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The self-hating web developer

joequery.me

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Re: The self-hating web developer

#71

Post by imakesnowflakes »

noir_lord wrote: post #58
novarac23 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The conveyor belt metaphor is one of the best that I have ever heard. It's fine to start out with anything, I did pascal/visual basic in high school. Then did Java/PHP in college. First year of college I did contract work in PHP and in WordPress. It was fun the first year or so and I love that I could have that "instant gratification" moments that PHP is famous for. Then as I grew and learned about things like concur…

The hatred of PHP amongst a certain type is hilarious, they automatically assume that if you chose PHP (or worse program in it because it was what you inherited as well) you are a "lesser programmer". I choose to use PHP despite been capable of using most any language I wanted, over the years I've used and forgotten many languages and for the requirements I have PHP was a good fit. Also modern PHP really isn't like o…

> if you chose PHP (or worse program in it because it was what you inherited as well) you are a "lesser programmer".

If you choose php, I will assume that you.

1. Either is not aware of that php has a million gotchas that you need to avoid at every step. Take a look at the ever growing (!) list at /r/lolphp.

2. You don't see the significance of the aforementioned gotchas. For eg, you can show things like php's registerglobals to a newbie, and he will be impressed by how convenient it is. He won't see how bad it actually can be. This is not because he is a "lesser programmer", but due to a case of "unknown unknowns". Note that you can have 10 years of PHP experience and can still be like this.

> Also modern PHP really isn't like old PHP, composer, PSR's, The FIG....

These things does make a difference. But only on the surface, not deep down where it is really rotten.

Re: The self-hating web developer

#72

Post by nstart »

hamburglar wrote: post #30
skrebbel wrote: post #12

For all of those who, like the OP, believe web dev isn't real programming: - it is - uploading WordPress isn't web development I worked in embedded systems for a few years, and let me tell you, the quality of people is exactly the same as in web dev. They do pointer arithmetic all the time (way too much), we pass functions to functions all the time (way too much). They use ancient compilers and tools, we invent a new…

The problem is that "web dev" covers such a wide range of roles. "Uploading WordPress isn't web development" is a subjective statement, and a lot of people who can only do CSS and very minor code copy/paste/tweak get to call themselves "web devs." This OP sounds like someone who got in a rung or two above "uploads WordPress" and has convinced himself he needs to transform into a full-fledged ninja programmer in order…

I feel sad for the OP because he found himself in a trap of "my title matters". It doesn't. The only question that mattered was "do I like what I do? Do I learn and can I learn more? And most importantly, is it feeding the family?". Getting yes to those three (always try to start with the last first) is all one ever needs. Do that, stand tall, be proud. And he had that but lost it by wondering what image he projected onto the world.

I'm angry that people throw these destructive opinions like " oh poo poo. X isn't real work" out in life because not everyone can be strong enough to not doubt themselves.

It's always a good thing to ask oneself if the thoughts one projects to the rest of the world can serve the purpose of raising the quality of someone's life.

If you read this OP, shake yourself. Write down on 3 papers,

I Must Be Happy

I Must Be Stable

I Must Keep Learning

And on your table paste a smaller note.

If you are always moving forward, then you have no reason to be unhappy with who you are today.

This may sound hokem mantraish "oh that's a nice sentiment" advice, but our minds are more malleable than we know. Just like you can feed it destructive thoughts and ruin the good in your life, you can do the opposite and it will work.

Good luck!

Re: The self-hating web developer

#73

Post by [deleted] »

pmichaud wrote: post #6

Yeah, modern web development is actually really fucking hard mainly because you have to know so many different things. To build an application from scratch, and do it well, you have to have deep knowledge of, let's see... * At least one server side language * Probably a server side framework * HTML * CSS * Maybe a preprocessor language like SASS or CoffeeScript * SQL * HTTP * Probably a SCM like Git * At least one se…

[deleted]

Re: The self-hating web developer

#74

Post by noir_lord »

imakesnowflakes wrote: post #71
noir_lord wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The hatred of PHP amongst a certain type is hilarious, they automatically assume that if you chose PHP (or worse program in it because it was what you inherited as well) you are a "lesser programmer". I choose to use PHP despite been capable of using most any language I wanted, over the years I've used and forgotten many languages and for the requirements I have PHP was a good fit. Also modern PHP really isn't like o…

> if you chose PHP (or worse program in it because it was what you inherited as well) you are a "lesser programmer". If you choose php, I will assume that you. 1. Either is not aware of that php has a million gotchas that you need to avoid at every step. Take a look at the ever growing (!) list at /r/lolphp. 2. You don't see the significance of the aforementioned gotchas. For eg, you can show things like php's regist…

You can assume whatever the hell you want it doesn't really matter to me since I'm well aware of 1 and 2.

Re: The self-hating web developer

#75

Post by noir_lord »

justuk wrote: post #69
imakesnowflakes wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with everything else you say, but please, for gods sake, do not put Php in the same basket as ruby or java. Just don't start with PHP. EDIT: I am being downvoted. But I will say this again. I do not care about what you use for programming in school. but, Do NOT, under any circumstances, start your programming career with P. H. P. Never. Never...ever.

PHP is perfect for newbies. It's flexible. Has lots of functions built in. Several mature frameworks available. It's in active development. Hugely popular so lots of people to ask. Easy to set up a dev environment. No need to learn server admin as almost all hosting services supports it. I could go on and on.

I don't think you are going to change his mind, he seems very set on it.

Re: The self-hating web developer

#76

Post by justwannasing »

skrebbel wrote: post #12

For all of those who, like the OP, believe web dev isn't real programming: - it is - uploading WordPress isn't web development I worked in embedded systems for a few years, and let me tell you, the quality of people is exactly the same as in web dev. They do pointer arithmetic all the time (way too much), we pass functions to functions all the time (way too much). They use ancient compilers and tools, we invent a new…

I worked in embedded programming, systems programming and, now, web dev. No. The "quality of people" is not generally the same or, more specifically, you're less likely to find PHP coders among system developers.

Re: The self-hating web developer

#77

Post by justwannasing »

austenallred wrote: post #9

The "language hate" in programming is truly cancerous. I know several people who started programming only to get twisted and turned around by experienced developers saying, "Don't learn PHP" then "Rails is a joke and doesn't scale well." I talk to them a week later, and they're trying to build a simple web app in functional Haskell, and their environment is all messed up because they are using a zsh configuration the…

Well, now you know one who started out writing machine code. And I'll tell you, don't learn PHP and Rails is a joke and doesn't scale well. But any noob switching to Haskell to do a simple web app is equally insane.

Re: The self-hating web developer

#78

Post by [deleted] »

imakesnowflakes wrote: post #71
noir_lord wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The hatred of PHP amongst a certain type is hilarious, they automatically assume that if you chose PHP (or worse program in it because it was what you inherited as well) you are a "lesser programmer". I choose to use PHP despite been capable of using most any language I wanted, over the years I've used and forgotten many languages and for the requirements I have PHP was a good fit. Also modern PHP really isn't like o…

> if you chose PHP (or worse program in it because it was what you inherited as well) you are a "lesser programmer". If you choose php, I will assume that you. 1. Either is not aware of that php has a million gotchas that you need to avoid at every step. Take a look at the ever growing (!) list at /r/lolphp. 2. You don't see the significance of the aforementioned gotchas. For eg, you can show things like php's regist…

[deleted]

Re: The self-hating web developer

#79

Post by lowmagnet »

imakesnowflakes wrote: post #24
austenallred wrote: post #9

The "language hate" in programming is truly cancerous. I know several people who started programming only to get twisted and turned around by experienced developers saying, "Don't learn PHP" then "Rails is a joke and doesn't scale well." I talk to them a week later, and they're trying to build a simple web app in functional Haskell, and their environment is all messed up because they are using a zsh configuration the…

I agree with everything else you say, but please, for gods sake, do not put Php in the same basket as ruby or java. Just don't start with PHP. EDIT: I am being downvoted. But I will say this again. I do not care about what you use for programming in school. but, Do NOT, under any circumstances, start your programming career with P. H. P. Never. Never...ever.

Php is still a super effective lever for people starting out. It has some really bad technical warts but it has the shortest path to "shit's on screen" amongst web-based scripting languages.

I may not like it, but it has its place.

Re: The self-hating web developer

#80

Post by icebraining »

patio11 wrote: post #66
lawnchair_larry wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Opinions come from passion. You don't care for opinions because you are not passionate about programming. You just want to get a job done. To you, these opinions are noise. The obvious counterexample: Linus Torvalds.

Linus is very talented. He is also a raging singularity of abuse who gets tolerated for it because he is extremely talented. I worry a little bit about logic which suggests that anyone who is insufficiently Linuxian in dealing with other people is thereby assumed simply to care less about programming.

a raging singularity of abuse

Oh, come on. We hear about an over the top email every couple of years and we discuss them endlessly. Linus gets talked about because all of his communications happen in an open record. Not that it excuses his abuse, but a "singularity"? Please. Offices I know have instances of that kind (and worse) abuse every month, if not every week.

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