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What happened to all the non-programmers?

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Re: What happened to all the non-programmers?

#111

Post by zem »

mattmanser wrote: post #103
ripb wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wages vs salary

Huh? I have worked in a vast multitude of jobs, some manual, some temp office, some salaried, some self-employed, some company director. Never in the UK have I ever heard of people making a distinction between a Wage and a Salary. They're the same thing. Middle class means something completely different than the definition you're defending. Skilled office workers are firmly in the UK middle class (despite my Thatcher…

the distinction, in american english, is that a wage is a per-hour thing, whereas a salary is paid for a period of employment (usually a fortnight or a month), independent of the time you actually spent working within that period.

Re: What happened to all the non-programmers?

#113

Post by IndianAstronaut »

minimaxir wrote: post #34
billrobertson42 wrote: post #14

A person who looks around at the people he's socializing with, then apparently immediately grabs a computer, downloads a statistical data set and begins to analyze it in R wonders why he's surrounded by other programmers?

You can analyze data and use R and not be a programmer. Less than half of the students in my advanced stats classes at college which used R were CS majors. Granted, for me, knowing how to program made things a lot less frustrating. Spreadsheet programs are built for analysis without deep programming knowledge too.

A lot of the programmers at my company have never even heard of R.

Re: What happened to all the non-programmers?

#114

Post by drewrv »

Don't try things that "sound fun". Things that sound fun are either things that you've done before, things your friends do, or things you think you'll be good at.

Instead do things that kind of scare you even though they shouldn't. If you're afraid to fly, take a Cessna flying lesson. If you're afraid to speak in public, join toastmasters.

The author mentions football as out of the question. I think football is exactly what the author needs. Start with touch or flag football if you're really terrified of brain damage. In reality, friendly games of tackle football are unlikely to cause a concussion, and even if they did, the real damage from concussions is when you get one and keep playing.

When you think about it, it becomes obvious: you meet people different than yourself by doing things which you wouldn't normally do. Oh, and you get to conquer irrational fear, improve yourself, have awesome adventures, etc, while you're at it.

Re: What happened to all the non-programmers?

#115

Post by chrismarlow9 »

ryandvm wrote: post #102
chrismarlow9 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few things you're missing: The perks. If my company feeds me and provides transportation stipend my only bills are rent, utils, and fun. Utils are the same as just about anywhere else in my experience. The rent is the only killer. You're also looking at it the wrong way. Many of us don't plan on staying here. Yes our savings are very small in comparison to cost of living while we're here. It's when we leave that ou…

> A few things you're missing: The perks. If my company feeds me and provides transportation stipend my only bills are rent, utils, and fun. It's not a perk if the ultimate effect, if not the intended effect, is that it keeps you at work 60 hours a week. There's something deeply insidious about plying your employees with free food and services and encouraging them to build their social circles entirely out of their c…

I will agree with that in certain cases such as Apple or Google, but the startup world isn't really that way.

If you're working for a startup and just think of yourself as an employee you're doing it wrong. You should think of yourself as an investor, not an employee, because you very likely are in every sense of the word.

This is where the friend thing comes in. You're not building friends at company X, you're meeting other people who happen to be investing in the same thing you do. I've kept great friends from previous companies I've worked at who understand that you're an investor and you must look at the company as an investment and be able to walk away if you don't like where it's going.

It does keep you working 60 hours a week, sure, but that's your investment for the shares your received in your offer letter. You stand to make a large amount of money without any capital put in. Regular 40 hour a week employees never get those shares, so obviously they shouldn't put in 60 hours a week to make the CEO a few extra bucks (however there's a caveat here when it comes to bonuses, and i'd argue THATs the return on investment for google employees).

A clearer example of a difference here is that I've seen developers walk away after 5 months at a job. In a regular employee universe that would be career suicide. Because this is the startup world, you only have to say "I didn't like the direction the company was going..." to other potential employers and so long as you're competent they totally get what you mean, because obviously many startups fail and if you see true disaster coming you would be crazy not to bail.

Often times it's actually these "employee" types that kill the startup. They just ride the funding into however many rounds they can until the ship crashes, then find a new place and continue the dragging.

Sorry for the wall of text, but I came here from a place where the "employee" mentality is king (40 years x 40 hours a week x 401k = retire), because it's the most common thing in America and it took me a very long time to get this (I'm an investor, not an employee). There's also the other factors like most people here REALLY enjoy their jobs and have been doing this on their own time for 60 hours a week already, so doing it for a paycheck is just a really cool side effect.

Re: What happened to all the non-programmers?

#117

Post by kazinator »

Perhaps I can help:

> I have plenty of social circles that are (at least nominally) totally different from my work: contra dancers, people interested in effective altruism, folk musicians, friends from college, and so on. And yet I keep finding myself in the middle of a programmer monoculture. Why?

1. These are contact circles in some online social network, perhaps, and not actual social circles?

2. Programmers are the only people who don't have anything better to do than to go to gatherings with other programmers. Non-programmers aren't there because they are otherwise engaged. Or, perhaps, let me put it from this angle: any time some get together is announced, most of the people who have that spot free in the calendar are geeks. "What, Saturday night at 9? You bet I will be there! I'm super social! ... Hey, why is everyone here a programmer?"

Re: What happened to all the non-programmers?

#119

Post by mattmanser »

zem wrote: post #111
mattmanser wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? I have worked in a vast multitude of jobs, some manual, some temp office, some salaried, some self-employed, some company director. Never in the UK have I ever heard of people making a distinction between a Wage and a Salary. They're the same thing. Middle class means something completely different than the definition you're defending. Skilled office workers are firmly in the UK middle class (despite my Thatcher…

the distinction, in american english, is that a wage is a per-hour thing, whereas a salary is paid for a period of employment (usually a fortnight or a month), independent of the time you actually spent working within that period.

But we weren't talking about America, we were talking about the UK.

Re: What happened to all the non-programmers?

#120

Post by MrDosu »

jnbiche wrote: post #25
MrDosu wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Btw we are working class too, even with those fancy 6 figure salaries... At least I'm not living of off strutting around in my park telling my gardener what to do while stroking a white cat. I don't have employees in my factory solely working for me generating my income while I twiddle my thumbs. I'm actually sitting on a computer working for money every day, so: working class.

> even with those fancy 6 figure salaries... And I hate to break to it you Google and Facebook employees, but your salary ain't that great when you factor in cost-of-living. There are many, many thousands of devs across America making much more than you once you account for cost-of-living (and you should). But between the proven wage suppression, ageism, and now this passing meme that somehow making $100,000 in the m…

This was not the point i was making.

Btw I hate to destroy your little made up world where all your stereotypes and what you think are a reality, but I don't live in the U.S., my company has under 10 employees and is self founded...

P.S.: Ofc there are a myriad of definitions of 'working class', but personally I believe 'middle class' is just an invention to make people who earn slightly more while being used for their surplus feel slightly better. And it's working pretty well.

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