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My Biggest Regret as a Programmer

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Re: My Biggest Regret as a Programmer

#491

Post by quicklyfrozen »

frenchy wrote: post #262
hawleyal wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such hate. By far not as bad as you portray. Have you attempted the 8th level of hell that is PHP?

Back in the day when I was just learning to program, I wrote a BBcode library in JavaScript. Not knowing any better, I made very liberal use of globals throughout my code. I later went to go port my code to PHP 4 (that was current at the time). To my surprise I was getting all these errors about how crappy of a programmer I was (both from globals and from misspellings and related problems). I'm honestly not sure how…

For me it was things like "function_returning_array()[0]" working in JS but not PHP and other unexpected parsing weirdness like that. (Though I don't really mind PHP, just much of the code written in it :-) )

Re: My Biggest Regret as a Programmer

#493

Post by 50CNT »

wtbob wrote: post #80
forgottenacc56 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

JavaScript is actually an incredibly flexible and effective language.

> JavaScript is actually an incredibly flexible and effective language. == vs === No integers. Assignment is declaration. Prototypes. Curly brackets & semicolons. Semicolon insertion. It may be flexible (in the sense that an Alfa Romeo driven into a telephone pole at 120 mph is flexible), but it sure as heck ain't effective. JavaScript is the great shame of the computing industry: that it exists, and that it is used,…

I can't say that Javascript is the most fun language to use, but I think that's because given the way it's positioned, it has a bit of a hoarding problem. It's picked up the millenial issue that the stupid things you said in your teens are never ever going away, because they are permanently spread through the internet. Fun.

The amount of "Bad Things" does make stumbling hazards, which is why I'm completely convinced that if you can, you should use a saner language, but there's no (yet?). In those cases, we need to fence off the trash, put up warning signs on the exposed wiring, tape a post it note to "v instanceof Array" and try to write the sanest javascript we can.

Re: My Biggest Regret as a Programmer

#494

Post by magicalist »

tomp wrote: post #487
karmelapple wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting point. The idea of a meritocracy is pretty ingrained into the tech world, and that means control over life is internal, not external. But tech is not a meritocracy. [1] [2] Accepting that you have less control over your life may change some of your outcomes, but I doubt it would completely crush one's spirit. I've accepted that I'll never flap my arms unaided and fly like a bird. I'm not depressed because…

> But tech is not a meritocracy. Some people say it is, others say it isn't. Neither use a lot of data in their arguments.

Some people say it is, until you ask them if tech interviewing is sane. We can't even find a tech interview process that correlates well with performance and that's just who we let in the door before they even get to rise up as their value merits.

Then you add questions of if who is chosen for promotion is sane, if what products a company chooses to focus on is sane, if what products the market chooses to make popular is sane. None of those are optimal in the sense that the "best" thing wins out. Marketing (of a product or self-promotion) and being in the right place at the right time dominate each of those steps.

So how on earth would you take that and get a meritocracy out the other end?

Re: My Biggest Regret as a Programmer

#495

Post by tobltobs »

forgottenacc56 wrote: post #64
romanovcode wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Javascript was designed so that clown on your website moves when you click on it.

JavaScript is actually an incredibly flexible and effective language.

Assembler is actually an incredibly flexible and effective language.

Re: My Biggest Regret as a Programmer

#496

Post by sheepleherd »

hashkb wrote: post #194
Zelmor wrote: post #24

He would have been unhappy with the other choice as well, because then it is the programming side he would be missing out on. I would advise everyone to read The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost. http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173536 You chose one option out of many, and the others may no longer be a possibility. However, the writer's unhappiness does not spawn from his inability to be successful at what he does,…

He quotes Frost in his post. Pretty sure he gets your point. In fact, he was making it.

he quotes Frost, but I don't see why he thinks "remaining a programmer" is "the road less taken". In most hierarchical promotion systems, one is chosen to lead many... leadership is always the road less taken, even if it is the road most desired.

Re: My Biggest Regret as a Programmer

#498

Post by asn0 »

I faced this same decision (for very similar reasons) about 15 years ago, and decided to go the management track (I'd been a back-seat manager before that too). I enjoyed helping "underlings" succeed, was well-respected (not always popular) by those people I managed, had some good mentors, and had some good success moving up the ladder. I was reluctantly getting used to the fact that I spent most of my time in meetings, and made no direct contribution to the bottom line of the company.

After 3 years a programming job came up from a company that was an early adopter of telecommuting and had (organically) adopted many business concepts since popularized by 37Signals (i.e. better job by eliminating the crap). The company I was at was asphyxiating due to 2008 crash, so I took the leap. Coincidentally I had read 4 Hour Week around that time. I knew it was a potential "step back", but it seemed like a better way to work (I could be a programmer, and strongly influence the direction of the company, and have a much better work-life balance).

Best choice I ever made. I have since changed jobs twice (first company got bought out by a bigger public company, who ruined the fun with bureaucracy), but what I look for now is a company that is structured in a way that front-line technical people (and Support people, and Sales people) can meaningfully influence the success and direction of the company, and the executive management spends most of their time with sleeves rolled up, coding or closing deals, and very little time as overlords. Those companies are out there, more now than before.

Many people who I have worked with in the past are now in executive positions. They often try to persuade me to move into management (so far, unsuccessfully). Some of them make more money than I do (that, fortunately has also changed in the last 10 years). All of them spend their days doing things that I would enjoy less than what I get to do, the things I would have been doing if I'd stayed on the executive track. The pay/asset difference would not make up for the work and life I enjoy now.

YMMV

Re: My Biggest Regret as a Programmer

#499

Post by haliax »

asn0 wrote: post #498

I faced this same decision (for very similar reasons) about 15 years ago, and decided to go the management track (I'd been a back-seat manager before that too). I enjoyed helping "underlings" succeed, was well-respected (not always popular) by those people I managed, had some good mentors, and had some good success moving up the ladder. I was reluctantly getting used to the fact that I spent most of my time in meetin…

How do you recognize these types of good companies?

Re: My Biggest Regret as a Programmer

#500

Post by crasco »

edraferi wrote: post #110
a_imho wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>5. Most business problems are political/social Very insightful. Wondering why it is not discussed more often with so many snake oilers selling their silver bullets.

It's a lot simpler to throw money at technology than actually face policy / culture problems.

This is so true. It also explains the revolving door of CIO/CTOs at many places. Every 3-5 years, a new one comes in, makes minor changes and avoids the elephant in the room. On and on we go.
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