I think it's a very bizarre assumption to think that running some code you found on the internet will just do exactly what you want right out of the box. That almost never happens.
Today’s JavaScript, from an outsider’s perspective (2020)
151–160 of 391 posts
Re: Today’s JavaScript, from an outsider’s perspective (2020)
#152This is a problem with all kinds of programming for new learners - actually writing some code is easy. But getting a development environment configured to actually allow you to start writing that code requires a ton of tacit knowledge. I find this to be the biggest hurdle to new joiners. When I was first learning in my grad job, my company did a terrible job of addressing this and threw us into a test project with no…
As a consequence what one should actually strive for, if one is aiming to become a professional software developer, is to have a good process for mastering these types of “configuration” tasks. Understanding why language ecosystems are organized the way they are, understanding the trade-offs involved etc. I believe, will make you a significantly more productive developer.
It’s where I see a lot of junior developers plateauing. They keep “banging their head against the wall until it works” instead of carefully unpacking why things are breaking in order to update their mental models.
Re: Today’s JavaScript, from an outsider’s perspective (2020)
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
Manipulating csv has become way easier than it was. You have: 1. Spreadsheets where you can import this data and manipulate it visually 2. CLI tools made especially to work on csv, with fancy colors, shortcuts, examples 3. Visual tools for data analysis like google data studio, power bi etc. Where you basically dragon drop the data and pick charts 4. RStudio where you can load your data using file->open and then copy…
swear to god if one more person talks about the specifics of this illustrative case, and then goes on to explain how they are so silly and should have used tool "xyz" my head is going to explode
You don't need to use any tool, it's a general purpose programming language, so "making a script to analyze csv" requires you to learn the basics of programming and what csv is.
It's not unnecessarily complex, but expecting people to handhold and teach you programming for free when you haven't shown any commitment to learning is silly. If you were to do this, you will essentially be writing programs for clueless people for free and they just move on(they may not learn anything).
If you want to learn programming join a bootcamp or a hacker group or get a formal education(where people will be paid for this).
Re: Today’s JavaScript, from an outsider’s perspective (2020)
#154We just need all this tooling to go in the browser.. which is where it always belonged. That was the purpose of JS. To "just run" in the browser. It's getting there but very slowly. As for my own rant, simply the fact that Microsoft, of all places are the ones who run TypeScript and now the proposal to add TS to native JS.. is part of the issue. MS has zero imagination. JS needs native typing and it shouldn't be done…
>That was the purpose of JS. To "just run" in the browser. It's getting there but very slowly.
It's not getting there, it was ALREADY THERE. Javascript has always "just run" in the browser.
We don't need any of this tooling. Typescript isn't necessary. NPM isn't necessary. None of this is necessary. They're useful, yes, but they shouldn't be mandatory. The simple act of testing some code you found on Github shouldn't require any of it.
Re: Today’s JavaScript, from an outsider’s perspective (2020)
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
> the only reason this barrier was ever breached for this person was due to their large twitter following I feel like their approach to solving the problem actually does represent how most people deal with it - they ASK someone. There are hundreds of massive programming discord servers, with extremely engaged tutors, helpers, and resources. If you want to learn to program, you'll need guidance, and I think that's OK.…
Have you ever actually tried to do this? Programmers are extremely opinionated people. If you somehow manage to get past the barrier of "pretending to look smart so you can even ask a question without getting flamed to hell and back (hello, stackoverflow!)" you will be met with people suggesting different things, which quickly devolves into a giant argument about which thing is better and why this guy is so stupid fo…
I'm one of those learners and this is true to an extent. But there's fantastic people in r/learnprogramming for example. Even better than the Discord of the self-paced bootcamp I'm doing...
But the complexity is real. I'm learning Django, which is supposedly easy, and it's a completely different beast than learning the in and outs of a language. And Django has good documentation, for some libraries it's a mess.
Re: Today’s JavaScript, from an outsider’s perspective (2020)
#156I think it's a very bizarre assumption to think that running some code you found on the internet will just do exactly what you want right out of the box. That almost never happens.
They never even got to the point of running the code because of Node's bullshit, which is the point.
Re: Today’s JavaScript, from an outsider’s perspective (2020)
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
Was going to edit this in but it quickly turned into a related rant about the state of things: if you don't want that, scroll past. The real problem is that there's no more room for the technological "middle class". We've gotten to the point where you cannot be SLIGHTLY interested in computers, want to make a quick app for yourself, or make something small to share with the world. You either have to have no interest…
If we have a middle class in tech, we also have the "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" pretending to be the top claiming everyone below them isn't good enough for something as simple as creating a few endpoints and vibechecking rather than checking skills. And this extends all the way to the job market, where you now need 3 years of experience for a skill most people know how to use in about a week tops, and only…
I had an interesting conversation the other day with our delivery manager and two other developers from another team, who had a wildly different than me assessment of a recent candidate.
Their argument was that he didn't know this and that and how is it that I deemed him worthy?
I interjected by saying that during these 30min I get to ask questions I don't have nearly the time to check one's skills throughly. And the same is true for them.
The most I can achieve in this timeframe is check whether the person won't be actively harmful to the project by e.g. being a charlatan or just malicious.
This was news to the delivery manager and they didn't approve of that.
I refrained from replying that our rates vs the market don't really put us in a position to be picky.
But I did tell them that I worked with "net negative" people(with examples) and it's really not about the skills at the moment of hiring.
Re: Today’s JavaScript, from an outsider’s perspective (2020)
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you try simple vanilla javascript, then you may be surprised at how pythonic it is in cerain ways - e.g. just open a browser (any browser!) and you have a javascript REPL read to go in the developer tools. Node severely complicates and confuses things, but node alone is not javascript. Vanilla JS is IMHO a very nice and expressive language, and you do not need any of the Node/Webpack/React/Vue/jquery/whatever to d…
Oh, there is another way to code with JS on the server side? Something else besides node?
Try http://deno.land - think of it as sequel to node (written by same guy who created node, aiming to fix mistakes of the past - e.g. deno does not use NPM)
Re: Today’s JavaScript, from an outsider’s perspective (2020)
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
If we have a middle class in tech, we also have the "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" pretending to be the top claiming everyone below them isn't good enough for something as simple as creating a few endpoints and vibechecking rather than checking skills. And this extends all the way to the job market, where you now need 3 years of experience for a skill most people know how to use in about a week tops, and only…
I had an interesting conversation the other day with our delivery manager and two other developers from another team, who had a wildly different than me assessment of a recent candidate. Their argument was that he didn't know this and that and how is it that I deemed him worthy? I interjected by saying that during these 30min I get to ask questions I don't have nearly the time to check one's skills throughly. And the…
I'd like to see more of this.
It astounds me that software dev, historically seen as a field with and for "poor communicators", somehow believes its interviewers can do what top psychologists consider almost impossible to do. Same happens across almost every industry, but really, tech? "Cold hard logic" tech somehow became "yeah we can totally psychoanalyze someone in 30 minutes by talking"?
Worse, the lack of structure across the entirety makes it more of a lottery and a guessing game which is more or less sold as one's personal (in)capabilities. It's far more harmful than people make it out to be.
Re: Today’s JavaScript, from an outsider’s perspective (2020)
#160This thread is also a good read: https://twitter.com/Aella_Girl/status/1522633160483385345 Shows that a lot of people, ESPECIALLY programmers, vastly overestimate the competence of the average person when it comes to whatever they are an expert at. You may think that this person is silly - but that is tainted by your past experience of already knowing it warping what you think the baseline average knowledge level is…
Was going to edit this in but it quickly turned into a related rant about the state of things: if you don't want that, scroll past. The real problem is that there's no more room for the technological "middle class". We've gotten to the point where you cannot be SLIGHTLY interested in computers, want to make a quick app for yourself, or make something small to share with the world. You either have to have no interest…
This has been a professional concern for me for many years. I lead grad students with no programming experience into making their own tools for research and sharing. I've completely given up on learning a programming ecosystem and building programs from scratch. Rather, I work within applications that can be scripted to a task. I envy the engineering students for whom Matlab is enough, because that seems to be the closest modern equivalent of Visual Basic. Mathematica is sort of there, but much harder to learn and not easily shareable.