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NYPD is canceling its Palantir contract

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Re: NYPD is canceling its Palantir contract

#241

Post by nine_k »

CydeWeys wrote: post #172
mattmanser wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Java/Swing isn't even a data format, it's the interface tech. Nor is it outdated. Like, if you'd said COBOL it might be a valid point. It's as ignorant of basic technology as saying my car runs on a particular type of rubber so I can't use batteries. Honestly, for a tech site I'm ashamed this is the top comment, just seems to be an excuse to rag on Palantir and decry not using the present FOTM.

I moved from a "sexy" NodeJS stack at my last job to a staid Java 7 stack at my current job (we can't move to Java 8 until App Engine supports it). The code at my current job is much better written, is more thoroughly tested, and is more pleasant to continue development on. The codebase at my previous job was a rat's nest, caused primarily by lower-skilled developers, no time allocated to technical debt or refactorin…

NodeJS is only sexy if you prefer weird unprotected sex.

NodeJS leverages the advanced V8 JIT and async operation in its crudest form. It's good for certain classes of tasks (a lot of I/O with simple logic around it), but not as great for the more general case.

OTOH Typescript can alleviate many of the problems of JS proper, the execution model is still a bit uncomfortable. I'd rather take Erlang /Elixir for the typical Node case.

Re: NYPD is canceling its Palantir contract

#242

Post by bitmapbrother »

svendisnigh wrote: post #13

Palantir has an outdated software stack (Java/Swing). Their genius lied in creating "mythical image" and cleverly overselling it to the less proficient government agencies (apparently NSA was smart enough to see through the ruse). And then in turn sell the "spooky/mysterious" image to bunch of naive Stanford/Berkeley undergrads and convince them to work for peanuts. Sadly in 2017, their tech stack is falling apart, t…

>Palantir has an outdated software stack (Java/Swing). Sadly in 2017, their tech stack is falling apart, they have no meaningful ML/AI strategy

If I were to guess I would say you failed the interview. You should probably brush up on your Java and Swing.

Re: NYPD is canceling its Palantir contract

#243

Post by civilitty »

bitmapbrother wrote: post #242
svendisnigh wrote: post #13

Palantir has an outdated software stack (Java/Swing). Their genius lied in creating "mythical image" and cleverly overselling it to the less proficient government agencies (apparently NSA was smart enough to see through the ruse). And then in turn sell the "spooky/mysterious" image to bunch of naive Stanford/Berkeley undergrads and convince them to work for peanuts. Sadly in 2017, their tech stack is falling apart, t…

>Palantir has an outdated software stack (Java/Swing). Sadly in 2017, their tech stack is falling apart, they have no meaningful ML/AI strategy If I were to guess I would say you failed the interview. You should probably brush up on your Java and Swing.

That sounds incredibly defensive. Not one substantive response to any of OP's claims, huh?

Re: NYPD is canceling its Palantir contract

#244

Post by civilitty »

flippy2 wrote: post #229
eddigo wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I interviewed there in 2012. The engineer called me, did his little talk and we jumped into the questions. His first question was the subset sum problem. The literal problem. It wasn't even couched in a practical application. So I said "this is subset sum. You can solve it with dynamic programming. I would look it up in a book." His response was "but I want you to solve it." I stopped the interview and thanked him fo…

Lol. Actually, they are the kind of questions us really sr people ask to ensure people are willing to actually do work. Anyone who brushes off a question stating that it's beneath them is going to get walked right out of the building by my team.

Yeah, no. Senior people don't want someone to waste time coming up with their own bug ridden solution when it's readily available elsewhere in a peer reviewed form. That kind of experience is what makes gives them the senior qualifier.

Re: NYPD is canceling its Palantir contract

#245

Post by brianleb »

bostand wrote: post #208
pyre wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems that the largest issue with your previous job is a lack of coding standards/discipline. I think that this point: > the weakly-typed/dynamic nature of JavaScript itself which doesn't scale well to larger server-side codebases has less to do with it. Do you really feel that your strongly-typed Java job would be so great if all of the other poor practices of your previous job were in place?

I beg to differ. Have your ever tried to maintain a large js project? It gets harder the bigger the codebase gets.

Is there an alternate universe where this is not true? Where things get simpler while they get more complex?

Re: NYPD is canceling its Palantir contract

#246

Post by dzhiurgis »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #160
bootloop wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.onshape.com Build by some Solidworks people offering basically the same experience but in the browser with server side computation. Very promising as it tries to solve problems which the older CAD players can't tackle with there current desktop tech.

God, I have such mixed feelings after viewing the product overview video on their site. On the one hand, you can't deny the wins that comes from bullshit-free operations - no installing, no permissions, no need to deal with sysadmins to approve a new program[0], and updates do themselves. Files are backed up and trivially shared across devices. On the other hand, you're now locked in to a vendor system, with vendor s…

I dread whenever I need to open MS Word and choose G Suite anytime I need to write a longer document...

Re: NYPD is canceling its Palantir contract

#247

Post by ng12 »

osrec wrote: post #104

I remember a friend of mine interviewing there. He was flown from London to SF for the interview. He got through the technical questions fairly easily. At the end, he had an interview with one of the co-founders, who asked him "As an FDE, what do you think your role is?". My friend totally BS'd his way through the response, thinking he's messed up the interview. The founder however ate up everything he said, and adde…

To be fair that's how the game is played. You can't get in the door at a government agency or Fortune 500 company without offering support staff.

Re: NYPD is canceling its Palantir contract

#248

Post by ng12 »

civilitty wrote: post #244
flippy2 wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol. Actually, they are the kind of questions us really sr people ask to ensure people are willing to actually do work. Anyone who brushes off a question stating that it's beneath them is going to get walked right out of the building by my team.

Yeah, no. Senior people don't want someone to waste time coming up with their own bug ridden solution when it's readily available elsewhere in a peer reviewed form. That kind of experience is what makes gives them the senior qualifier.

So Palantir wants senior people who still know how to write code. If you consider it below you, then don't work there. What's the problem?

Re: NYPD is canceling its Palantir contract

#249

Post by bitmapbrother »

civilitty wrote: post #243
bitmapbrother wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Palantir has an outdated software stack (Java/Swing). Sadly in 2017, their tech stack is falling apart, they have no meaningful ML/AI strategy If I were to guess I would say you failed the interview. You should probably brush up on your Java and Swing.

That sounds incredibly defensive. Not one substantive response to any of OP's claims, huh?

When you open with a substanceless proclamation that Java is outdated anything further must be taken with a large grain of salt.

Re: NYPD is canceling its Palantir contract

#250

Post by criddell »

StevePerkins wrote: post #239
criddell wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I kind of wish that Sun had never come up with applets. Java in the browser was a bad idea from so many different perspectives.

What do applets have to do with anything? I wish that applets had never been invented, too. But only because of market confusion. So many people who don't know anything about Java mix up applets (which haven't been relevant in almost 20 years) with Swing or JavaFX desktop apps, think that security vulnerabilities found in the browser plugin mean that standalone Java apps are "insecure" in general, etc.

I think applets gave Java a terrible black eye as a client-side because of how insecure Java in the browser turned out to be.

The market confusion I would blame on Netscape for choosing "Javascript" as the name for their scripting language.

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