51–60 of 143 posts
I wonder how he parted with the first employer that had paid for him to build the first game.
In the end, I was savvy enough to know that the rate they were paying me to develop their sites and the amount they were paid was a huge margin.
I'm a bit curious, why do most programmers like to call themselves engineers even though programming is not engineering?
why the downvote? Donald Knuth himself describes programming as an Art.
It's simply a discussion people aren't interested in having, and at the end of the day it's the participants who decide what gets up or downvoted.
I'm a bit curious, why do most programmers like to call themselves engineers even though programming is not engineering?
I'm a bit curious, why do most programmers like to call themselves engineers even though programming is not engineering?
Anyway, the answer is because it is engineering. Not in the capital "E" sense of engineering where you have some sort of official certification from some governmental or professional body that states that You Are An Engineer, By Golly. But it certainly is lowercase "e" engineering in the sense that it is a highly technical discipline that lies squarely in the middle of the spectrum between an art and a science.
Plus, it's just common terminology in the field, so there you have it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
My opinion is that it (exactly what I stated, nothing more) is most likely a manifestation of insecurity, rather than a product of anything that's not superficial (desire to help people, for example). I'm not telling you how to lead your life (a fiat), I'm offering an opinion with a suggestion. I give zero shits if what I said applies to you and you decide to stay on the same course. You should get that straight.
I feel like those statements against Google are also most likely a manifestation of insecurity. A lot of people want to work at Google, and there are always some who have to point out that it's not the ultimate prize, reserved for the best. After all, if it were a universal goal, and you haven't attained it, you must not be the best. The insecure person's solution? You don't work there, because although you could if…
I am under no illusion that we are the best of the best. We're probably better than average, but only a handful of us are gods (I'm not one of them) and plenty of engineers elsewhere are just as good as those guys. The real upside of working here is the low rate of genuine incompetence.
I just react negatively when ever someone calls out someone else's dream as unworthy. That is true whether the dream is to work at big G or start web startup #102341. IMO, they can both be fulfilling pursuits.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>We should be discussing something like how we're going to help people If helping people is a good motive, why isn't helping yourself? While people must strike a balance between doing what benefits themselves, and what benefits others, that is basically a personal decision. People who work at Google and other tech companies pay taxes, and benefit society in many ways through the positive externalities. It's not for y…
>If helping people is a good motive, why isn't helping yourself? It's a matter of what you think is right. Do you want to have a philosophical discussion? >If you state it on HN, you can deal with people disagreeing with it, without getting annoyed. I'm getting annoyed because the first responder was almost offended that I expressed a belief on what I think is right. I don't care if we disagree, but don't pretend lik…
You mention Ruby on your "become fluent" list, but I get the impression that Google doesn't use much ruby. Is the feeling there that skills in ruby can transfer, or is it more important to focus on Java, C++ or Python?
That being said, Java and C++ ARE still the primary languages for production applications coding at Google (with Go starting to pick up speed). If you're interviewing as a software engineer, you're probably going to want to know something about object-oriented programming (even if that's in C#, Ruby, Python, etc.). A SWE candidate that ONLY knows a purely functional language is going to have an interesting time.
What you DON'T want to do is feel like you have to go out and get a "Learn Python/Java/C++ in 21 Days" book when you have 5 years of Ruby or C# experience. As long as the interviewer can understand your code, you should be fine.
I personally have interviewed several people for my group whose primary language is TCL (yes, really!), Matlab, or Perl. As long as they can walk me through their code, or even solve the interview problems using pseudocode, I won't ding their interview scores just because they don't know Python. I'm not interviewing for traditional SWE roles, though.
As for you, the average reader, go/stay in school and get a degree. Life throws all kinds of curves at you. At 20-something it might be cool and trendy to be a modern hippie-techie drinking latte's and coding for Google, Facebook or whoever. One day you might wake up in an entirely different landscape at thirty, fourty or fifty years of age and regret the fact that you did not take the time to complete a degree before your life got more complicated. I've seen this happen.
Not everyone is going to drop out of high school or college and launch a billion dollar company.
Don't be a moron. Get a degree.
BTW, I am not just talking about CS degrees. A friend of mine was rejected for a sales engineering job over someone with a BS in Architectural Landscaping. He had years of experience as a technology developer, just didn't have a degree. The large corporation a a strict requirement for BS degrees as a minimum, even if the degree was bullshit or unrelated. He was told they wanted to hire him but could not due to the lack of a college degree.
I'm a bit curious, why do most programmers like to call themselves engineers even though programming is not engineering?
And if you are a technical programmer you are doing engineering eg writing weather simulations for the met office or modeling a nuclear rector.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are many, many solid schools you can go to that would not require six-figure loans. Alternately, if you can be in the top 1% of kids, the best schools, like Stanford, are starting to only charge those who can afford it.
But he had a bad GPA, so none of the schools offering those programs were options for him. Six figures seems high unless you make some major mistakes, but remember, he is paying tuition and living expenses and losing 2-4 years of salary, experience, and opportunity cost. I don't think the "school" vs "no school" argument has to be as black and white as it turns into. I think circumstances vary and in his particular c…