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Most tech content is bullshit (2020)

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Re: Most tech content is bullshit (2020)

#111

Post by InexSquirrel »

echelon wrote: post #89
shortrounddev2 wrote: post #88

I think HN is a madhouse. Any article I click on, there's things I've never heard of that sound like made up techno-jargon, like programming languages which I've never seen used in a real job, let alone met anyone who uses them But I go to the comments and there's 150 people who all know every intimate detail of this technology already. Experts in the subject. I think most of you all are faking it

> I think most of you all are faking it The world is huge. We're all traversing different areas of interest and expertise. It makes sense that there are lots of different types of domain experts in our field. This is a great place where they tend to congregate together.

I honestly read that as a sarcastic comment, but maybe that's just my bent.

Re: Most tech content is bullshit (2020)

#112

Post by Enginerrrd »

zeroonetwothree wrote: post #29

Not every decision has to be done with maximum research. That’s usually a waste of time. It’s more efficient to try a couple things until something works and move on (“satisficing”). A key skill you learn over time is why decisions actually matter. But it’s not inherently bad that there’s no good reason for something, it really depends on the context. And sometimes things that had good reasons turn out bad anyway bec…

So I come from a background of Civil Engineering. We basically don't do ANYthing arbitrarily. There's a reason for basically every aspect of a design. Sometimes there are competing criteria that leave it to humans to decide, but honestly it's rare. Usually the constraints drive the design from concept down to minute details.

Within the constraints and criteria, there's codes and manuals that cover almost everything.

It's always seemed to me that software has really suffered from a lack of this approach.

Is it the best way to maximize innovation? No, but in some ways, you might be surprised how much placing heavy constraints on a project will drive innovation.

Re: Most tech content is bullshit (2020)

#113

Post by msla »

jackfoxy wrote: post #80

> Tutorials show harmful patterns. Try to find a sample SQL database, for any vendor, that does not employ artificial table primary keys. This was a requirement in the 1980s so that your queries would execute before the heat death of the universe, but that has not been the case for decades. Microsoft is particularly guilty of this. Artificial keys are an anti-pattern. (And, btw, there's a dearth of literature on why…

This is, now, obviously a troll account, and an example of bullshit in tech.

Re: Most tech content is bullshit (2020)

#115

Post by wolfgang42 »

wizofaus wrote: post #96
jackfoxy wrote: post #80

> Tutorials show harmful patterns. Try to find a sample SQL database, for any vendor, that does not employ artificial table primary keys. This was a requirement in the 1980s so that your queries would execute before the heat death of the universe, but that has not been the case for decades. Microsoft is particularly guilty of this. Artificial keys are an anti-pattern. (And, btw, there's a dearth of literature on why…

I literally just read a very convincing post, with good examples, on why relying solely on natural keys is rarely a good idea. Nothing in that repo convinced me otherwise (and alarm bells certainly went off when I saw a table called Species where the primary key was a varchar field "Species" with values like "cat" and "raccoon", neither of which are species at all).

We just had https://matt-schellhas.medium.com/unnatural-keys-425a68ee350... on HN a couple of weeks ago, too: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36101544

Re: Most tech content is bullshit (2020)

#116

Post by Clubber »

crabmusket wrote: post #73
ilyt wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like classic object oriented tutorials talking about fruits and apples with no connection to actual apps you'd build are ones to add to this pile

Coming up with good examples of inheritance is hard. Instead of teaching with bad examples, that should have been a warning that inheritance should be much less commonly used.

>Instead of teaching with bad examples, that should have been a warning that inheritance should be much less commonly used.

This. I think the most of the tech industry would benefit from this lesson. If it's beneficial in your situation, use it, otherwise don't.

90% of programming is linear instructions, one after the other. It's not that complicated.

Re: Most tech content is bullshit (2020)

#117

Post by bombela »

hirvi74 wrote: post #108
factorialboy wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fundamental deficiency with our society is that we value talking about X more than performing/implementing X. This is true for most fields, including programming. Most teams have folks to do the heavy lifting, and a small percentage of folks who talk about it. The talkers are considered more valuable than the doers, within the organization or without. These are our thought leaders, influencers, architects, you na…

> The fundamental deficiency with our society is that we value talking about X more than performing/implementing X. I am so guilty of this. I spend so much time on here and other platforms just mindlessly consuming and participating in discussions about software engineering, new technology, best practices, etc.. So much so that I basically barely program anymore (except for my job where none of this information is im…

This resonates a bit too much with me.

Re: Most tech content is bullshit (2020)

#118

Post by wizofaus »

wolfgang42 wrote: post #115
wizofaus wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I literally just read a very convincing post, with good examples, on why relying solely on natural keys is rarely a good idea. Nothing in that repo convinced me otherwise (and alarm bells certainly went off when I saw a table called Species where the primary key was a varchar field "Species" with values like "cat" and "raccoon", neither of which are species at all).

We just had https://matt-schellhas.medium.com/unnatural-keys-425a68ee350... on HN a couple of weeks ago, too: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36101544

Yep, that was the exact article I'd read!

Re: Most tech content is bullshit (2020)

#119

Post by wruza »

shrimp_emoji wrote: post #101
rcurry wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh man, who can forget the interview questions back in the nineties. I go to an interview after spending all week writing trading systems in C++ and it’s always “let’s say you are building a car, how would you structure the classes?” LMAO, I always failed. Good times.

Reading that made me cringe. I'd make the `Tire` class derive the `SteeringWheel` class, and `Tire::turn()` moves the car while `SteeringWheel::turn()` steers the car.

You forgot `Windshield` as a base fragile.

Re: Most tech content is bullshit (2020)

#120

Post by mplanchard »

MrVandemar wrote: post #98
ilyt wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like classic object oriented tutorials talking about fruits and apples with no connection to actual apps you'd build are ones to add to this pile

In the same vein, I'd love to see more articles about recursion that don't even mention, let alone demonstrate, solving factorials. There's gotta be something else.

Trees or graphs would be great! Or arbitrarily nested objects. Those things have probably represented 90% of the recursive functions I’ve actually written
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