Senior engineers are living in the future • Hacker News Board

Re: Senior engineers are living in the future

#21

Post by macintux » Tue, Sep 13, 2022, 3:28 PM UTC

abhishekjha wrote: post #16

strikelaserclaw wrote: post #6

a great article, we software engineers are impatient and we tend to job hop often. Being an effective engineer is about more than knowing how to build systems and code, it also requires deep domain knowledge into your company's business and existing systems and this knowledge takes years to cultivate at the same company. All the superstars at my current company have been here for a while.

>All the superstars at my current company have been here for a while. Exactly. And isn't that memorisation by repetition? If you will come across something often you take a good guess on how it works.

Quoting Groundhog Day: “Maybe God isn't omnipotent. Maybe he's just been around so long, he knows everything.”

Re: Senior engineers are living in the future

#22

Post by trey-jones » Tue, Sep 13, 2022, 3:28 PM UTC

revskill wrote: post #12

roflyear wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you give an example of a failure at step 2?

A 10 years Java/PHP developer doesn't know how to use Golang on the job in 3 days.

I would never fault someone for not being able to pick up a language and use it competently in 3 days. I understand why you use this as an example, with having samey syntax, but there is still nuance. I think the bigger indicator is you've been in the industry for 10 years and call yourself a PHP/Java dev. At this point you should have dabbled in probably 10-100 ways of solving problems depending on what your 9-5 looks like.

Re: Senior engineers are living in the future

#23

Post by tikhonj » Tue, Sep 13, 2022, 3:29 PM UTC

kilbuz wrote: post #18

revskill wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A 10 years Java/PHP developer doesn't know how to use Golang on the job in 3 days.

Why is 3 days, likely with competing priorities, a reasonable timeframe to learn a new language well enough to contribute production code in your estimation?

The trick is that Go isn't a new language, it's an old language with a new coat of paint.

Re: Senior engineers are living in the future

#24

Post by adamsmith143 » Tue, Sep 13, 2022, 3:29 PM UTC

revskill wrote: post #12

roflyear wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you give an example of a failure at step 2?

A 10 years Java/PHP developer doesn't know how to use Golang on the job in 3 days.

I learned it in 2 hours so you are pathetically junior compared to me.

Re: Senior engineers are living in the future

#25

Post by neon_electro » Tue, Sep 13, 2022, 3:30 PM UTC

adamsmith143 wrote: post #24

revskill wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A 10 years Java/PHP developer doesn't know how to use Golang on the job in 3 days.

I learned it in 2 hours so you are pathetically junior compared to me.

The real 10x engineer right here!

Re: Senior engineers are living in the future

#26

Post by treeman79 » Tue, Sep 13, 2022, 3:32 PM UTC

abhishekjha wrote: post #15

revskill wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A 10 years Java/PHP developer doesn't know how to use Golang on the job in 3 days.

Well, golang is a tough language. I am stuggling with helm/kubernetes and the new company's ecosystem where everybody is new in the team. We are expected to deliver according to a plan while we keep hunting for relevant info. I would say the second point is a lot more nuanced than stated.

Saw a company fail because all developers were expected to master k8/helm etc. A couple of us got the hang of it well enough to get by. But almost everyone failed too.

Even those of that had it working, it was a huge time sink.

Re: Senior engineers are living in the future

#27

Post by wccrawford » Tue, Sep 13, 2022, 3:32 PM UTC

sp332 wrote: post #20

One of my classmates in college couldn't handle this. I'd glance at some awful Visual Studio compiler error and then point out a missing semicolon. He ended up feeling stupid, but I was trying to be encouraging because his code was pretty good aside from some missing punctuation, which will come with practice. He ended up switching majors.

I find that egos can be really fragile when people are just starting to learn things. Pointing out the mistakes so quickly can seem like a great help (and it is!) but some people react like they're staring at the sun.

Instead, I find it better (except for how long it takes) to walk them through finding the problem as if it's really hard and just nudging them to the steps they'd need to take to find it themselves. They learn even more, and it doesn't immediately show the difference in skill between you and them.

At the very beginning, even a small difference in skill can seem like a lot to the lower-skilled person.

Re: Senior engineers are living in the future

#28

Post by onion2k » Tue, Sep 13, 2022, 3:32 PM UTC

revskill wrote: post #12

roflyear wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you give an example of a failure at step 2?

A 10 years Java/PHP developer doesn't know how to use Golang on the job in 3 days.

In other words you're inventing some silly criteria that I'd guess you'd pass that others wouldn't. What I would say to that is that if you dismiss someone else's experience because they can't do some task you think they should be able to do rather than understanding that their experience probably brings something else to the team then that's your failing, not theirs.

For a little annecdata - I've been a dev for 25 years, with a senior level (and above) title for about 80% of that, and I reckon I'd take at least a couple of months to get to a point where I was happy with golang. I guess that makes me a junior in your opinion. However, instead of being able to get up to speed with a language quickly I bring a fantastic level of respect for users, a talent for technical writing, a belief that documentation is actually important, a sense of fun and joy in making high quality software, and a deep understanding of browser-based software. If I was looking for a new team member I'd seek out someone a bit like myself rather than someone who can learn a new language faster.

Re: Senior engineers are living in the future

#29

Post by 3pt14159 » Tue, Sep 13, 2022, 3:33 PM UTC

revskill wrote: post #12

roflyear wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you give an example of a failure at step 2?

A 10 years Java/PHP developer doesn't know how to use Golang on the job in 3 days.

Eh—I don't know. Code a test or two and something basic with just the lang? Sure.

The whole stack? Takes about a month to get productive and about three months to really internalize. Think interned strings in Python vs symbol exhaustion in Ruby. Or serializers in Django Rest Framework working as both input validators and output generators compared to stock Rails views.

Super similar languages with lots of similar frameworks and libraries, but they have these edge cases that still crop up.

Re: Senior engineers are living in the future

#30

Post by Sholmesy » Tue, Sep 13, 2022, 3:34 PM UTC

abhishekjha wrote: post #15

revskill wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A 10 years Java/PHP developer doesn't know how to use Golang on the job in 3 days.

Well, golang is a tough language. I am stuggling with helm/kubernetes and the new company's ecosystem where everybody is new in the team. We are expected to deliver according to a plan while we keep hunting for relevant info. I would say the second point is a lot more nuanced than stated.

> Well, golang is a tough language.

This _could_ be true for some, but it directly conflicts with the stated goals of the language. Most people (that I've spoken to) would consider Go to be a simpler language, with fewer features, than other comparable languages.