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More challenging projects every programmer should try

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Re: More challenging projects every programmer should try

#221

Post by andrepd »

caffeine wrote: post #217
andrepd wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question: do you feel comfortable knowing that your job is doing something which is essentially net zero value to society? Negative in fact, you're burning resources which are needed elsewhere, and contributing to concentration of wealth. Not being rude or judgemental, just want to know how you feel about this.

Short answer: I am comfortable with my job. I think your question makes some incorrect factual assumptions, but also it incorporates a world view that I don't subscribe to (not wrong, but also not what I believe). I think that if I had your belief system and your set of facts, I would probably feel uncomfortable about it.

The world view is simply that this technology arms race performs no useful work to society. It's simply people with capital investing enormous sums into gaming a system and extracting $$. Okay, this so far is not even a view, it's just how things are. The "view" is that it is wrong x) Much like one could argue that e.g. the yacht industry diverts resources and people from other more pressing needs.

As for "my" set of facts... well they're just facts :) not "mine" or "yours".

Re: More challenging projects every programmer should try

#222

Post by andrepd »

qw3rty01 wrote: post #199
andrepd wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question: do you feel comfortable knowing that your job is doing something which is essentially net zero value to society? Negative in fact, you're burning resources which are needed elsewhere, and contributing to concentration of wealth. Not being rude or judgemental, just want to know how you feel about this.

This is a pretty loaded question to then say "not trying to be judgemental"...take out the bias if that's actually the case: "What kind of benefit do you believe your work provides to society?" or "How do you justify the extra resources taken away from society that may be more beneficial elsewhere, such as X?"

Well I don't know how to make it less loaded x) It's just how things are, it's a work that does no useful work in any meaningful sense, but serves to make some already fabulously rich people even richer (in fact, it extracts that value from non-HFT traders, so even those are shafted here).

My point is that I'm curious regarding how the people who work in these things feel about their job. Do they think they're doing a right thing? Do they "own it" to themselves that they don't care as long as they make money? Do they not think about it too much?

Re: More challenging projects every programmer should try

#225

Post by logifail »

andrepd wrote: post #222
qw3rty01 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a pretty loaded question to then say "not trying to be judgemental"...take out the bias if that's actually the case: "What kind of benefit do you believe your work provides to society?" or "How do you justify the extra resources taken away from society that may be more beneficial elsewhere, such as X?"

Well I don't know how to make it less loaded x) It's just how things are, it's a work that does no useful work in any meaningful sense, but serves to make some already fabulously rich people even richer (in fact, it extracts that value from non-HFT traders, so even those are shafted here). My point is that I'm curious regarding how the people who work in these things feel about their job. Do they think they're doing…

> it's a work that does no useful work in any meaningful sense, but serves to make some already fabulously rich people even richer

Isn't Robinhood able to offer free trading to customers solely because they sell their order flow on to, among others, HFT firms?[0]

[0] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/13/how-robinhood-makes-money-on...

Re: More challenging projects every programmer should try

#226

Post by mitchdoogle »

watwut wrote: post #139
fergie wrote: post #123

I would strongly recommend building something that you yourself think is cool, and not feeling that you have to conform to what other people tell you to do.

Most people draw blank when they are trying to come up with project idea. They are programmers, not creative after all. Which is why lists like this help.

Programmers literally create applications, features, games, whatever. You don't need to be making art to be creative. You just need to create something, and programmers do that all the time. It takes a lot of creativity to solve problems using code.

Re: More challenging projects every programmer should try

#227

Post by atla-sh »

anonytrary wrote: post #137
imtringued wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should grow a second spike. I'm at the point where visual design skills are a greater bottleneck than my computer science skills. I can build purely functional CAD models but man, making them functional AND look good is the real challenge.

Agreed. Everyone should aim to have 3-4 spikes they are passionate about. For every spike you have, you become exponentially more of a domain expert at the problems that are at the intersection of those spikes.

Another perk is that you have other spikes to grow for variety to keep you from burning out or becoming disinterested.

Re: More challenging projects every programmer should try

#228

Post by anonytrary »

watwut wrote: post #171
anonytrary wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are trying to think of an idea, you're already doing it wrong. The best ideas are motivated by problems you encounter yourself, not by trying to think of ideas. This is the biggest mistake you see with 20-something founders. Best way to come up with ideas is to use existing solutions and realize how shitty they are. Pretty much every single company was formed this way. > They are programmers, not creative afte…

Jesus, plenty of programmers are not creative. Majority really don't have problem they need to solve for themselves. They however want to learn and challenge themselves with variety of exercises. Why would you took offense in that or why would you assume that everyone is trying to build company is beyond me. In any case, this list is literally for programmers. It is not for founders. It is not meant to earn you money…

Well I must be biased, because at my last job, at least 80% of the programmers were really creative and brilliant people who were also highly skilled artists and musicians, lol. Perhaps I was just surrounded by extremely wonderful people :)

Re: More challenging projects every programmer should try

#229

Post by deanCommie »

henning wrote: post #9

As someone who has played with writing trading bots but never traded them with real money, some advice: if your results seem too good to be true, they probably are. Your trading bot may be doing unrealistic things or its results may not be reliable if the following are true: - You are trading in a market with low liquidity or one that is controlled by a small number of market participants. I'm not an expert but I thi…

> You can trade ETFs that are tied to an index but an index is not a tradable instrument in of itself.

Out of curiousity, what's the difference?

Re: More challenging projects every programmer should try

#230

Post by sbeller »

andrepd wrote: post #222
qw3rty01 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a pretty loaded question to then say "not trying to be judgemental"...take out the bias if that's actually the case: "What kind of benefit do you believe your work provides to society?" or "How do you justify the extra resources taken away from society that may be more beneficial elsewhere, such as X?"

Well I don't know how to make it less loaded x) It's just how things are, it's a work that does no useful work in any meaningful sense, but serves to make some already fabulously rich people even richer (in fact, it extracts that value from non-HFT traders, so even those are shafted here). My point is that I'm curious regarding how the people who work in these things feel about their job. Do they think they're doing…

> (in fact, it extracts that value from non-HFT traders, so even those are shafted here).

in return HFT provides liquidity (and by that smaller spreads) to the market, I would think.

If you ever bought or sold a stock with a market order, you profited from the work the HFT is doing.

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