If you haven't watched Peepcode's Play by Play with Zed Shaw, you should. Really insightful stuff.
Advice From An Old Programmer
61–70 of 230 posts
Re: Advice From An Old Programmer
#62People who can code in the world of technology companies are a dime a dozen and get no respect. People who can code in biology, medicine, government, sociology, physics, history, and mathematics are respected and can do amazing things to advance those disciplines. This is a nice sentiment but as someone who has been a programmer for biology and medical research, it's not true. It's just like any other mediocre progra…
> programming for biology and medical research ... is just like any other mediocre programming job, but your office is a folding table under a decommissioned fume hood. That is sooo spot on (left my bioinformatics job a month ago for the exact same reason). What the author additionally misses is that when you have never programmed/developed as your primary means of making a living, you likely have never worked with p…
Take it you don't like Zed Shaw?
Re: Advice From An Old Programmer
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
> programming for biology and medical research ... is just like any other mediocre programming job, but your office is a folding table under a decommissioned fume hood. That is sooo spot on (left my bioinformatics job a month ago for the exact same reason). What the author additionally misses is that when you have never programmed/developed as your primary means of making a living, you likely have never worked with p…
Take it you don't like Zed Shaw?
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Re: Advice From An Old Programmer
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree with this, but I guess I don't know who he thinks needs this advice. I assumed his advice was for the programmer lackey who wishes they had a more interesting job. I would assume a biophysics PhD in this day and age probably already has been exposed to programming, maybe even in Python. I mean, my sister has an MPH and she had to take SAS programming courses, and she graduated 8 years ago. It's 2011, not 1979…
Yeah, I'd generalize the advice to: don't be a programmer, be a domain expert who happens to write good code. I think that's still extremely valuable advice in a world where "hackers" are obsessed with the whizziest language, version-control system, editor, database flavor, etc., and other sorts of largely irrelevant technical ephemera that ages like dead fish. Meanwhile, nobody understands statistics. It's a problem…
I'd generalize the advice to: Math is really important, especially statistics!
I've found that makes a bigger bang to any domain expert then just programming ability.
Re: Advice From An Old Programmer
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
Effecting = Doing Affecting = Being done to You effect change and change affects you. Something was done to your decisions so the right word is "affected".
There are a lot of non-native-English HN participants, and I think this sort of language pedantry 1) accomplishes nothing, as OP will likely still use the wrong word, and 2) discourages those who lack confidence in their language skills from posting what may be very insightful comments.
In spanish effect = efectuar, affect = afectar, a child could tell the difference between both, you're trying to make some effect but it doesn't affect me.
Re: Advice From An Old Programmer
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you missed the point. It's not about being a programmer working those fields. It's about using programming to help you in those fields, about programming not being the primary occupation.
Exactly! It's not about being "the lab's IT guy", writing content management systems for a pharmaceutical company, or parsing medical records. This is just another boring programming job. Some real life examples. I know a social science university teacher whose undergrads are dabbling in statistical and field data-entry software, and it is getting them into amazing projects. Another example: a friend, comp-sci grad,…
They're social scientists/linguists undergrads first, programmers second, but programming plays a vital role in their academic career.
This is only because of the sad state of education where programming is this incredibly rare black magic that less than 1% of the people in your field know. (Mathematicians and Physicists obviously excluded.)
But this is changing, it has not been the case in physics since for ever, and it soon won't be the case in the softer sciences either. And when everybody is trained with at least a basic ability to program, then your super advantage is gone.
Re: Advice From An Old Programmer
#67People who can code in the world of technology companies are a dime a dozen and get no respect. People who can code in biology, medicine, government, sociology, physics, history, and mathematics are respected and can do amazing things to advance those disciplines. This is a nice sentiment but as someone who has been a programmer for biology and medical research, it's not true. It's just like any other mediocre progra…
Programming plus domain knowledge is the killer combination. Programmers (or IT) got no respect from "business" people (finance, biologists, doctors, etc). They don't understand the difficulty of programming and think you are replaceable commodity.
But if you have the domain knowledge and the programming skill, you can turn the field upside down. Automate the jobs done by "business" people and commoditize them.
Re: Advice From An Old Programmer
#68Since the best programmer, the most intelligent person or the best working people can be the lowest paid person, I think that what you must learn is to sell your skills.
Compare Linux to MS, is not about what you do but about how you sell it.
Re: Advice From An Old Programmer
#69You know, half the reason Zed Shaw is so well known is not just that he is a prolific coder, but that he is quite an excellent writer as well. Well done Zed. I always appreciate what you write.
Well, other than that he's completely mistaken about the career advice he offers here. I'd be very curious to know if he's ever been the highly-respected programmer in a science lab, or personally knows anyone who is. My science friends tell me the job doesn't exist; any code that needs writing, a grad student will do it sufficiently well (on top of their lab work) for no more money.
This jibes with my experience. Once upon a time I know a lot of grad students in the sciences, once they found out I was a professional programmer the fun was effectively over due to a barrage of programming questions. They all hacked on some sort of code.
Re: Advice From An Old Programmer
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
Could you give some examples of how programming has taught you about critical thinking?
I lost my job in PR in February. Instead of doing the knee getting another job immediately as my family urged me to do -- I am a single father after all -- I realized I'd make more money in the long term by living on the ~$5k I had saved up and free fall until school began again in the fall, at which point I'd have GI Bill + student loan money, and we could live off ramen. During the free fall period I focused like a…
Thanks for sharing that. I've been thinking on and off about moving programming from a hobby to full-time job and it's nice to see someone who took the plunge.
I'm curious to know if it was difficult to find an internship. Typically, companies are looking for people out of college and I would expect them to dismiss older candidates pretty fast unless you have a strong cover letter.
Good luck with the new endeavor!