11–20 of 285 posts
I had never seen that cartoon about the "dream job" before, but it's something I've thought about so many times as I've listened to people talk about their dream job or dream employer. It always struck me as strange to dream of labor / dream of being an employee - must be a cultural thing.
I had never seen that cartoon about the "dream job" before, but it's something I've thought about so many times as I've listened to people talk about their dream job or dream employer. It always struck me as strange to dream of labor / dream of being an employee - must be a cultural thing.
I like this list. It's also missing "debugging". That's a skill that they don't emphasize in college because they can't test it and it's hard to teach. But there are ways to teach it and techniques. There are some books on the subject: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1484290410/ https://www.whyprogramsfail.com/ That can mitigate that a bit.
I like this list. It's also missing "debugging". That's a skill that they don't emphasize in college because they can't test it and it's hard to teach. But there are ways to teach it and techniques. There are some books on the subject: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1484290410/ https://www.whyprogramsfail.com/ That can mitigate that a bit.
Why can't debugging be tested?
Often debugging is a hunch, and quickly branches. One person will go down the path of trying the same site from another PC. Another will try a different site from the same browser/PC. Another will try to ping the server.
If you're running this live you're always going to have the chance where someone's hunch or first try basically pinpoints the problem and eliminates a dozen checks from their consideration. If you're looking for things like "did they check DNS? Did they try another site?" but they skipped that and immediately figured out apache wasn't running, do they lose points? Or do they get 100% for their lucky (and/or experienced) guess?
If you do it on paper, the major problem is basically infinite branching for every step and possible result. How do you mark that? What's the minimum you need to do to get 100%? I think it's also unfair, because even as a seasoned vet I've been deep in troubleshooting to the point of (for example) greping source of nginx for a specific error message -- which I'd never have even thought of two steps earlier. I do t expect anything that complex on a school test of course, but the point is the result of each step is often the only way to even think of the next.
No one ever gets promoted for removing features.
Any code base that has had a few birthdays has stuff that needs to be removed and might not ever get removed.
Soft skills are never taught, rarely checked during interviews, but might well be themost important ones.
After 10 years in the industry I agreee with almost every bit. Soft skills are never taught, rarely checked during interviews, but might well be themost important ones.
Actually this particular point reminds me of young-arrogant-me saying things like "I can't give you an estimate since its software, and everybody knows thats estimates are impossible, duh." to my boss.
Boy was I young, and arrogant!
There is nothing wrong with this article in trying to paint a realistic picture of what is expected of a software engineering nowadays but man am I getting tired of this one sided culture of professional responsibility. I just don't vibe with this advice anymore, like all the same with me but I'm gonna call myself something else then, you can have it.
Whoever wrote this hit the enterprise koolaid a bit too much, you're meant to sip not swallow. Calling SWE "working in IT" is where it lost me.
I like this list. It's also missing "debugging". That's a skill that they don't emphasize in college because they can't test it and it's hard to teach. But there are ways to teach it and techniques. There are some books on the subject: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1484290410/ https://www.whyprogramsfail.com/ That can mitigate that a bit.
Why can't debugging be tested?
Zero times? It is crazy.