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Your Progress As A Programmer Is All Up To You

thecodist.com

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Re: Your Progress As A Programmer Is All Up To You

#21

Post by adamredwoods »

arms wrote: post #5

Terrific post. This is exactly the type of individual I want to work with - someone who recognizes that they're in charge of their own advancement, and doesn't lay blame on any outside factors. As developers/builders/hackers we are ultimately responsible for our own success or failure.

i disagree somewhat.

the article was a bit heavy on the narcissism, i wouldn't want to work with such a person. i'd rather work with the Brazil-esque Robert DeNiro type: "Listen, kid, we're all in it together."

Re: Your Progress As A Programmer Is All Up To You

#22

Post by zzzcpan »

JackMorgan wrote: post #19

I have been writing and rewriting a post for the better part of a year on this same thing. I think I've finally accepted that a majority of programmers actually are not interested in learning new things. I got into software because there was so much to learn and explore, so this realization still baffles me. Why on earth would someone want to do this job and not want to learn new things? It's like a baseball player w…

No, they are interested, learning is fun for them too. But not everyone is interested in learning the same things you are. For me, for example, there is absolutely nothing more boring, than some new fancy framework, API or a language. I am, however, very excited to try things that might reduce amount of bugs and potential security issues in my code, make it cheaper to run, cheaper to support.

Re: Your Progress As A Programmer Is All Up To You

#23

Post by adamredwoods »

JackMorgan wrote: post #19

I have been writing and rewriting a post for the better part of a year on this same thing. I think I've finally accepted that a majority of programmers actually are not interested in learning new things. I got into software because there was so much to learn and explore, so this realization still baffles me. Why on earth would someone want to do this job and not want to learn new things? It's like a baseball player w…

some people feel that their lives do not revolve around programming, that there are other interesting things like traveling and child raising that take a chunk of their ever precious and limited time.

so it's not to say they aren't interested, but rather lack the time to dedicate. therefore, it helps if the company they work for can offer a little time to learn new things.

Re: Your Progress As A Programmer Is All Up To You

#24

Post by jasonlotito »

ryanobjc wrote: post #13

Interesting article, sounds like the author has really taken charge of their career and managed to do well. Now, what about an alternative world where he did not "get oo" or perhaps a lifestyle where he had children and no time at work to learn. Or one of these newer not quite as successful software companies which has no money and no extra time. Keeping up with new tech requires time, and money. Start ups provide ne…

> where he had children and no time at work to learn.

Using children as an excuse is laziness. It might not be as easy, but having children does not preclude you from learning new things or advancing yourself. It requires effort and planning, but frankly, using children as an excuse is wrong.

> Keeping up with new tech requires time, and money.

It requires time and effort. Money is rarely an issue.

> Even bigger "start ups" attempt to keep up the illusions of a smaller company

I'm going to assume that you just have bad experiences, because this is hardly my experience.

Re: Your Progress As A Programmer Is All Up To You

#25

Post by jasonlotito »

adamredwoods wrote: post #23
JackMorgan wrote: post #19

I have been writing and rewriting a post for the better part of a year on this same thing. I think I've finally accepted that a majority of programmers actually are not interested in learning new things. I got into software because there was so much to learn and explore, so this realization still baffles me. Why on earth would someone want to do this job and not want to learn new things? It's like a baseball player w…

some people feel that their lives do not revolve around programming, that there are other interesting things like traveling and child raising that take a chunk of their ever precious and limited time. so it's not to say they aren't interested, but rather lack the time to dedicate. therefore, it helps if the company they work for can offer a little time to learn new things.

> some people feel that their lives do not revolve around programming,

Your life doesn't have to revolve around programming to invest time in advancing your own career.

> so it's not to say they aren't interested

Well, that aren't interested in learning things on their own. You said it yourself.

Re: Your Progress As A Programmer Is All Up To You

#26

Post by JackMorgan »

zzzcpan wrote: post #22
JackMorgan wrote: post #19

I have been writing and rewriting a post for the better part of a year on this same thing. I think I've finally accepted that a majority of programmers actually are not interested in learning new things. I got into software because there was so much to learn and explore, so this realization still baffles me. Why on earth would someone want to do this job and not want to learn new things? It's like a baseball player w…

No, they are interested, learning is fun for them too. But not everyone is interested in learning the same things you are. For me, for example, there is absolutely nothing more boring, than some new fancy framework, API or a language. I am, however, very excited to try things that might reduce amount of bugs and potential security issues in my code, make it cheaper to run, cheaper to support.

So long as you don't have to learn a language, API, or framework to do it... I'm not sure what things are left you could do differently? Your list excludes all technology-related changes, so the rest becomes meta-activities: pair programming, documentation, planning, a good nights sleep, etc. Those are excellent, but I'm curious why are you willing to change those other areas but are resistant to technological ones?

That irrational fear of technological change is exactly what I'm talking about. There's a joke around some of my friends, "What's the best way to get a mediocre .NET programmer to stop talking about safety and reducing bugs? Bring up the safest most secure .NET language that exists: F#."

As the joke goes, most of these developers are confronted with the reality that they don't really care about bugs enough to even bother learning a different fully supported .NET language that will find entire classes of bugs automatically and is orders of magnitude safer than C# and is faster to write.

Most people when they have told me they "care about bugs, not languages" have been just saying something nebulous to kill the discussion and defend their life choices.

I'm not trying to be snarky to you, I'm actually very interested to know what changes you've made that are not technological to reduce bugs, fix security holes, etc. I'm always on the prowl for such stuff, and this sounds intriguing.

Re: Your Progress As A Programmer Is All Up To You

#27

Post by JackMorgan »

adamredwoods wrote: post #23
JackMorgan wrote: post #19

I have been writing and rewriting a post for the better part of a year on this same thing. I think I've finally accepted that a majority of programmers actually are not interested in learning new things. I got into software because there was so much to learn and explore, so this realization still baffles me. Why on earth would someone want to do this job and not want to learn new things? It's like a baseball player w…

some people feel that their lives do not revolve around programming, that there are other interesting things like traveling and child raising that take a chunk of their ever precious and limited time. so it's not to say they aren't interested, but rather lack the time to dedicate. therefore, it helps if the company they work for can offer a little time to learn new things.

I'm talking about developers who when offered a chance to learn something new at work reject it, usually while getting pretty defensive.

My current hypothesis is people get so used to internally defending their neglect of the skills that earn them travel and shelter that when the opportunity arises to actually get paid to improve, all the reasons they normally use prevent them from even doing that.

Re: Your Progress As A Programmer Is All Up To You

#28

Post by zzzcpan »

JackMorgan wrote: post #26
zzzcpan wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they are interested, learning is fun for them too. But not everyone is interested in learning the same things you are. For me, for example, there is absolutely nothing more boring, than some new fancy framework, API or a language. I am, however, very excited to try things that might reduce amount of bugs and potential security issues in my code, make it cheaper to run, cheaper to support.

So long as you don't have to learn a language, API, or framework to do it... I'm not sure what things are left you could do differently? Your list excludes all technology-related changes, so the rest becomes meta-activities: pair programming, documentation, planning, a good nights sleep, etc. Those are excellent, but I'm curious why are you willing to change those other areas but are resistant to technological ones?…

  > I'm not sure what things are left you 
  > could do differently?
There are so many thing that are left - one cannot do them in a lifetime! Analyze as much bugs as you can, invent your own language that prevents them from happening, write your own compiler for this language, make it fast, with better memory management, not some stop-the-world GC, but with something, that honors low-latency and so on.

EDIT: As RogerL is saying, useful to me intellectual knowledge is what I want to learn. It's pretty much never the same thing as anyone else in the room wants to learn.

Re: Your Progress As A Programmer Is All Up To You

#29

Post by RogerL »

JackMorgan wrote: post #26
zzzcpan wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they are interested, learning is fun for them too. But not everyone is interested in learning the same things you are. For me, for example, there is absolutely nothing more boring, than some new fancy framework, API or a language. I am, however, very excited to try things that might reduce amount of bugs and potential security issues in my code, make it cheaper to run, cheaper to support.

So long as you don't have to learn a language, API, or framework to do it... I'm not sure what things are left you could do differently? Your list excludes all technology-related changes, so the rest becomes meta-activities: pair programming, documentation, planning, a good nights sleep, etc. Those are excellent, but I'm curious why are you willing to change those other areas but are resistant to technological ones?…

Let's see, I'm learning about unscented Kalman filters, moving object tracking in computer vision, PCA, and more. I'm learning about the problem domain that I'm working in. I have no interest in learning yet another API unless I absolutely have to, because it isn't really interesting knowledge that I have to call the fibble() function before calling xacxtyor() in this poorly documented API. That's not learning, it's the accumulation of facts.

Of course, sometimes learning new API/languages enables meaningful learning, and I'm all for it. Want to quickly get a handle on Kalman Filters? Probably a lot faster to put something together with numpy (say) and experiment on the REPL than to program it in a performant language like C or C++, even if that is where it will eventually end up running in your project. So, yes, there's a great reason to learn those languages (or Julia, or whatever).

But the endless march of APIs is pretty tiring to me, and I do everything I can to isolate myself from that. I'm pretty happy writing my C++, and Python (2.7, btw), while trying to solve rather hard problems.

Another way to put it - what I value is intellectual work, not memorization/puzzling things out. Learn a new math technique? Awesome! Learn a byzantine set of calls I need to make to make a widget widge on the screen? Not so much.

Re: Your Progress As A Programmer Is All Up To You

#30

Post by SheepSlapper »

stdbrouw wrote: post #9

I think it's possible to agree with both this post and with the other programmer he's railing against. Yep, I know that if I don't take care of my own training, it's just not going to happen, most companies are not so altruistic that they'll hand me everything on a silver platter. But at the same time, a company that never hires people unless they already have the exact skillset they're looking for, a company that fi…

You hit the nail on the head. It's the programmer's responsibility to stay relevant, not some company's. But the best companies will take an active role in ensuring their programmers stay up to date (since it's in the company's best interest, too).
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