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Ask HN: I am busy with too many things at once

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Re: Ask HN: I am busy with too many things at once

#61

Post by barry-cotter »

x3c wrote: post #43
gscott wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those job postings are designed to weed out Americans and hire Indians. Real postings are more reasonable.

Could you elaborate, please?

Those ads are written to the specifications of the resume of someone that the hiring company wants to get an H1-B visa for. By making the desired skills very specific they make diwn the pool of possible applicants enormously. When there are no " qualified applicants" they can get the visa for the person they wanted to hire in the first place. It's often used by bodyshops like TCS or Infosys.

Re: Ask HN: I am busy with too many things at once

#62

Post by raldu »

Before anything, know that it is actually the people that matters in the end of the day, not "topics". You are creating with people for people, it is people that'll give you the "push" you needed, people who give feedback, people who love you and your work, people who challenge you, etc... Love people and learn from them.

As to skills, and topics and work, just focus on doing things that you love and repeat. Because you will end up doing them anyway. The rest will follow.

I think the desire to learn many things at once is something most of us would share. But be careful that it might also sprout from a fear of somehow "missing the game". Trust that you are not "missing out" anything. Don't buy too much into competition (which is again actually something about people). You may try just getting an overall idea of the things you are curious about, but still stick doing what you love. Because if a topic is important enough, it will show up again anyway, which is when you will know for sure that "it's the actual time" to learn that topic in depth.

Love people, love work.

Re: Ask HN: I am busy with too many things at once

#63

Post by diegoperini »

gscott wrote: post #39
collyw wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't get as many job offers by becoming an expert in one area though.... How many job offers do you see looking for a smart Perl programmer. How many do you see listing 10+ technologies, plus experience in scrum? (Does doing a stand up every day make you better at it? )

Those job postings are designed to weed out Americans and hire Indians. Real postings are more reasonable.

Is it really a legitimate legal work-around?

Re: Ask HN: I am busy with too many things at once

#64

Post by kirang1989 »

nchelluri wrote: post #10

I have been programming for over 20 years and have very similar thoughts all the time :) My eyes are bigger than my stomach. I believe that these days it's probably impossible for anyone to really understand everything. Personally, I think PHP is a fine language when coded well (most of my PHP looks like my Java, though I haven't coded much PHP since just before the introduction of lambdas). I feel like it undeserved…

> Finally, someone linked this on a vaguely similar thread recently: https://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~kilcup/262/feynman.html - I thought it was great.

Feynman is a lovely example to follow for anyone wanting to become an engineer. The book is one of my all-time favorites.

Re: Ask HN: I am busy with too many things at once

#66

Post by eru »

uniclaude wrote: post #26

As some noted, the fact that you realized what drives your desire is very impressive. It takes a certain skill to understand those things! As someone who's been at it for years, I'll just give you one little piece of advice. If you've already been through the fundamentals, you've done enough. Now, instead of focusing on learning technology, focus on building things, this is what real engineers do. Let me explain. You…

> This is, however, not true with a lot of non-tech companies, where keywords on resume, a professional-looking attitude, and some good sales skills will usually get you better positions.

By the way, these things are hackable, too. It only takes a bit of practice to become a better salesperson than most programmers, and only a small amount of effort to look more professional, too. (And a good suite can even be comfortable.)

Re: Ask HN: I am busy with too many things at once

#67

Post by eru »

adlawson wrote: post #38
collyw wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't get as many job offers by becoming an expert in one area though.... How many job offers do you see looking for a smart Perl programmer. How many do you see listing 10+ technologies, plus experience in scrum? (Does doing a stand up every day make you better at it? )

While I agree it's not smart to put all your eggs in one basket, you don't need loads of job offers to land the job you want. It only takes one.

Though, having at least two or three makes for a much stronger bargaining position.

You don't need loads of offers, though.

Re: Ask HN: I am busy with too many things at once

#68

Post by detrol2k »

uniclaude wrote: post #26

As some noted, the fact that you realized what drives your desire is very impressive. It takes a certain skill to understand those things! As someone who's been at it for years, I'll just give you one little piece of advice. If you've already been through the fundamentals, you've done enough. Now, instead of focusing on learning technology, focus on building things, this is what real engineers do. Let me explain. You…

What specifically do you refer at when you say "fundamentals"?

Re: Ask HN: I am busy with too many things at once

#69

Post by eru »

mdup wrote: post #54
MarcusP wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you elaborate on your snark? Do you think OOP design patterns become outdated quickly? Do you think it's a waste of time for a programmer to study them?

In my case it came in two steps: 1. Learn GoF design patterns. Be amazed by the cleverness. 2. While learning others languages, discover that other approaches remove the need for GoF design patterns at all. Example: Visitor isn't needed in a language with double dispatch (like Lisp). Chain-of-Responsibility is just foldl. Factory for dependency injection is just a closure or a partial function. And so on.

Yes, that's what I was playing at. Other languages have things similar to design patterns, too.

If you are in luck, a language gives you first class support for abstracting new patterns. (Eg in assembly a procedure is just a pattern and convention, most modern languages help you by providing procedures. Same languages are very good at being extended. Lisp is a good example, and so is Haskell. Even Python is great in that respect compared to, say, Pascal.)

I am still trying to figure out what dependency injection really is. It's seems like only the Java guys have a need for it, but they rave about it.

Re: Ask HN: I am busy with too many things at once

#70

Post by eru »

elorant wrote: post #58

First of all there are not good and bad languages, there are programmers who know a platform well and others who don’t. So as a first piece of advice I’d say choose a language, any language, and stick with it. Sure, sexy things are published all the time but you don’t need to know a dozen frameworks to get your job done. Your fear of becoming outdated is well founded. We’ll all become outdated. That’s why every five…

Nah, if you don't want to change, you don't have to. Just pick the right tools.

If you don't mind selling your soul, COBOL programmers get paid more and more because supply is dwindling. And I bet you dollars to donuts that COBOL will be around for longer than anyone's career.

If you care about your sole, it's a bit harder, but C will probably be around, too.

Some languages are worse than others. PHP is definitely in the worse camp.

Fully agree with the last paragraph.

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