The author is complaining about random internet content but it seems to me he should be complaining about cargo cult programming by his team.
Most tech content is bullshit
101–110 of 470 posts
Re: Most tech content is bullshit
#102I’ll just share a recent anecdote from work. A developer asked someone ‘What are the pros/cons of using _____ library?’, here was the answer — ‘This is what everyone is using right now’.
There must be a limit to this nonsense. So we’re just going to drop this into our stack because that’s what everyone else is doing?
Re: Most tech content is bullshit
#103I think the title should have been: 'Most tech content considered harmful'
Re: Most tech content is bullshit
#104Unlike hackernews comments, which of course are totally non-bullshit. The people commenting here all agree that we are not bullshit. As true as some of the comments might be, take a scroll through this very thread of comments and admire the finely curated homogeneity and repetition of popular trivia and opinion. You want to see through the bullshit? Look at the source code for some repository that makes it to the top…
hacker news comment is probably the most reliable source of info i have regarding tech thoses days.
Not because the majority of comments are useful or right, but because in between all this regular interner noise you sometimes have the unique opportunity to speak with the creators of the tech itself, or by researchers working on the issue. Now to be honest, most of the time when an issue is complex the most useful comment is often a link to a series of lessons on the subject (which is great).
Re: Most tech content is bullshit
#105so am i no longer allowed to copy-paste from stackoverflow?
Re: Most tech content is bullshit
#106I believe part of problem is Google SEO. Tech content maybe bullshit, but marketing content is even more bullshit. I remember times when we had slow internet and/or only subset of blogs we read from time to time. Most of development was done by reading books, specification of devices for writing drivers and so on. Now, literally everyone is trying to do SEO and use lots of words in articles, kind of creating content,…
Personal brand building is another major contributor to search engine content dilution. Whenever I Google for something in hot new languages or frameworks, I have to sift through 10s of Medium articles from beginner developers who are trying to establish themselves as industry experts. I don't want to read some junior developer's Medium post full of animated GIFs and a pseudo-tutorial that is really just entire sourc…
That's an interesting, albeit selfish, perspective.
Experienced developers usually aren't busy writing blog posts. Nor are they engaged on HN. As the old saying goes, those who can are out doing, those who can't `teach'.
This touched a nerve, but sorry it's spot on. The more faltering the career, the less certain the skills, the more likely the person has a vigorous social media and blog presence.
Re: Most tech content is bullshit
#107What’s more, I think the incentives are not aligned. People who write content nowadays don’t usually have the reader in mind, but instead focus on promoting something (a tech, a tool, or their personal brand): https://angryscript.home.blog/2020/05/08/in-2020-all-content...
>...personal brand... This. Unfortunately it appears that these days if you want to get ahead in your career is to publish content and develop that "personal brand".
If it creates new opportunities why not?
Of course your work can speak for itself, but who can hear it? Advertising through technical writing seems to be a very good thing as long as its valuable and honest. Because if it isn’t we filter it out.
Re: Most tech content is bullshit
#108I believe part of problem is Google SEO. Tech content maybe bullshit, but marketing content is even more bullshit. I remember times when we had slow internet and/or only subset of blogs we read from time to time. Most of development was done by reading books, specification of devices for writing drivers and so on. Now, literally everyone is trying to do SEO and use lots of words in articles, kind of creating content,…
Personal brand building is another major contributor to search engine content dilution. Whenever I Google for something in hot new languages or frameworks, I have to sift through 10s of Medium articles from beginner developers who are trying to establish themselves as industry experts. I don't want to read some junior developer's Medium post full of animated GIFs and a pseudo-tutorial that is really just entire sourc…
As a programmer with some 20 years of experience who likes to write tutorials on original research and techniques — you can pry my animated gifs out of my cold dead fingers! All my life I waited for broadband to be widespread enough to write articles with rich embedded animations.
And yes, sometimes they only serve the purpose of entertainment or emotional tone setting. Other times they’re actual part of the content.
Gifs are great
Edit: you downvote and yet I often get comments appreaciating how the gifs make my 2000 word emails feel like a quick short read.
Re: Most tech content is bullshit
#109I think it comes down to task turn-over. We get lazy when our job is about story points. There is no real reason to reinvent the wheel most of the time. When you need to eek out every bit of performance you need to dig deeper. I think finding the right balance of time spent vs perfection is important.
Re: Most tech content is bullshit
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
Personal brand building is another major contributor to search engine content dilution. Whenever I Google for something in hot new languages or frameworks, I have to sift through 10s of Medium articles from beginner developers who are trying to establish themselves as industry experts. I don't want to read some junior developer's Medium post full of animated GIFs and a pseudo-tutorial that is really just entire sourc…
The truly worrying development is when those same Medium posts start circling HN. I’m not trying to be elitist, but what I enjoy about HN is seeing truly novel and interesting content, and every “crappy” article on the front page bumps an interesting one downwards into oblivion.
Worrying development? HN has never been particularly enlightened in this respect, and has all of the same trends and superficial articles that emerge on the other networks. The illusion that it's some higher ground has never held true.