vague question, depends on what metrics you want to measure yourself. effective on what, generating revenue? creating impact to the world? you can answer that.
I am a quite good bad programmer
151–160 of 160 posts
Re: I am a quite good bad programmer
#152> I understands the usage of Hash / Map instead of searching arrays and many other small things that actually enhance the code performance I would consider this an assumed skill for any developer with a college degree. It’s basically the point of the entire Data Structures class, which is a degree requirement.
And yet there are plenty of developers who happily loop through an array a couple of times looking for an object with a specific key. In Javascript.
Knowing the theory doesn't mean people apply it in practice.
Re: I am a quite good bad programmer
#153It's difficult for any of us to really tell how much truth is in every statement. For example readability - its difficult to asses it without looking at your code. It's nothing personal, but many developers tend to think about their skills higher than they are in reality. What i can suggest you, is to ask for feedback after interviews. You will get more specifics there EDIT: I forgot to actually add a verb in the fir…
Don't take seriously any feedback you get from an interview. Unless you already trust someone involved in the process.
Re: I am a quite good bad programmer
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
My fear is, I see many 0.5x programmers / workers who are active drag on products and teams. :-/ The problem with these workers are, the more you have these people on the team, it has a multiplying effect instead of additive in terms of productivity. 0.5x0.5x0.5 (not 0.5+0.5+0.5)
I would say it is a range from 0.1-1.0,10 Companies need those 10xdevs because they are bloated with dead weight. But office politics make it very hard to cut that dead weight.
If most of the team are actually 0.1s then a 1 will seem like a x10.
Anyway, I've worked with plenty of people who can get stuff done, and I've been able to get stuff done myself sometimes. However, it's all relative and if I'd been at Xerox Parc in the 70s I'd have been a 0.001 for sure.
Re: I am a quite good bad programmer
#155You're "expected" to study for job interview questions. It's more a measure of willingness to jump through hoops than your competence. Developer interview questions in general has little to do with what you'll do as a developer, and what you're expected to know as a developer.
This is so weird. Aren’t you just selecting for obedience and unnecessary hoop jumping? It seems like this would also select the kind of engineers who aren’t willing to say “no, that’s a dumb approach, we shouldn’t do that, here’s an alternative”? When I was a Junior dev one of the first lessons my boss taught me was to always always speak up if something looked off to me. Maybe I’d get an explanation and be enlighte…
> Aren’t you just selecting for obedience and unnecessary hoop jumping?
Let's be real, that's exactly what most mid+ companies are looking for.
Re: I am a quite good bad programmer
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
> if experience in the field is one of the most important criteria, why are they implicitly avoiding testing for that? That's easy. No one wants to hire "olds." Since companies are now run by twenty-something CEOs, no one wants to hire people that make the CEO uncomfortable. It really is that simple. Basic bigotry. In my experience, many companies don't even try to hide it. Recruiters are awful . I just learned that…
Maybe solo dev of niche product is a better alley for some?
It's the one I chose.
Works for me, but I have different ambitions from most folks in the industry.
I've never really wanted to be rich. It would be nice, but it's never been a need.
I do, however, have skills that could make other people rich. They have been so fixated on my gray hair, though, that they never even realized that.
Re: I am a quite good bad programmer
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
> if experience in the field is one of the most important criteria, why are they implicitly avoiding testing for that? That's easy. No one wants to hire "olds." Since companies are now run by twenty-something CEOs, no one wants to hire people that make the CEO uncomfortable. It really is that simple. Basic bigotry. In my experience, many companies don't even try to hide it. Recruiters are awful . I just learned that…
This never occurred to me but it makes sense. I’m in my late 30s. Not too far from being older than many tech CEOs and I have seen plenty of BS I could call out. I have a family, mortgage, and am not “wowed” by some slick CEO.
Many of these young CEOs are really brilliant folks. They deserve to be given a fairly free rein.
However, there's a big difference between brilliance, and good judgment.
Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment.
When a CEO makes a mistake, there's usually only one strike, and you're out (we won't talk about Steve Jobs, though -that SOB had nine lives). When lower-level managers make mistakes, it's often recoverable.
Until recently, it was fairly common for corporations to be run by folks (usually men, but that's another issue) in their fifties.
These folks had no problems considering older folks on their merits (which often included price). If they discriminated against older folks, it was usually because they didn't want to pay for something. It wasn't really personal (but that doesn't make it any less reprehensible). Younger folks, on the other hand, bring in the younger generation's resentment against their elders, so it is personal.
Many folks think that only younger folks are creative. I'd not argue that youth doesn't have a great deal of creative energy; mostly because they haven't encountered limitations, imposed by things like the laws of physics.
Creativity, however, does not equal results. What SpaceX has done with reusable boosters, is awesome. I do not know the details, but I'll bet the team that developed it was not just a bunch of enthusiastic kids. I'll lay odds there's a lot of well-coiffed grey pompadours in that team.
IBM is in hot water, because they adopted a "cargo cult" mentality, that, if they hired enough younger folks (and got rid of their "olds"), they'd magically transform into a startup unicorn.
I don't think that strategy has actually worked out too well.
Re: I am a quite good bad programmer
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
I had an extraordinarily painful conversation with experience programmers when I pointed out that the values that the hash key relyed upon must not change, for the life of the hash map.
the nitpicker in me wants to say that the hash key can change (and it works if you rehash items whose key changed), but lookup by key will fail because the item will landed in the bucket of its original hash... but yes keys can't change if you want your values to be retrievable by key.
Is it nitpicking if we end up with fewer bugs as a result of the conversation? :)
Re: I am a quite good bad programmer
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
Example: I work in medical devices, a regulated space. My job is 50% normal software engineering, and 50% dealing with BS regulations. It's part of the job. You can get annoyed at it, but it won't go away, and the job can be very fulfilling if you can get past the BS part.
How many devices do you see or design have implicit state in the software controlling them? (if it is not explcitly defined, and there is state based behaviour, it is by definition then implicit) At the moment I'm trying to overcome the inertia on this issue in the general process/industry sector with child standards from IEC 61508 - 61511 and 62061. I am guesssing you apply the medical standards IEC 60601? Or at des…
I work on software as a medical device, so I have no idea about hardware safety controls. I have to deal with change control boards and approval matrices for every new build we push, though.
Re: I am a quite good bad programmer
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
the nitpicker in me wants to say that the hash key can change (and it works if you rehash items whose key changed), but lookup by key will fail because the item will landed in the bucket of its original hash... but yes keys can't change if you want your values to be retrievable by key.
Is it nitpicking if we end up with fewer bugs as a result of the conversation? :)
that's the spirit!