11–20 of 24 posts
Learn stuff when it makes sense. Two and a half years ago I felt stuck working with only dynamic languages most of my career so I started learning Rust. Now I have an extremely powerful tool in my belt that solves problems that most dynamic languages cannot solve [adequately]. But I'm not going to learn yet another dynamic language if that won't make me any money or expose me to a new way of thinking, no. Nor will I…
That is good. I do not want to remember Java and Kotlin.
I've heard the "fox plus hedgehog" idea before, as having a "T-shaped skill set". You have a familiarity with a range of related topics (this is the cap of the T) and deep understanding of a few things (the stem of the T). The premise is that this means you provide valuable expertise (for the deep part). But the breadth of basic knowledge means you are also able to collaborate and delegate well. I've found that havin…
Learn stuff when it makes sense. Two and a half years ago I felt stuck working with only dynamic languages most of my career so I started learning Rust. Now I have an extremely powerful tool in my belt that solves problems that most dynamic languages cannot solve [adequately]. But I'm not going to learn yet another dynamic language if that won't make me any money or expose me to a new way of thinking, no. Nor will I…
> We easily forget that we do what we do for money. That is good. I do not want to remember Java and Kotlin.
But the really surprising thing is how much they affected how I think about software overall. You know, at work I’m busy trying to build things. But taking a step back to understand what computation really is has been so helpful for even the code I’m writing on a daily basis.
Specifically with Alloy, which has an awesome state viewer, you can use it as a tool for prototyping ideas really quickly. It does suck that you can’t take that and use it to test your actual code, but I have ideas there :)
Anyway, yea I can’t recommend those tools enough. I think specification will grow in popularity soon - and no that doesn’t mean specifying your whole program up front. It’s totally possible to spec a program out iteratively. The value is huge - we write user stories and have product docs somewhere which explain what it is we’re building, but they get completely discarded after building. Having a highly simplified description of what a piece of software is expected to do is invaluable, especially as members come and go on the team. Agreed. In 2021, we don’t need another programming language. We need to master the tools and processes that we have.
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> We easily forget that we do what we do for money. That is good. I do not want to remember Java and Kotlin.
Might be worth a revisit actually. After having kept off it for years I did a small project in Java for an interview some time ago, and a larger one as a postdoc a year before that. Its latest features, especially functional interfaces, makes it very powerful in a specific niche: The middle lands of software that does have stringent performance requirements - low latency from microseconds upwards and/or throughput, b…
In any case, Java, and especially Kotlin are quite tolerable with IntelliJ. It is a great IDE for those two at least. Plus I get paid, which is also a motivator... :D
[1] Truth be told, it is difficult to keep that sanity because I dislike the OTP documentation. I am reading books instead. I already know what their "target_system" does anyway, I modified it a lot for my use case but I reverted it because I thought it would be more of a hassle in the end.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Might be worth a revisit actually. After having kept off it for years I did a small project in Java for an interview some time ago, and a larger one as a postdoc a year before that. Its latest features, especially functional interfaces, makes it very powerful in a specific niche: The middle lands of software that does have stringent performance requirements - low latency from microseconds upwards and/or throughput, b…
I work in Java and Kotlin still. I miss doing OCaml. I miss writing C. I am trying to keep my sanity by doing Erlang[1] (gonna be our server for various purposes and I did not want to use Go because I thought it would be a great opportunity to perfect Erlang) and reading old books on Forth. I am also reading "Fundamentals of Embedded Software: Where C and Assembly Meet". For the foreseeable future I will do more desi…
Plus, macros (basically, generators of code). How can you say no to that?
Learn stuff when it makes sense. Two and a half years ago I felt stuck working with only dynamic languages most of my career so I started learning Rust. Now I have an extremely powerful tool in my belt that solves problems that most dynamic languages cannot solve [adequately]. But I'm not going to learn yet another dynamic language if that won't make me any money or expose me to a new way of thinking, no. Nor will I…
> We easily forget that we do what we do for money. That is good. I do not want to remember Java and Kotlin.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> We easily forget that we do what we do for money. That is good. I do not want to remember Java and Kotlin.
Well, you always have a choice. I branched out of lucrative careers... 3 times so far (so I am on the 4th full switch). And I still make more money than before.
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Well, you always have a choice. I branched out of lucrative careers... 3 times so far (so I am on the 4th full switch). And I still make more money than before.
I lack connections because I did not care about money and such before the age of 25. :/ Of course I also lack qualifications. I only have my code repository, and I can talk about the projects I made for some clients. In any case, it is quite difficult because I have lots of anxiety. I feel like I would fail or would not know enough.
You will always have something that you don't know. Took me a loooong time to get over it. Try and short-circuit this struggle because it would otherwise never end.