Would people please stop shitting on php. It's no better nor worse than let's say, ruby. It gets shit done. It is a valid tool very widely used in the wild.
This is a false equivalence. Its popularity doesn't make it "valid" for some criterion.
‘Product engineers’ vs ‘Software engineers’ in startups
111–120 of 128 posts
Re: ‘Product engineers’ vs ‘Software engineers’ in startups
#112Would people please stop shitting on php. It's no better nor worse than let's say, ruby. It gets shit done. It is a valid tool very widely used in the wild.
Here's a classic article that addresses exactly your criticisms: https://eev.ee/blog/2012/04/09/php-a-fractal-of-bad-design/
Re: ‘Product engineers’ vs ‘Software engineers’ in startups
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are decades of history behind every criticism of PHP? Do you just want people to ignore them? PHP can be a bit of a punching bag, even when it's not topical. But it's not exactly unwarranted.
Every language has valid criticism, you use the right tool for the right job. When you single out one of your tools as "bad" it just highlights that you don't understand what job the tool is for. learn your tools.
It's funny you should mention tools. This article uses exactly that analogy to explain why PHP is an awful tool for any job. https://eev.ee/blog/2012/04/09/php-a-fractal-of-bad-design/
Re: ‘Product engineers’ vs ‘Software engineers’ in startups
#114This is a variation of patio11’s “Don’t call yourself a programmer” article https://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-pr...
Re: ‘Product engineers’ vs ‘Software engineers’ in startups
#115I worked at a startup as the first Dev, it was a shock for me having to now consider things like: * What company laptops to buy? * Assess the merits of AWS and GCP and make a decision. * Divine an architecture that will get the product to the customers ASAP but will last at least a year with growth before needing a major rethink. * Present to customers, board members and potential investors about the tech. Eventually…
I'm a CTO at a 30-ish person company and yep this is my job. Lots of development, but also handling all the infrastructure and ops for a long time (I'm able to offload more to other devs these days).
I still primarily code but also do lots of long term tech strategy like cloud? and which, as well as business planning with the rest of our leadership level, hiring, training new devs, keeping all the devs up to date with new stuff, breaking down and delegating work, reviewing code, monitoring & alerting and understanding a system that's practically a living organism and being able to anticipate trouble spots rising, planning and executing what are sometimes multi-year efforts (e.g., significantly refactoring major parts of a 10+ year old code base).
Personally, I like it, though it has its difficulties. It also makes me an exceptionally valuable person for this size of company - big enough to really need breadth and depth of experience, but not in a position to have several tech people with a decade or two of experience. Find the right company (I was lucky to) and it's a golden ticket.
Re: ‘Product engineers’ vs ‘Software engineers’ in startups
#116I agree with the title, but disagree with the article. If you're at all an experienced software engineer, you should avoid working as a "software engineer" at a startup, because you'll most likely be worked to the bone for a pittance in equity. You're much better off either finding a VP or C-level position at a much smaller startup, or doing your own side project. At least when you're working at 3am, because the only…
I'm tired of the whole "if you're doing x at a startup you're foolish"
You only live once, it's amazing to be an engineer now and have all the choices of being able to actually work somewhere that you ENJOY working at, that you align with and find interesting. If that job happens to pay you $250k / year then great, but if it pays you only $150k and you actually enjoy half your waking hours then seems like you're the real winner.
Re: ‘Product engineers’ vs ‘Software engineers’ in startups
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's plenty of affordable areas in zone 2 and 3 which have average rents considerably less than SV (a 1 bed flat might be £1100-£1400/month). Annual travel within zone 3 is £1648. It's really not comparable, especially since the pound dropped 20% after the Brexit referendum.
I would imagine the original commenter moving from NYC to London isn't going to be interested in renting some tiny one bed studio flat and living on ramen. I was talking about buying - why throw rent money away.
> I was talking about buying - why throw rent money away.
London has some of the lowest rental yields in the UK, especially as you move towards the higher end of the market. Renting is merely "very expensive", compared to buying which is "very, very expensive".
Re: ‘Product engineers’ vs ‘Software engineers’ in startups
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would imagine the original commenter moving from NYC to London isn't going to be interested in renting some tiny one bed studio flat and living on ramen. I was talking about buying - why throw rent money away.
> I was talking about buying - why throw rent money away. London has some of the lowest rental yields in the UK, especially as you move towards the higher end of the market. Renting is merely "very expensive", compared to buying which is "very, very expensive".
Bad use of money, certainly in the UK mortgages are cheaper per month than renting and that's not counting the value of the asset..
Re: ‘Product engineers’ vs ‘Software engineers’ in startups
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
Every language has valid criticism, you use the right tool for the right job. When you single out one of your tools as "bad" it just highlights that you don't understand what job the tool is for. learn your tools.
You're assuming the criticisms between different languages are equatable. It's important to understand that there is a reputation and perception that PHP has because of its colored history. Invoking platitudes like "the right tool for the job" is irrelevant and isn't going to make that history go away suddenly.
> It's important to understand that there is a reputation and perception that PHP has because of its colored history.
Because no other language has a history?
Look at C it has a coloured history, it has a reputation like any other language, C vs C++, it has bad things like the lack of memory safety, it lacks concepts like object orientation and so on and so on.
No PHP is not special in its flaws.
Re: ‘Product engineers’ vs ‘Software engineers’ in startups
#120I agree with the title, but disagree with the article. If you're at all an experienced software engineer, you should avoid working as a "software engineer" at a startup, because you'll most likely be worked to the bone for a pittance in equity. You're much better off either finding a VP or C-level position at a much smaller startup, or doing your own side project. At least when you're working at 3am, because the only…
I'm tired of the whole "if you're doing x at a startup you're foolish" You only live once, it's amazing to be an engineer now and have all the choices of being able to actually work somewhere that you ENJOY working at, that you align with and find interesting. If that job happens to pay you $250k / year then great, but if it pays you only $150k and you actually enjoy half your waking hours then seems like you're the…
But in startups that whole "work somewhere or on something you enjoy" is a front. Programming is programming, as long as you find a challenging problem. Everything else is ego.
Some of the most gratifying work I've done is on extremely tedious problems for majorly boring products. The fact that the product is boring and technical lowers the amount of drama around it, allowing you to focus on the programming you love.
The most stressful and least gratifying work I've ever done was on the multiple "sexy" and "ground breaking" products I've worked on. Those products attract snake oil salesmen and shady execs looking to make a quick buck, and who make daily life at the company a nightmare.
Another thing is the $250k/$150k numbers you give. That shows a very valley-centric view. There are parts of the US where you can work for tier 1-2 companies and where that same $150k is the equivalent of $300k in the valley.