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Most tech content is bullshit (2020)

aleksandra.codes

61–70 of 169 posts

Re: Most tech content is bullshit (2020)

#61
I was in a meeting one day, explaining some tech decisions I had made. At one point, my manager interrupted me, looking pale and completely out of place. He asked, "I don't get this approach. Can you share with me the tech blog where you read about this?"

(...)

I couldn't help but think: would a random blog post from the internet have more respect and authority than my own decisions and explanations?

Re: Most tech content is bullshit (2020)

#62

True, but most content in general is bullshit. Most scientific publications is BS published for the sake of pumping your numbers. Most student memoire is BS to pass the exam. Most financial analyses, most TV journal reporting, most tweets, most books are BS. Ever read doctors or lawyers specialized magazines? Most pages are BS on top of BS. Paid content, content produced to fill space, making volume, low quality auth…

HN has decent technical discussions and some really good historical/personal anecdotes. Otherwise, it falls short and lacks in ideological diversity. And there is also bullshit here.

Re: Most tech content is bullshit (2020)

#64
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you want to do the right thing, so you don't want to invent a solution yourself How is that the right thing? Over 90% of the time, the fastest, most maintainable, and simplest solution is to do it yourself. Yeah sure, there's a few horror stories out there of homegrown database engines that reinvent every wheel of RDBs the wrong way, have been unmaintained for 10 years and the original dev has left. But those are t…

> Over 90% of the time, the fastest, most maintainable, and simplest solution is to do it yourself. That's almost never the case. You'd be near-always putting it together with ready made libs or services.

Yeah. Fundamental libraries at the right level of abstraction, most of which you're probably already familiar with. Those are the obvious things you shouldn't write yourself.

Re: Most tech content is bullshit (2020)

#65

Not every decision has to be done with maximum research. That’s usually a waste of time. It’s more efficient to try a couple things until something works and move on (“satisficing”). A key skill you learn over time is why decisions actually matter. But it’s not inherently bad that there’s no good reason for something, it really depends on the context. And sometimes things that had good reasons turn out bad anyway bec…

> Not every decision has to be done with maximum research. I’ve been at a couple companies that wouldn’t take any proposal seriously unless you showed up with a list of citations to blog posts, books, or even podcasts. The root cause was a management structure that wanted to do everything with a maximum of evidence. It opened the door to a lot of terrible decisions winning for no reason other than someone found a blo…

I’ve been at the flip side where a few google searches would have contradicted much of the fun complexity proposed by the developers of the system. Or the PMs “talked to the users”, didn’t write anything down, and then demanded features that weren’t used at all.

Just enough research should be the theme for any decisions of great consequence.

Re: Most tech content is bullshit (2020)

#66

True, but most content in general is bullshit. Most scientific publications is BS published for the sake of pumping your numbers. Most student memoire is BS to pass the exam. Most financial analyses, most TV journal reporting, most tweets, most books are BS. Ever read doctors or lawyers specialized magazines? Most pages are BS on top of BS. Paid content, content produced to fill space, making volume, low quality auth…

I tend to think of any kind of contemporary creation as BS. We are the filter who will decide what will become test-of-time validated legacy.

Re: Most tech content is bullshit (2020)

#67
post #22

In some respect being a software engineer today is really hard. OTOH you want to do the right thing, so you don't want to invent a solution yourself. So you look for available resources, you go online. There you're going to encounter either: 1. Spam from junior devs who started a blog so to build a name for themselves. 2. Spam from SEO mills peddling junior level wisdome so they can get ad money. 3. Spam from softwar…

I find it worthwhile to read a book from time to time (I mostly read books from O'Reilly and No Starch Press).

Re: Most tech content is bullshit (2020)

#68
post #46

One devious form of bullshit is always using the simplest of examples to prove out an architecture pattern and call it a day. I’ve lost count on how many times I’ve seen patterns with glaring open questions and pitfalls the author avoids. Then the cacophony of likes follow from folks who’re likely very early in their career or hobby and don’t know any better. This is very prevalent on iOS development blogs as authors…

I feel like classic object oriented tutorials talking about fruits and apples with no connection to actual apps you'd build are ones to add to this pile

[deleted]

Re: Most tech content is bullshit (2020)

#70

  > Don’t consume. Create. Ask questions. Stay curious.
Like everything else, it's a balance. Nobody can build a modern system in finite time that will be maintainable, secure, fast, etc. without relying on their own and others' experience ("consuming").
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