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My Biggest Regret as a Programmer

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Re: My Biggest Regret as a Programmer

#521

Post by Retra »

kabes wrote: post #119
wtbob wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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,…

prototypes are actually a really good way to deal with inheritance.

Not having inheritance is also a pretty good way to deal with inheritance.

Re: My Biggest Regret as a Programmer

#522

Post by brianpan »

cookiecaper wrote: post #354
KyleBrandt wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. If you get a lot of money it doesn't mean you have to go buy a bunch of crap you don't really want. Rather it can give you influence. You can invest in charities or companies you believe in to shape the future. For example http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/26/us/tangelo-park-orlando-fl...

The only amount of money people really need for autonomy is the amount of money it takes to supply their immediate needs and some reasonable wants; the amount of money necessary to provide for a normal middle-class lifestyle. I would ballpark this around $80k/yr. It's not enough to make big donations to candidates, companies, or charities, and it won't buy the most expensive stuff out there, but it's plenty to keep y…

I think you have defined autonomy in a very specific way. That is not everyone's goal (what they want control over, or to feel like they are accomplishing).

I think the OP wanted control over building/shipping/creating products. Not life comforts, house, food on the table, free time. His goals would not be helped by a middle-class income, but more control over the products he was building.

Re: My Biggest Regret as a Programmer

#523

Post by wtbob »

tragic wrote: post #376
wtbob wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can declare variables separately, if you want. The issue is that 'fop = 1' is not an error (outside of strict mode), even when I mean 'foo = 1.' Automatically creating variables makes what could be compile-time errors run-time instead. > Besides which, you can basically use prototypes to do classes, if that's your bag, and of course we have class syntax now anyway. Which I also find to be a mistake. Generic fun…

> That was my very first point … Bizarrely, I misread it as an overcomplicated ASCII art divider. Looks like I've got a JS VM in my head... The fop typo - while I acknowledge that there are plenty of gotchas of this kind in javascript, a gotcha that will be caught by strict mode barely even counts in the grand scheme of things. Strict mode then gives you slightly better protection than in many otherwise more robust l…

> Bizarrely, I misread it as an overcomplicated ASCII art divider.

No worries!

> Strict mode then gives you slightly better protection than in many otherwise more robust languages (Python and Ruby, for example).

I really dislike that aspect of Python; IMHO it's a pretty bad flaw.

> On the ASI side, I don't see how it can be 'incorrect'

I think it's incorrect in the sense that it's such a bad design that the Right Thing to do is to always use semicolons manually (with the corollary that if the design is such that one never uses them — as with Go — then it must be correct).

> I'm assuming by generic functions you're talking about eg. Clojure protocols or Haskell typeclass functions or stuff like that

I'm thinking Lisp's multimethods. Behaviour doesn't really belong to one object or another, an uniquely privileging the first argument is just weird.

> I return to my main point - no, JS is not a great piece of language design, but it's hardly 'nuke from orbit' bad.

If it weren't for the installed base, I think JavaScript would be only two steps ahead of INTERCAL …

Re: My Biggest Regret as a Programmer

#524

Post by madengr »

evook wrote: post #434
madengr wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I've seen (I still see) junior managers who can barely tie their shoes make more money than excellent engineers with 25y experience, but that's the way the world is.." Screw that. I'd never work for a place like that.

This attitude works out if your extremely good in your Spezialisation. I had kept track of my own ROI for the companies I worked for, granted them a bit of that and the rest should be for me. It worked because I always had the digits at hand. Basically "I need a raise, I have 3 jobs offers lined up, your making this of me and I demand x% of that otherwise you loose y over the course of z. Deal?"

Funny, I specialize in RF/Microwave circuit design, and did just the same. Had a good job offer, and used that to leverage promotion and raise.

Re: My Biggest Regret as a Programmer

#525

Post by Cut_N_Paste »

romanovcode wrote: post #57
rajeemcariazo wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

could you elaborate more about using node and npm

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

I just don't understand all the JavaScript hate. I've used languages like java and python, basic and pascal, c, c++, assembly, and for the past 15 years JavaScript... I can say without hesitation, that it is my favorite language... I have a hard time explaining exactly why that is... sort of like trying to explain why chocolate is my favorite desert, I mean I like all kinds of ice cream, but chocolate is my favorite.

Re: My Biggest Regret as a Programmer

#526

Post by daxfohl »

kdamken wrote: post #427
notlisted wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I may sound like an old fart, I am one too, but you sound like a very young one. Peeked at your profile and I see I'm right. May you grow up without troublesome times in your life. May I add to the list of 'excuses': - Getting hit by a bursting tech-bubble (as I was, we're talking a significant hit in terms of employment as well as retirement accounts, stock market and having to drain existing reserves) - Living in a…

I appreciate any perspective from people who are much older. I see having a family someday as one of the larger financial variables for me in the coming decades, so I try to prepare for that as best I can. In defense of my age (and implied lack of life experience), I've unfortunately had significant medical issues in my twenties, which in turn led to some decent sized bills I've had to take care of, so I know a bit a…

Be prepared for the family thing to cost a whole lot more than you think. I was living on about 10K/year back in the day. I assumed at worst my future (at the time) family of 4 would live on 40K/year, with "economy of scale" reducing it to the mid 30's. Ha! Sure I was fine living in cramped quarters, spaghetti every night, one new $5 shirt / year. Doesn't really work that way with kids. Essentially expect after about three years to wonder where all your previous three years' income has gone. (I'm only 3 years in, so I'm not sure what comes next--I assume it's "make a budget", which I did diligently in my 20's, but it's much more difficult to find time to make a (now, negotiated!) budget with munchkins fighting for attention 24/7).

As a corollary, be prepared to worry about money way more than you had anticipated back when you were 30 and diligently following Mr. Moustache to an early retirement.

As far as career advice, it's tough to say. I've had a good career but feel I'm in a difficult spot now. The last five years I've been independent but 95% of my work has been as the lone dev for one startup, whose best days suddenly seem to be in the rear-view. It's been great work and the job has been wonderfly flexible, but now I'm left to wonder, if they die who wants to hire a 40 year old developer (a really good one IMO but who's to say) with just kind of a miscellany of experience and hasn't worked with a team in five years (especially in small-town Michigan). Who knows, maybe lots of people. But I think the moral of the story is "don't paint yourself into a corner". Do good work, work with lots of people (my mistake), make them respect you, and you should be alright in the end.

Re: My Biggest Regret as a Programmer

#527

Post by MichaelGG »

Cut_N_Paste wrote: post #525
romanovcode wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I just don't understand all the JavaScript hate. I've used languages like java and python, basic and pascal, c, c++, assembly, and for the past 15 years JavaScript... I can say without hesitation, that it is my favorite language... I have a hard time explaining exactly why that is... sort of like trying to explain why chocolate is my favorite desert, I mean I like all kinds of ice cream, but chocolate is my favorite.

Java, Basic, Pascal, C++ -- you're not exactly listing very good platforms in the first place. Python's a bit better but still seems antiquated, like Go.

Try Haskell or an ML. Heck, even C# isn't that bad these days.

JavaScript's just a minefield of pitfalls. To be fair, it was designed in 10 days, and progress on it has been slow to say the least. (Hence the silly crap like having a "left-pad" thing as a 3rd party "module" instead of part of a proper stdlib.)

Other stuff like using "function" as the lambda identifier just make me shake my head. Or not having integers. Just poor decisions all around.

Re: My Biggest Regret as a Programmer

#528

Post by cpeterso »

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,…

I recommend also reading "The Most Misread Poem in America":

  Most readers consider “The Road Not Taken” to be a paean to triumphant
  self-assertion (“I took the one less traveled by”), but the literal meaning
  of the poem’s own lines seems completely at odds with this interpretation.
  The poem’s speaker … has already admitted that the two paths “equally lay /
  In leaves” and “the passing there / Had worn them really about the same.” So
  the road he will later call less traveled is actually the road equally traveled.
  The two roads are interchangeable.
http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2015/09/11/the-most-misre...

Re: My Biggest Regret as a Programmer

#529

Post by dinkumthinkum »

Tloewald wrote: post #330
exelius wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I just have to say this: So typically american. The attitude presented in the article is indeed typically American -- but not for the reason I think you intended. The quintessential American quality is the belief that every person has the right to control their own destiny. Fuck, it's right there in the first sentence of the first document declaring this country's independence. Americans are often seen as greedy re…

My big problem with what the writer says is that he assumes power comes from position. Most power, and the most useful power, is soft power. In those cases he cites, such as the startup store, where he thinks he could have made a difference as a leader - sorry, but he could have made a difference as a peon if he built credibility and stuck to his guns. Clearly he didn't have that kind of personality, or has too narro…

Stuck to his guns? This is very naive and is really not a good criticism whatsoever. On some level, putting yourself into a position where you have to be, as another commenter wrote, Sisyphus, is probably something to regret in itself late in your career.
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