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What “full stack” really means to the job market

chrismm.com

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Re: What “full stack” really means to the job market

#51

Post by khedoros »

snhorne wrote: post #28
anthonybsd wrote: post #4

>I have met many programmers that don’t like to code in their spare time, and that has reliably revealed them to be sub-par developers. Whatever little credibility you had up to this point you've just lost.

I quit reading here. This idea that programmers have to work 18-hour days just to avoid becoming substandard is idiotic. ps. if you have to spend all your free time studying to avoid losing your job, you never actually had any free time to begin with.

What does programming in my spare time have to do with studying for my job? I think the idea that the article was trying to convey was that the best programmers love the work enough that they'd be doing it on their own, even if they weren't paid for it.

I work an 8 hour day. I may spend another several hours coding on some days, but I would characterize that as play, not work. I try to do things that I don't think I could convince anyone to pay me for.

Re: What “full stack” really means to the job market

#52

Post by Benjammer »

lbn wrote: post #44
Benjammer wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This opinion needs to fucking die in a fire already.

Is it really surprising that programmers that practise additional 10 to 15 hours a week improving their skills outside the scope of whatever project or tech stack they are limited to at work were better in this person's experience? It would be pretty incredible if spending a lot of free time on challenging personal projects made someone a worse developer or had no impact at all.

Not denying your points.

It's not the only way to be a good developer though, that's the idea I hate. It's about teaching yourself to be a good learner, which can be accomplished through a variety of hobbies that don't even need to be tech related. If programming at home is your jam, then more power to you. Saying that any developer who doesn't code on the side is, categorically, "sub-par" is ludicrous though.

Re: What “full stack” really means to the job market

#53

Post by Benjammer »

current_call wrote: post #47
current_call wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ability to automate is powerful. Anyone who doesn't find a use for it in their private life isn't just a mediocre developer; they're a mediocre human.

Sarah has a job as a web developer. She doesn't like programming very much, and avoids it at home. Her real passion is acting, so she joined a local theater troupe that performs plays at the community center. Every year they do a little Rocky Horror Picture Show event at the local theater. Frank is a programmer at a big bank. He does most of his work in COBOL. The work is tedious and the hours are long, but Frank doe…

Just had to get all that judgement off your chest, huh?

Re: What “full stack” really means to the job market

#54

Post by current_call »

Benjammer wrote: post #53
current_call wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sarah has a job as a web developer. She doesn't like programming very much, and avoids it at home. Her real passion is acting, so she joined a local theater troupe that performs plays at the community center. Every year they do a little Rocky Horror Picture Show event at the local theater. Frank is a programmer at a big bank. He does most of his work in COBOL. The work is tedious and the hours are long, but Frank doe…

Just had to get all that judgement off your chest, huh?

Good luck with any future interviews.

Re: What “full stack” really means to the job market

#55

Post by sp527 »

There is an astounding level of arrogance and developer elitism permeating the whole post. I think lojack with top upvoted answer captured most of my grievances.

The only thing I would add is that as high quality (and progressively cheaper or even open-sourced) layers of abstraction continue to be developed, it will favor the pragmatic problem solver who seeks breadth in knowledge over the pedantic hacker who DFSes into esoteric issues that are often nonessential to creating core value. And that's because the main ingredient in successfully writing software that creates real value is finding the simplest solution that works well enough. Very often that means biting the bland bullet and setting aside your burning desire to do something complicated.

Re: What “full stack” really means to the job market

#56

Post by sp527 »

Xyik wrote: post #20

Most full stack developers have breadth but not depth. It's incredibly time-consuming to have a complete understanding of the entire stack and no matter what you do, even if you live and drink code and do it all the time you will not be a complete engineer, there is just too much and you will never retain it all. Rather than try to be this ninja superstar that start-ups all look for these days its more realistic to b…

Context matters. Small startups will usually benefit a lot more from an engineer who can be flexible and create a lot of immediate value as opposed to an ML expert, at the outset. Large corporations are a different story of course.

Re: What “full stack” really means to the job market

#57

Post by quesera »

walshemj wrote: post #27
lojack wrote: post #18

I couldn't disagree more with this entire article. > the self-taught web developer knows surprisingly little about the web’s underlying technology. I know very few developers who aren't self-taught. In reality the opposite seems to be true. It's the developers who take a course and don't continue learning that stall. This is something technologists (even non-developers) absolutely _need_ to do -- self-teaching. The a…

And conflating full stack with just front end and back end doesn't help to me full stack means layer 1-7

"Full-stack" was never a reference to the OSI model.

You can spend your whole career deep in the layer 7 weeds nowadays. A legit "full-stack" technologist will dive into layers 6 and 5 occasionally.

Below that you're talking about TCP/IP, BGP, Ethernet, and fiber. The beauty of the model is that each layer doesn't have to care about the implementation details of other layers, and that's reflected in hiring as well.

Nomenclature aside, some of us really do span layers 1-7. But layer 1 is pretty boring, and there's not a lot of value to add in layers 2-4 honestly, except in extraordinarily demanding environments.

Even the people who think they work at layers 3 and 4 are usually just using layer 7 tools to manipulate configurations for layers 3 and 4.

Re: What “full stack” really means to the job market

#58

Post by walshemj »

quesera wrote: post #57
walshemj wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And conflating full stack with just front end and back end doesn't help to me full stack means layer 1-7

"Full-stack" was never a reference to the OSI model. You can spend your whole career deep in the layer 7 weeds nowadays. A legit "full-stack" technologist will dive into layers 6 and 5 occasionally. Below that you're talking about TCP/IP, BGP, Ethernet, and fiber. The beauty of the model is that each layer doesn't have to care about the implementation details of other layers, and that's reflected in hiring as well. N…

Its how I perceive it - if you cant design an implement a full 7 layer stack for simple applications (ie CCNA level) you should GTFO

"The beauty of the model is that each layer doesn't have to care about the implementation details of other layers"

Err having worked on international OSI interconnects id take that statement with a bucket of Salt -)

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