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But does this count as misleading title? I really expected an article about literal forklifts. Among all the AI craze these days, I was hoping for some real-world hands-on skill insights. The kind of thing hackers often can describe really well.
From that perspective, I got disppointed.
TL;DR: The article is about junior developers having a hard time in the current conditions shaped by remote work, AI and an abandoned Twitter.
Possible futures in my mind: - Junior jobs become scarce. You either jump to senior very fast, or you are dumped out of the industry. The juniors that make it are those special unicorns that somehow learn everything about the job, including how to do it with AI, within a couple of years. There's a little bit of guidance, but mostly it's the kids who have good taste in blogs/books/videos that end up learning it all on…
Universities will (still) teach only part of the necessary tradecraft, but that fraction will include some basics for how LLMs can churn out dodgy prototypes. Junior/introductory roles will feature the crap-work of taking excel-esque monstrosities and making them marginally less-terrible.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah. Honestly my advice to a junior dev right now would be: 1) Keep up with the trends by reading hacker news. Be on the lookout for decent blog posts but ignore social media and most of youtube. 2) BUT your best bet for actually leveling up is reading these ten books I'll give you (Designing Data-Intensive Applications, etc. etc.), plus doing side projects to get hands-on practice.
> BUT your best bet for actually leveling up is reading these ten books I'll give you On the whole, junior dev-age people don't read books much. They read short-form stuff on screens.
"new devs don't read" is a non-sequitur imo.
If they want the info, they will, or not. The info is there. Take it, don't take it, what do we care either way?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah. Honestly my advice to a junior dev right now would be: 1) Keep up with the trends by reading hacker news. Be on the lookout for decent blog posts but ignore social media and most of youtube. 2) BUT your best bet for actually leveling up is reading these ten books I'll give you (Designing Data-Intensive Applications, etc. etc.), plus doing side projects to get hands-on practice.
>these ten books I'll give you (Designing Data-Intensive Applications, etc. etc.) Well don't leave me hanging boss!
But here are some titles:
* Kleppmann, Designing Data-Intensive Applications
* Nand2Tetris. Computers from first principles, often fills in a lot of gaps. Possibly preceded by Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software if they need even more grounding.
* SICP if I think they'd be ready for it
* Crafting Interpreters
* If they're working with Python I'd give them Fluent Python by Luciano Ramalho. For whatever other language(s) pick a book that allows them to go from intermediate to advanced in that language and really understand it inside out.
* Ousterhout, A Philosophy of Software Design
* Data and Reality
* The Staff Engineer’s Path by Tanya Reilly to demystify the upper IC track. Or The Manager's Path by Camille Fournier.
> Other AI tools are fair game ("explain this code", "generate docs", "generate tests", etc.)
I disagree. Tests are production code.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah. Honestly my advice to a junior dev right now would be: 1) Keep up with the trends by reading hacker news. Be on the lookout for decent blog posts but ignore social media and most of youtube. 2) BUT your best bet for actually leveling up is reading these ten books I'll give you (Designing Data-Intensive Applications, etc. etc.), plus doing side projects to get hands-on practice.
> Keep up with the trends by reading hacker news frankly terrible advice, especially now that this website is just AI News. If you want to be a better programmer, there are better places, but I'm not going to advertise them here because I do not want to infect them with the HN commentariat which is much too focused on trends. Engineering fundamentals have not changed in decades. Screw trends, especially at the beginn…
I'm sure I've missed some things, I've taken more than one hiatus.
Nuance usually cannot be well conveyed in a blog post. Someone is always selling something. When something exists long enough the bullshit behind it is eventually revealed. Reality is messy and there's always bullshit hiding somewhere.
It doesn't mean HN is useless. I use it as a bellweather to see what other people are putting their attention on. I don't pay attention to AI other than what's on here. I mostly follow my interests, which outside my dayjob, is currently concurrency. But I don't write about it.
Ultimately the place to become a better programmer is behind a keyboard learning what works, what doesn't, where it does, where it doesn't, and why or why not. It's difficult to convey all the nuance in every decision which means most people never actually do it. Any post is dripping with assumptions. In my mind nearly any decision could be justified and would be surprised to find a place that actually attempts to teach these.
Rather than consuming media you're probably better off putting it out there and letting people tell you all the ways you're "wrong" (because they love to do that). Somewhat paradoxically I don't really follow my own advice, but that's humans for you.
* For those who wouldn't know it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJYOkZz6Dck
> I think junior developers shouldn't generate production code with AI. > Other AI tools are fair game ("explain this code", "generate docs", "generate tests", etc.) I disagree. Tests are production code.
Is this what this analogy is referring to? Because I read it and wondered - has this person ever been in a warehouse, or just seen one on TV? Or am I being dense and there is something else called a ‘forklift’?