work, but many blue collar jobs are hell. Forget the anecdotes you read here; they are the exception and not the rule.
That's not to say that coding can't be difficult. But physical labor can be much, much worse.
Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?
#359"That fake it til you make it" is 99% of what successful people do. Doesn't matter that you don't know what you're doing, no one is the wiser. So NEVER be afraid to take a shot and learn as you go.
Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?
#360I think other people also realize this, but my main learnings as a 45 year old software developer are:
That how little college education contributes to success in life. (at least success as I define it). That education became commodity. The real value is in finding the interesting opportunities / ideas / people / networks, the right topics at the right time. That my knowledge and way of thinking is still too 'academical'. (although I am constantly working on this.) That beyond a level big-picture thinking is more important than being good in details, I need to progess in this front a lot. That scratching your own itch is the best startup walidation method: but me as a software developer have mostly developer problems. Creating developer tools is a hard business, but I could not find out a better alternative for myself yet. (I am also a gamer a little bit, but indie games are an even tougher business.) That living in Eastern Europe is bad for your career but the upside is that you can live really well off of a (by western standards) relatively low income.