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The pool of talented C++ developers is running dry

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Re: The pool of talented C++ developers is running dry

#261

Post by madduci »

jedberg wrote: post #142

There are plenty of talented C++ programmers. They just don't want to be abused by trading firms or work in that culture. Even paying them more won't work, because no amount of money is worth that abuse. I interviewed at a trading firm once, while I was working at Netflix (because Netflix encouraged us to interview for outside jobs at least once a year). The comp would have been double my Netflix salary. But I would…

Maybe they can't find new talents because they are looking for cheap workforce?

Re: The pool of talented C++ developers is running dry

#262

Post by SpaghettiX »

jstx1 wrote: post #244
jedberg wrote: post #142

There are plenty of talented C++ programmers. They just don't want to be abused by trading firms or work in that culture. Even paying them more won't work, because no amount of money is worth that abuse. I interviewed at a trading firm once, while I was working at Netflix (because Netflix encouraged us to interview for outside jobs at least once a year). The comp would have been double my Netflix salary. But I would…

> because Netflix encouraged us to interview for outside jobs at least once a year Can you tell us more about this? What's their reason for it?

Netflix would increase the salary of employees if they had higher offers. This idea is supported by Reed Hastings and IIRC was mentioned in https://www.norulesrules.com/. To get a raise, you are encouraged to get a job offer with that salary to prove you're worth it.

Re: The pool of talented C++ developers is running dry

#263

Post by spoiler »

AshamedCaptain wrote: post #222
spoiler wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look, I'm not saying C++ will go away. I agree with you the whole "X will be the Y killer" arguments are nonsense. I used to like C++, and just don't care about it any more. It can stay, and I'm sure it makes people happy to use it if that's all they know. It's just that it mostly made me miserable—even though I reached for it for years. Right now people have more choices, some of which you mentioned. Is Go a better…

> Look, I'm not saying C++ will go away. No one is saying that . C++ will obviously never go away, the same way that APL will never go away. But what is questioned here is whether it will actually be a _relevant_ skill in future times to come. To simply say "it will be yet another tool!" is just a value-less assertion. > But shunning any conversation about PL advancements because alternatives have them and C++ doesn'…

> > But shunning any conversation about PL advancements because alternatives have them and C++ doesn't is immature and unproductive. > > Who is doing that, either?

Unfortunately many. You can even see these comments on HN.

Sometimes people even get angry over the whole RIIR stuff, or if Rust gets introduced into a codebase, and the project moves away from C++. It's like they ignore the listed reasonings the maintainer explained completely.

Or when people speak about memory safety people pivot it into a general security conversation, ignoring the merits of the borrowing system.

If you speak of the benefits of Rust enums (or Algebraic data types in general sometimes, sadly) it gets called "glorified tagged enums" (or syntactic sugar for them).

People saying "well boost has a library for that" and talking about beast asio to compare it to Rust async, etc.

Or saying C++ can do have the same or similar value ownerships semantic through shared_ptr/unique_ptr when that's simply not true.

Or when people say "well standard library uses unsafe" (without even knowing what "unsafe" in Rust means, I might add)

Uh there's so many other misconstructions or misconceptions that I've seen, but I don't go around collecting them so I can't really remember more from the top of my head.

Look at the Chromium discussion when the devs decided to introduce Rust, or the recent Fish shell announcement, or when Linux decided to add Rust. Full of "but C++..." shills who haven't even contributed to the projects

> My personal opinion is that the language who eventually becomes most relevant will be the one with the _fewest_ PL advancements, and that will be a sad thing, but is life as usual. Or what was popularly considered a PL advancement last decade will just be seen as a side step in the next. Again, the usual...

I disagree because I think nature (and humans) seek to reduce the amount of energy spent on activities for desired outcomes. Ie, we want to optimise the process, and we are lazy. Rust saves me mental and emotional energy. Since changing jobs (from C++ to Rust) by burnout has been recovering and I'm feeling more energised after work too. And the current job is arguably more straining as it has more responsibility. I don't think Rust is quite there yet either, but it feels like a step in the right direction.

Re: The pool of talented C++ developers is running dry

#264

Post by elforce002 »

MetallicCloud wrote: post #125

I started writing C++ about 15 years ago. It's still my strongest and most enjoyable language. However, at the moment I mostly write Swift\ObjC because I couldn't find any decent paying C++ jobs. I'd love to get back to it.

I'm thinking on learning a system language. Do you recommend C++ or Rust? I now mostly TS, Python, R, Dart, and currently basic/intermediate in Swift.

Re: The pool of talented C++ developers is running dry

#265

Post by [deleted] »

PenguinCoder wrote: post #100
at-fates-hands wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotal evidence to support what you're saying. I had a large group of devs I used to hang out with. It was about 50/50 front-end and C, C++ guys. Over the last decade or so, every single C developer either transitioned to PHP like yourself, or went the full-stack JS route and have never looked back. And it was all over the issues around dealing with legacy systems and the poor pay. One guy told me flat out he can…

I am not a front end guy, so I don't understand how PHP jobs can pay _better_ than C++ jobs.

[deleted]

Re: The pool of talented C++ developers is running dry

#266

Post by gary_0 »

spoiler wrote: post #75
photochemsyn wrote: post #31

Writing new C++ code with all the modern approaches and tooling doesn't sound so bad. Troubleshooting a big legacy C++ codebase is probably something that Dante would have included in his Inferno as a punishment for pride and hubris.

> Writing new C++ code with all the modern approaches and tooling doesn't sound so bad. Uh, but it still kinda sucks, if only because the nice way that looks idiomatic is usually the incorrect way for either performance (anything newly added like std::variant or std::optional) or safety (operator[]). The correct way is usual the ugly way, because it seems like the committee puts C++ arcanum knowledge above all else,…

The "correct" way is also template-heavy so enjoy long compile times followed by utterly incomprehensible error messages.

Re: The pool of talented C++ developers is running dry

#267

Post by pyb »

cjbgkagh wrote: post #139
emidln wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hiring C++ isnt especially hard because our pay is opaque. Recruiters will tell you immediately what total comp you can expect and they'll let you know what you can contractually guarantee year 1. Hiring for C++ is hard because C++ is hard and most people are quite bad at writing even somewhat reasonable code.

I was told $300K about a decade ago and I told them no. I was already making more than that at a big tech company with a much easier pace of work. $500K would have peaked my interest, why didn’t they tell me $500K if that was an option? A quick google search is suggesting that $200K for the top end of experience, when I was told $300K they said it was as high as they go. Where is the rest of this compensation coming…

This. I think these firms would have an easier time hiring engineers away from FAANGs, if they realised that FAANG engineers don't precisely understand how the bonus system works. (I think the vagueness is actually seen as a feature of the bonus system!)

Re: The pool of talented C++ developers is running dry

#268

Post by jedberg »

jstx1 wrote: post #244
jedberg wrote: post #142

There are plenty of talented C++ programmers. They just don't want to be abused by trading firms or work in that culture. Even paying them more won't work, because no amount of money is worth that abuse. I interviewed at a trading firm once, while I was working at Netflix (because Netflix encouraged us to interview for outside jobs at least once a year). The comp would have been double my Netflix salary. But I would…

> because Netflix encouraged us to interview for outside jobs at least once a year Can you tell us more about this? What's their reason for it?

Netflix separated pay and performance. Your performance was evaluated all year, and if you weren't a top performer, you were let go. In the spring we would do 360 reviews, where anyone could write a review of anyone else, to give candid feedback (although giving candid feedback was encouraged all year, but this gave you a formal outlet to do it).

In the fall, your pay was evaluated (and kicked in at the new year). You were paid on the assumption that you were a top performer (otherwise you would have already been let go), so they would adjust you to "how much would we have to pay them to get them in the door today". They needed data for that calculation.

One source of data was how much they had to offer new hires to get in the door. A second source was industry salary surveys. And a third source was your offer letters from other companies, if you chose to share them. If you get a huge offer elsewhere, they would maybe match it, or maybe tell you that you're better off going to that other offer.

It also served another purpose. It gave you a chance to look at that other offer (assuming you could get one) and really thing about whether you still liked your job at Netflix enough to stay. They wanted people to be happy about continuing to work there, and were supportive of you leaving if you weren't happy, because they know you do your best work when you enjoy it.

FWIW, my raises at Netflix were typically 20%+, and so were a lot of people, because they economy was on fire at the time.

Re: The pool of talented C++ developers is running dry

#269

Post by GlenTheEskimo »

stagger87 wrote: post #250
jedberg wrote: post #142

There are plenty of talented C++ programmers. They just don't want to be abused by trading firms or work in that culture. Even paying them more won't work, because no amount of money is worth that abuse. I interviewed at a trading firm once, while I was working at Netflix (because Netflix encouraged us to interview for outside jobs at least once a year). The comp would have been double my Netflix salary. But I would…

Just to clarify, you used the word "abuse" several times to describe a job where you would have to work in office between 8:30 to 5 and pull (I'm safely assuming) half a million dollars a year?

Historically Netflix only had one level of engineer (this changed last year) with a starting salary of $400k, so I'm guessing it was substantially more than half a million.

Re: The pool of talented C++ developers is running dry

#270

Post by remexre »

jahnu wrote: post #103
tw1984 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

C++ is legacy. You can't just ignore the fundamentals.

Just spent two years writing a medium size fresh c++ codebase in modern style with all the warnings turned to max and nearly every static analysis tool we could throw at it from day 1. It’s been an utter pleasure with no pain that can be blamed on c++ alone. It can be done :)

Which static analysis tools do you recommend?
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