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The self-hating web developer

joequery.me

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Re: The self-hating web developer

#141

Post by austenallred »

kelseydh wrote: post #89
justwannasing wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Rails may not scale well, but it's incredibly fast for pumping out CRUD apps. I've seen noobies in Rails move much faster than Node.js projects. Likewise I'm sure someone has seen the opposite. I'm not here to tell you Rails is better than alternatives, but as programmers we need stop being so scathing in our opinions about other languages or frameworks. Has it ever occurred to you that somebody may have started lear…

The point is that for your first project it just doesn't matter.

Re: The self-hating web developer

#142

Post by _navaneethan »

I am a Python/Django developer. I love my learning and work in Django web development.

Aren't you injecting me a negative thoughts?

From web development, try to go for scaling multiple architecture machines, or go for big data processing or go for Arudino, you have plenty to explore..

I personally feel, there is nothing wrong to switch the work, as long as you have the desire to obtain the specific label in that area and dedicating yourself for it.

Re: The self-hating web developer

#143

Post by austenallred »

prophet_ wrote: post #17
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…

"Just do stuff." Along the years I have come to admire more and more those who take what they do know and put the effort into just that: building something. The idea of purpose is key here. Once you have a purpose, a goal, finding the right tool for the job is no longer that difficult and you will suddenly realise that a lot the languages/frameworks people have been evangelising to you may make no sense at all. "If y…

Somehow this turned into a thread of people debating the merits and faults of PHP. There's a place for that, to be sure, but that's not really the point.

The point is that getting started is the most important thing, and moving forward is the next most important thing. I'm not saying if someone comes to you and says, "I want to build a web app" one should say, "Do it in PHP." But if someone says, "I'm building my first web app in PHP" the most damaging thing you could say is, "lol you're coding like a noob. You should be doing that in {language x}."

I see happening all the time. Coding in PHP is better than not coding because you're terrified of not doing things "the right way," and that often is the alternative. Let him or her finish a project in PHP before you try to turn the ship around and make him or her learn Rails. Or JavaScript or Python, or Java or whatever. Just start.

Re: The self-hating web developer

#144

Post by stickfigure »

joesmo wrote: post #116
imakesnowflakes wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Your post is a perfect example of what the author is referring to: stupid people in the community trying to make others feel inferior for programming in a certain technology. When it comes to PHP, such posts are inevitable (that's how I know PHP is actually a good, useful language). About the people who post them, I will assume that you: 1. Are incredibly stupid (register globals has been deprecated for years) 2. Are…

There are objective differences between programming languages and it's reasonable to have strong opinions about the relative merits and demerits of each. Yes, it's toxic when people who have no real-world experience with a language or platform rant about it, because this tends to be useless bile. But that does't mean PHP is just as good as anything else.

If you only know a single programming language, you should have some inner doubts, no matter what that language is. This is healthy.

Re: The self-hating web developer

#146

Post by leke »

That was a great read and something I've experienced myself. It's nice to hear I'm not the only one with doubts about my abilities. Hopefully, it's these doubts that will empower us to become much better at our profession, so good luck to us all.

Re: The self-hating web developer

#147

Post by codingdave »

crimsonalucard wrote: post #107
codingdave wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"uploading WordPress isn't web development" Sure it is. I know people who make a living at setting up Wordpress. They do it very well, and they work hard at it. They do design work that I cannot hope to match. And they do it all without writing any more code than some HTML and CSS. I'm not going to insult them by saying that they are not developing web sites. They absolutely are. Coders do not own the label of "web d…

You are right, or course, in terms of semantic politeness. The OP is, however, referring to the difference between say a ruby developer versus someone who just writes html and css. If both are within the category of web developers, what are some names to distinguish the two?

Why do we need to distinguish the two?

Doctors are all doctors, but there is a difference between a family doctor and a neurosurgeon. Lawyers are all lawyers, but a patent attorney is not a criminal litigation specialist.

It is fine to have a generic term for a broad profession, then get more specific if and when it matters.

Re: The self-hating web developer

#148

Post by ectoplasm »

nostrademons wrote: post #136
ectoplasm wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wanted to say something like your comment is just 1st order making people feel bad about 0th order making people feel bad, but then I'd be 2nd order making you feel bad about 1st order making people feel bad about 0th order making people feel bad, so then I just thought about how I felt and it was bad. What a mess. Good points about the importance of choosing a good peer group, I totally agree. It's really hard whe…

Interestingly, I've learned to love having more than one peer group. I felt like a floater all through high school and college, like I didn't belong anywhere, but around age 30 I started viewing that as a source of strength rather than of weakness, and "I belong everywhere" rather than "I don't belong anywhere". My wife and many of my close friends (that don't belong to any particular peer group) are the same way. Th…

Thanks for the positivity, it's hard to remember that how you see yourself is not how others see you. Whenever other people tell me that others look up to me I'm like wtf are you talking about. I have about five major peer groups, it's kind of like the jack of all trades, master of none conundrum.

Re: The self-hating web developer

#149

Post by coldtea »

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.

>Linus is very talented. He is also a raging singularity of abuse

Only if you have never worked in any team outside nice cosy polite and P.C. US programmers.

And I wouldn't even consider him "abusing". He is ranty, fun, and vocal about what he thinks.

Re: The self-hating web developer

#150

Post by michaelwww »

patio11 wrote: post #20

There are few things in life more important than choosing one's peer group well. The Internet gives you many more options than we had available prior to the existence of it. Choose wisely and re-evaluate that choice periodically to see whether your peer group continues to represent your goals and values. Why? Your peer group literally gets arbitrary code execution on your brain. (It's a flaw in MonkeyBrainOS 1.01 whi…

I believe you could expand your thoughts further into a longer form and be well recieved. I look forward to reading more.
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