Things Many People Find Too Obvious to Have Told You Already • Hacker News Board

Re: Things Many People Find Too Obvious to Have Told You Already

#491

Post by jack9 » Sun, Dec 03, 2017, 9:26 PM UTC

allenz wrote: post #128

jack9 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The author argues that programming schools should be vocational schools I dont see where. The implication is that they are assumed to be contrary to reality. It's supposed to be a list of obvious facts.

The full tweet, from the link: "CS programs have, in the main, not decided that the primary path to becoming a programmer should involve doing material actual programming. There are some exceptions: Waterloo, for example. This is the point where I joke "That's an exhaustive list" but not sure that a joke." This reads to me that Patrick wishes that the joke were not true, which is corroborated by other comments of his…

> The author argues that programming schools should be vocational schools

I still don't see this argument being made in ANYTHING you posted now.

> The fact that you think that the article is in any way objective is why it is so dangerous.

How does this relate? I asked for how you came to a conclusion and have gone off into other topics that you're using to characterize a perspective or ideology. I don't care about what you think or what the author thinks. I care about finding how you jumped to a conclusion based on the article's text.

The handwaving to make your own intellectual assertions (right or wrong) have nothing to do with my issue, in the content of what you originally stated. Good luck with whatever.

Re: Things Many People Find Too Obvious to Have Told You Already

#492

Post by Y7ZCQtNo39 » Sun, Dec 03, 2017, 9:46 PM UTC

0xCMP wrote: post #471

Y7ZCQtNo39 wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of things of business value go like this, for example: go build this UI in React, etc. You don't need the ability to significantly return something back to academia to do that. You just need good coding mechanics.

Not the point: college is for CS. Not for "building on the work of others." You learn the basics that everyone needs to do the advanced work. If that isn't needed/useful then you need a vocational school instead of a CS program. Making people do continual simple demos and nonsense programs instead of teaching them actual CS is BS. They can be simple programs, they don't need to build huge things, but what they build…

Are there vocational programs beyond those 20-week'ish coding schools? Because those don't seem to equip people with quite enough skill.

Re: Things Many People Find Too Obvious to Have Told You Already

#493

Post by Terretta » Sun, Dec 03, 2017, 11:19 PM UTC

virgilp wrote: post #435

_wp3r wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would bet my lunch that your scenario was a keyword mismatch. Always keep in mind that the "hiring person" at startups is usually the non-technical person. So you have to get past the skills list provided by the CTO/CIO/Lead Dev. I have seen three approaches to limit this. First being to stay super field specific but implementation general, but not keyword void. Second, is to go super rabbit hole on every keyword/t…

You might be right (though there may be other explanations, e.g. ageism or just wanting local employees, and writing "remote" just for the heck of it, "to get more leads"). But even if you're right, that just reinforces my point: I'm not desperate to get a job; I wrote to have a discussion, because they managed to pique my interest... I didn't put any kind of effort to "market" myself, thought they'll figure things o…

I think that’s an interesting cross section. I’ll talk to you. Email in profile.

Re: Things Many People Find Too Obvious to Have Told You Already

#494

Post by vilmosi » Mon, Dec 04, 2017, 12:14 AM UTC

toasterlovin wrote: post #286

vilmosi wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's difficult to prove that IQ is relevant to the job... Maybe it's not. Also, I doubt that's the reason.

It’s not difficult to demonstrate that IQ is relevant to job performance (its the best predictor of performance for most jobs). The problem is to demonstrate that it doesn’t have a discriminatory effect (there are large, persistent differences in IQ between races).

There's already an imbalance when it comes to different genders and races, I don't get what they would lose.

The real reason companies don't do it is because Fizz Buzz is a better test than IQ tests.

Re: Things Many People Find Too Obvious to Have Told You Already

#495

Post by chubot » Mon, Dec 04, 2017, 1:02 AM UTC

mrep wrote: post #486

brucephillips wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> AppAmaGooBookSoft are AppAmaGooBookSoft primarily because they have mortal locks on distribution. Well, first of all, this isn't true. Google and FB aren't so profitable because of a distribution monopoly. They're profitable due to network effects.

network effects: a phenomenon whereby a product or service gains additional value as more people use it. How does google search get better from more people using it?

To be brief, more data (generated by clicks and queries) leads to better ranking. Better ranking attracts more users. Starting a search engine from scratch without any user data is a big disadvantage.

Basically, you're benefitting from other people who are searching for the same thing as you on the same search engine. (I'm sure that's not the only network effect, but it's one of them.)

Re: Things Many People Find Too Obvious to Have Told You Already

#496

Post by mikeokner » Mon, Dec 04, 2017, 2:03 AM UTC

greggman wrote: post #460

mikeokner wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem (other than your inner hippie :P) is that it can be quite difficult to accurately value a software product. Most physical goods are valued based on the cost of materials/manufacturing. However software is an intangible good without those fixed costs. The closest thing is hosting. For B2B solutions, value is more tied to how much it would cost a customer to implement your solution instead of buying yours.…

mini aside but products are never based on the price of materials as if you follow the chain all materials start as free. They are all priced starting at what people are willing to pay for the labor to take/prepare/transport the free materials. maybe that helps see that enginering is no different

I get where you're coming from, but my point was mostly that when a business develops a product, upfront engineering is often seen as somewhat of a sunk cost. The more important measure is the margin on the physical product. The cost of raw materials (and shipping, manufacturing, etc) is far easier to quantify.

Re: Things Many People Find Too Obvious to Have Told You Already

#497

Post by hateduser2 » Mon, Dec 04, 2017, 3:59 AM UTC

jpm_sd wrote: post #292

blurbleblurble wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'd be straightforward to find/get a programming job that'd more than take care of my material needs. There are a buttload of entry/intermediate level jobs out there that'd provide more money than I even know what to do with. If I wanted a job really bad, I could study up for it, put the technologies they're looking for on my resume and apply. The hard part is giving in to a job . I think my hesitancy in this area s…

You think you're too good for a job, hence, you are unemployed.

WHere did you get that from? Does this not seem like a really rude thing to say to you? Do you not value the well being of others?

Re: Things Many People Find Too Obvious to Have Told You Already

#498

Post by acoard » Mon, Dec 04, 2017, 5:17 PM UTC

reedlaw wrote: post #429

blurbleblurble wrote: post #73

> Companies find it incredibly hard to reliably staff positions with hard-working generalists who operate autonomously and have high risk tolerances. This is not the modal employee, including at places which are justifiably proud of the skill/diligence/etc of their employees. This one. Every job I see when I go looking is 40+ hrs a week, likely with plenty of idle time and projects I don't believe in. Part of this is…

I'm not sure what he meant by "modal employee". Is it in the statistical sense of occuring most frequently?

I thought it was a typo for "model employee", but your interpretation makes more sense.

Re: Things Many People Find Too Obvious to Have Told You Already

#499

Post by cosmie » Mon, Dec 04, 2017, 6:29 PM UTC

eropple wrote: post #370

ZenoArrow wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "I'm a competent, high performing generalist who can work autonomously and self-sufficiently with enough confidence in my capabilities to have a high risk tolerance. In my current company I got tossed around from starting under a marketing manager, to getting shifted under the CTO after stepping on IT's toes too often, to getting pushed into a newly formed Operations group, to finally just reporting directly to the…

I've said this in a sibling thread, but most shops I've seen that doesn't have This Guy are worse-run, less friendly, and higher business-risk shops. (Which isn't to say that counterexamples don't exist, but I can't think of a good one in my experience. The best companies institutionalize the role.)

Very true. From what I've observed, it's because a firm with This Guy allows that role to absorb all the odds and ends that pop up and need handled, while allowing specialists to focus on what they do best, maximizing their work output and general work satisfaction.

A firm without This Guy means that more small problems/needs get ignored since it doesn't clearly fall into anyone's scope of work or warrant the cost associated with the specialist. And if it gets large enough to not ignore, a specialist will consistently have to context shift to something outside of their specialty when something tangentially related pops up. This decreases their productivity considerably, decreases their satisfaction as they can't focus on what they truly enjoy doing, and increases business risk as things get overcomplicated or slip through due to a more biased view on the strategy to perform the work (based on whatever the individuals specialty is).

Re: Things Many People Find Too Obvious to Have Told You Already

#500

Post by acoard » Mon, Dec 04, 2017, 7:02 PM UTC

kod wrote: post #309

codingdave wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One would never refer to law school or medical school as "vocational". Sure you would. They are 100% vocational schools. Their cost, acceptance rates, time commitment, and difficulty level may be higher than other vocational schools, but that doesn't change what they are -- 100% focused on giving you the knowledge and skills to do a specific job.

Law schools (or at least the top 20 school that I went to) are definitely not 100% focused on teaching you the vocation of being an attorney. Hell, they aren't even focused on teaching you to pass the bar, which is why most people pay for separate cram schools.

Yet, going to law school is a pre-requisite for becoming the vocation of a lawyer.

Arguably, "a school one must go to in order to practice a vocation" can be referred to as a "vocational school." I understand that vocational schools are often thought to be purely practical and not theoretical, but I think this definition does a disservice to the reality of entering certain vocations.