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Do I belong in tech anymore?

ky.fyi

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Re: Do I belong in tech anymore?

#141

Post by manytimesaway »

lordkrandel wrote: post #120
manytimesaway wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Odoo suffers from others issues though. Not sure if this is still the case, but the mix of inline Python 2 Flask + XML was basically tech debt-as-a-service. Also the very ugly death they gave OpenERP/Odoo on-premise.

It's Python 3, no Flask (but werkzeug) and XML templates. It works for hundred thkusand clients, and you can install Odoo on premise as you like. I'm 90% dedicated to that. So... explain the "tech debt" thing, as I don't get it. You don't need Rust or microservices for every use case. Don't be fooled by marketing style "old style technology" bias and set up an account. PostgreSQL with synchronous workers works perfec…

I am absolutely not a fan of "new style technology" as you might have understood.

I used to run Odoo on-premise for a small company about 3-4 years ago. The upgrade path (with the OpenUpgrade fork) was awful, many features (that WYSIWYG editor, Odoo Studio?) were locked to the cloud version, and there was little to no documentation. IIRC we even had to drop it because the delay between on-prem updates & cloud updates was too high.

And there were mentions of Flask in the logs, so no it wasn't just Werkzeug (which is synonymous with Flask since its inception, anyways).

I do not have fond memories of editing invoice templates blindly.

Re: Do I belong in tech anymore?

#142

Post by johnea »

> Do I belong in tech anymore?

A valid question.

After 42 years as an electrical engineer and embedded software developer, I chose to retire rather than transition to an LLM based workflow...

Re: Do I belong in tech anymore?

#143

Post by tosti »

ngcazz wrote: post #133
AlexeyBelov wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate? What "line of beliefs" is it?

OP is just blaming someone for the audacity of having a morality.

There's no such thing as a single universal morality. TFA was quite political, therefore it's only natural for disagreements to happen. That's kinda the whole point of political debate.

Re: Do I belong in tech anymore?

#144

Post by lordkrandel »

manytimesaway wrote: post #141
lordkrandel wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's Python 3, no Flask (but werkzeug) and XML templates. It works for hundred thkusand clients, and you can install Odoo on premise as you like. I'm 90% dedicated to that. So... explain the "tech debt" thing, as I don't get it. You don't need Rust or microservices for every use case. Don't be fooled by marketing style "old style technology" bias and set up an account. PostgreSQL with synchronous workers works perfec…

I am absolutely not a fan of "new style technology" as you might have understood. I used to run Odoo on-premise for a small company about 3-4 years ago. The upgrade path (with the OpenUpgrade fork) was awful, many features (that WYSIWYG editor, Odoo Studio?) were locked to the cloud version, and there was little to no documentation. IIRC we even had to drop it because the delay between on-prem updates & cloud updates…

Ofc the cloud offering has much more, but you have to consider that no other major ERP software comes with the engine 100% opensource, in the kind of market. So yes, you may feel Odoo community a bit incomplete and probably don't want to pay the cloud version. But the alternatives are SAP, Microsoft, Oracle, some very fragmented open ecosystem, or some 90's GUI custom ERPs, right? I can tell you we use Werkzeug and not Flask, have reverse proxy nginx, use postgresql, and I don't see a lot of tech debt in that. Not much AI, all the reviews are manual and kinda strict.

Re: Do I belong in tech anymore?

#145

Post by stego-tech »

dewey wrote: post #39
erentz wrote: post #33

The way AI is being used feels like it is proving that, in many orgs, what has always mattered has been the appearance of work, not results of work. Will we wake up in a few years and find out we’ve fired all the doers and are now overloaded with the fakers?

I find that to be a very defeatist take. It always mattered how much value you provide to the business. Writing pretty code or arguing about some implementation detail never really mattered. If you are good at coming up with solutions to problems AI is just one additional tool in your toolbox and personally it allows me to do much more than before. There were fakers before, and there will be fakers after.

> It always mattered how much value you provide to the business.

My experience says the opposite: the value you provide to the business is irrelevant compared to the value you provide people in positions of power in said business. These are mutually exclusive things.

I've saved employers entire multipliers of value relative to my TC; that value was irrelevant compared to folks who gamed AI tool usage to look better on dashboards to those in power seeking to have loyalists under foot. I've reduced product build times exponentially and halved build costs, but that value was irrelevant to those whose power was dependent on higher costs and longer times. I have contributed substantially more value to businesses than I cost, yet I am first out the door because I deliver value, not blind fealty.

Business value is irrelevant compared to personal power.

Re: Do I belong in tech anymore?

#146

Post by stego-tech »

coinfused wrote: post #2

I think a lot of people relate with this but kind of sit with this silently for reasons the author mentioned: “ Would initiating these discussions result in interpersonal stress? Should I just let things slide? Would I become known as a “difficult” coworker for pushing back on AI use? Does any of it really matter? Does anyone really care? “

Speaking from recent and personal experience:

> Would initiating these discussions result in interpersonal stress?

Yes, it absolutely does. Nobody likes being told they're wrong, and having anything short of glowing support of a New Thing (TM) in American enterprise paints a huge target on your person. You lose opportunities, you lose relationships, you lose growth, and eventually you lose your job.

That being said...

> Should I just let things slide?

NO. Someone has to say something. Someone has to do something to stop bad decisions, bad actions, and bad outcomes. Someone has to point out the harms, flaws, and consequences, even if it comes at the expense of their career.

Otherwise nothing will ever actually change, because everyone else will think it's okay due to a lack of contrasting opinions or supporting evidence.

> Would I become known as a “difficult” coworker for pushing back on AI use?

See the first point above. You will absolutely be scapegoated for anything short of blind fealty to New Things (TM).

> Does any of it really matter? Does anyone really care?

A lot of folks care, but the current economic system incentivizes harming others through fiscal reward. We have to keep giving a fuck, because if we don't, then harm wins.

Don't get me wrong, life is fucking hard and bleak when standing up for cooperation and support is rewarded with job losses, homelessness, and government persecution. That doesn't make it the wrong thing, only the hard thing.

Re: Do I belong in tech anymore?

#147

Post by worik »

anal_reactor wrote: post #89
erentz wrote: post #33

The way AI is being used feels like it is proving that, in many orgs, what has always mattered has been the appearance of work, not results of work. Will we wake up in a few years and find out we’ve fired all the doers and are now overloaded with the fakers?

It feels like it but this is not true. Imagine that you're given a business problem to solve. You represent the process of writing the code with a graph - each vertex is a git commit. We consider the space of all possible git commits, so the graph is infinite. All vertices are connected with directional edges, and each edge has a value "cost". If you are in commit A and you want to go to commit B, you have to pay the…

> Obviously, if you have a group of people working on the same task, you'll reach the business goal faster.

That is not obvious at all.

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