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My Biggest Regret as a Programmer

thecodist.com

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Re: My Biggest Regret as a Programmer

#121

Post by woofyman »

buserror wrote: post #84
pjmlp wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here, but it is a big fight to convince the others why you want to stay that way. Right now I get the feeling that long term, going consulting might be the only option left as regular companies tend to only keep juniors coding. > You might be dead tomorrow; you might as well enjoy today. Just for this remark I wish I could have upvoted you more than once. This is something that those that live for the job, witho…

Likewise here. I'm 47, been programming since I'm 12. I'm very good at it. I also know I'd be a bad manager, unless I work with /very/ good people. And yes, Ican relate to the article; I've seen (I still see) junior managers who can barely tie their shoes make more money than excellent engineers with 25y experience, but that's the way the world is... Basically 'engineer'/'programmer' is a calling for some; it is for…

I'll be 57 in 3 months. I've been coding professionally for 35 years.

Re: My Biggest Regret as a Programmer

#122

Post by tomp »

Zelmor wrote: post #113
tomp wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

10X the assets => retire 10 times sooner => program when you're retired => no missing out

That's stupid. I am not willing to suffer for 20 years to then enjoy the remaining 30-40 whatever there will be. You don't know how long you will live, and what is your old days worth if you broken in your youth trying to be safe when you are 50? I'd rather work, as some do, 3-4 hours every single day for the rest of my life, than 12 hour days for 10 years and then compensate my lost youth, health and relationships w…

Well, I'm sure you make some "enjoy the present" vs. "enjoy the future" tradeoffs (e.g. safe sex, hopefully). This trade-off will simply be different for each person. In any case, the author wasn't very clear on this, but it's not necessary that his sister (a manager) actually worked more; plenty of programmers work a lot as well (overnight support, weekend work, "we have a deadline next month" sprints, ...).

Re: My Biggest Regret as a Programmer

#123

Post by imtringued »

forgottenacc56 wrote: post #64
romanovcode wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Javascript was designed so that clown on your website moves when you click on it.

JavaScript is actually an incredibly flexible and effective language.

I get that convenience beats quality everytime but why do we pretend that `convenience == quality` is true?

Re: My Biggest Regret as a Programmer

#124

Post by mclovinit »

Zelmor wrote: post #24

He would have been unhappy with the other choice as well, because then it is the programming side he would be missing out on. I would advise everyone to read The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost. http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173536 You chose one option out of many, and the others may no longer be a possibility. However, the writer's unhappiness does not spawn from his inability to be successful at what he does,…

I took a management path at first, thinking it was a natural progression upon obtaining over a decade and a half of experience and being enouraged by my peers over the years. I was never unhappier. I gave it everything I could. My team loved me and I shielded them from mountains of pain and frustration. I got sick from stress and mildly depressed from lack of a technically creative outlet. It took me over a year to recover physically and now I am fully back in the game developing as a technical lead. I still manage, obviously, but within a different context.

From my standpoint, I do not regret anything. I learned from these experiences because I love to explore and am not afraid to fail along the way.

I see so many that seek advice when they have the power to take action themselves. So much time wasted really.

Re: My Biggest Regret as a Programmer

#125

Post by tragic »

wtbob wrote: post #80
forgottenacc56 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

JavaScript is actually an incredibly flexible and effective language.

> JavaScript is actually an incredibly flexible and effective language. == vs === No integers. Assignment is declaration. Prototypes. Curly brackets & semicolons. Semicolon insertion. It may be flexible (in the sense that an Alfa Romeo driven into a telephone pole at 120 mph is flexible), but it sure as heck ain't effective. JavaScript is the great shame of the computing industry: that it exists, and that it is used,…

> No integers.

Fair enough.

> Assignment is declaration.

Not exactly. You can declare variables separately, if you want. In fact, a "var x = 42" statement will actually be split into "var x;" at the top of the scope and "x = 42" wherever you actually wrote it by the interpreter. The specified behaviour is a little weird and non-obvious, but once you know it, you know it.

> Prototypes.

That's a matter of taste (plus the problem of optimisation at the VM level, admittedly). Besides which, you can basically use prototypes to do classes, if that's your bag, and of course we have class syntax now anyway.

> Curly brackets & semicolons.

Semicolons are optional, which however you complain about below. So are some curly braces. The only alternative to having some kind of block delimiter would be significant whitespace, which is a perfectly legitimate preference but has its own warts.

> Semicolon insertion.

Around which the rules are fairly simple to understand. It's possible there's just a better way to do it (I know Go has ASI, for instance, but have never heard anyone complain).

---

I find this a most peculiar list of JS warts (what, not even a shout out for ==, bizarre implicit type coercions, etc?) There's no doubt it is a deeply flawed language, a big part of learning it is learning about the various spike-pits lying in wait for you, and the extra tooling required to mitigate its flaws comes with its own set of costs.

At the end of the day, though, you can write pleasant, readable and - yes - effective code in JS. There are worse languages to be stuck with, as long as you watch out for the spike-pits.

Re: My Biggest Regret as a Programmer

#126

Post by ZenoArrow »

douche wrote: post #118
almostarockstar wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The flexibility of JS is not how the language is designed, it is the hole that the language is filling. The fact that using JS you can write a browser based app, a mobile app, backend software, configuration files and flat data files (JSON) without switching gears is the flexibility. I would also argue that if you really don't like JS, you are using the wrong tool for whatever job you are trying to do.

That'd be fine, if there was any other tool that worked in a browser. Sure, you can transpile from some other real language, but it's still javascript when you finish up, with all the foibles and warts that haven't been fixed in twenty years. Unfortunately, instead of going back and fixing core deficiencies in the language standard, it looks like ES6 & 7 are thick cakings of lipstick on the pig.

> "Unfortunately, instead of going back and fixing core deficiencies in the language standard, it looks like ES6 & 7 are thick cakings of lipstick on the pig."

The fix isn't ES6/7, it's WebAssembly:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebAssembly

Re: My Biggest Regret as a Programmer

#127

Post by TeMPOraL »

forgottenacc56 wrote: post #64
romanovcode wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Javascript was designed so that clown on your website moves when you click on it.

JavaScript is actually an incredibly flexible and effective language.

JavaScript was supposed to be a sane language (Scheme), but it is what it is because Netscape's management decided (twice) they need to be competitive with (first) Java and (later) Microsoft right fucking now.

Re: My Biggest Regret as a Programmer

#128

Post by mtalantikite »

Zelmor wrote: post #24

He would have been unhappy with the other choice as well, because then it is the programming side he would be missing out on. I would advise everyone to read The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost. http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173536 You chose one option out of many, and the others may no longer be a possibility. However, the writer's unhappiness does not spawn from his inability to be successful at what he does,…

This is one of the most widely misunderstood poems around. It doesn't actually mean what most people think it means: http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2015/09/11/the-most-misre...

Re: My Biggest Regret as a Programmer

#129

Post by d4n3 »

Swizec wrote: post #42
not-much-io wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work for a international company, mainly based in the US. I get paid what a local developer gets paid, our chinese employees get paid what the local norm is there etc. Do other companies just outright decide salary based on where the company HQ is? Call me cynical, but I'm a bit skeptical that a company would pay more than they had to. Note: Assuming of course your role is not super vital for the whole company or s…

If you are as valuable as a local developer, then they will pay you as such. It's a business. They pay for value. And no, your salary/rate isn't defined by where the company HQ is. That part defines their price tolerance. The price is defined primarily by how much you ask for and what you can offer in return.

> The price is defined primarily by how much you ask for and what you can offer in return.

I couldn't agree more. I know a lot of developers that have the mentality to just accept what they are offered without negotiating. It's up to you to get a good price for the value you bring to the company. Negotiation is the best way to significantly increase your salary, regardless of your technical skills.

Patio said it best: http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-negotiation/

Re: My Biggest Regret as a Programmer

#130

Post by Chyzwar »

djipko wrote: post #82
kluck wrote: post #33

Management has always politics involved. And politics get ugly fast, strange personalities fighting over small stuff with minimal importance. Now exchange "Management" in the first sentence with "Programming in a team" ;)

Right, but as the article points out - you get compensated (10x) better for it in the management track. There are outliers of course, but they are just that - outliers.

It is biased. Middle management makes usually less that senior programmers. His perspective is biased, he compare senior developer to VP/CTO roles. It way more difficult to become someone high in management structure. Since manager ratio is 5-10 to one manager, and high level manager is for every 50-100 employees you need to very lucky, in right place and time.
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