Live data from Hacker News

I graduated into the dot com bust as a programmer and made it – you will too

builtin.com

121–130 of 322 posts

Re: I graduated into the dot com bust as a programmer and made it – you will too

#121
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both social distancing and herd immunity reduce the R factor. Thus nearly everyone may end up with the disease in NYC, but in less dense areas it can stamped out with vastly lower infection rates. That alone could make the difference between 70% vs 30% of the US population getting even with minimal precautions.

Yeah but no less dense area stands alone. One person from a more dense area visits a less dense area and we're right back at it.

I am hopeful we can suppress this disease before herd immunity develops in cities. But, once that happens they stop acting like dense areas in terms of disease spread.

It’s really a question of regional R factors under various levels of social distancing, population, and herd imminuty.

Re: I graduated into the dot com bust as a programmer and made it – you will too

#122
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pushing 40, graduated high school in 2000. I heard a lot of the same "wisdom." For some reason I just really wanted to be a software developer so I stuck with it even though the dot com bubble was in full catastrophe mode. I'm glad I did, but I can't claim magic wisdom. I don't know how kids are supposed to get good life/career advice. I surely didn't. Perhaps the only thing I can reasonably suggest is that peopl…

I'm a college senior who feels like the world has been pulled out from under me. Would love to talk to you about your life. Email is on my profile.

[deleted]

Re: I graduated into the dot com bust as a programmer and made it – you will too

#123

Programming for the web is my primary career. I first got into it late 1997. I am astonished at how incompetent it is. The fact the OP made a career out of it and made some money is hardly amazing. For the level of talent required contrasted against the average compensation I am surprised not everybody is trying it. You too could be earning 6 figures in a low cost of living economy after completing a boot camp and 2…

Wish it was like that in the UK. I work with some pretty talented people and we're paid what would be considered peanuts in the bay area (but fairly standard here), and even then half of us have just been furloughed. Lots of code sucks but that's often due to unrealistic deadlines as much as the talents of the developers.

Re: I graduated into the dot com bust as a programmer and made it – you will too

#125
post #123

Programming for the web is my primary career. I first got into it late 1997. I am astonished at how incompetent it is. The fact the OP made a career out of it and made some money is hardly amazing. For the level of talent required contrasted against the average compensation I am surprised not everybody is trying it. You too could be earning 6 figures in a low cost of living economy after completing a boot camp and 2…

Wish it was like that in the UK. I work with some pretty talented people and we're paid what would be considered peanuts in the bay area (but fairly standard here), and even then half of us have just been furloughed. Lots of code sucks but that's often due to unrealistic deadlines as much as the talents of the developers.

Code sucks everywhere. Unless you're working on a library or something personal, then there's no (or very few) organisations that are churning out 'academically pure' code. The UK doesn't software industry doesn't have dibs on that.

Re: I graduated into the dot com bust as a programmer and made it – you will too

#126

You graduated in one of the most well paid, expanding industry of the last 40 years and made it. Excellent.

That's unnecessarily rude. Software is still the most well paid, expanding industry of the last 40 years. The parallel still holds. Times will be hard relative to the recent peak, but compared to just about every other industry we'll still be pretty fat and happy.

I know that's pretty thin consolation for people who are struggling to find jobs while their classmates from one year before were the subject of bidding wars. It's not what I wanted to hear myself when I was struggling through the tech cull ten years before dot-com. But it's still true. If anyone washes out of the industry now it's probably not because of COVID-19.

OP is supposed to be a message of hope in dark times. Most people are more resilient than they realize. Software jobs will continue to increase over any time span longer than a year or two. We'll get through this. It's sad that so many here are trying to turn a positive message into a negative one.

Re: I graduated into the dot com bust as a programmer and made it – you will too

#127
post #117

You graduated in one of the most well paid, expanding industry of the last 40 years and made it. Excellent.

Survivorship bias. Our system is broken, humanity needs a way to encourage success without punishing failure. Failure shouln't be hunger and homelessness...This will be another generation of hopeless dreamers lost in the looming financial depression. Why is our antidote hope against the adversity of going against all the odds?. Congrats to those who made it but more recognition to those who failed and managed to over…

> Our system is broken

Citation needed.

> humanity needs a way to encourage success without punishing failure

Serious question - why? You state this as an objective fact with no argument for it.

> Failure [shouldn't] be hunger and homelessness

If you're smart about it, it isn't. What's wrong with saying "yes you should probably have savings to fall back on in case this doesn't work out?" What's wrong with saying "if you throw caution and all reasonableness to the wind and blow your life's savings trying to sell Amway products, your neighbor isn't going to be burdened with paying your bills while you look for another job?"

Re: I graduated into the dot com bust as a programmer and made it – you will too

#128

You graduated in one of the most well paid, expanding industry of the last 40 years and made it. Excellent.

Some kids graduating today took in 50k+ in loans because they heard how great the industry is like you said.

Re: I graduated into the dot com bust as a programmer and made it – you will too

#129

You graduated in one of the most well paid, expanding industry of the last 40 years and made it. Excellent.

That's unnecessarily rude. Software is still the most well paid, expanding industry of the last 40 years. The parallel still holds. Times will be hard relative to the recent peak, but compared to just about every other industry we'll still be pretty fat and happy. I know that's pretty thin consolation for people who are struggling to find jobs while their classmates from one year before were the subject of bidding wa…

> Software is still the most well paid, expanding industry of the last 40 years.

In a lot of the world it's nowhere near as well paid as most of the professions which have comparable requirements in terms of the amount academic study, vocational apprenticeship and natural aptitude needed.

Re: I graduated into the dot com bust as a programmer and made it – you will too

#130
post #127
post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Survivorship bias. Our system is broken, humanity needs a way to encourage success without punishing failure. Failure shouln't be hunger and homelessness...This will be another generation of hopeless dreamers lost in the looming financial depression. Why is our antidote hope against the adversity of going against all the odds?. Congrats to those who made it but more recognition to those who failed and managed to over…

> Our system is broken Citation needed. > humanity needs a way to encourage success without punishing failure Serious question - why? You state this as an objective fact with no argument for it. > Failure [shouldn't] be hunger and homelessness If you're smart about it, it isn't. What's wrong with saying "yes you should probably have savings to fall back on in case this doesn't work out?" What's wrong with saying "if…

This might be the most HN on-brand comment I've ever seen
Post reply on HN