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Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads

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Re: Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads

#681

Post by nucleardog »

smugworth wrote: post #590
BjoernKW wrote: post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because like any design pattern microservices should be used to address a specific problem. Martin Fowler describes that particular design pattern here in great detail: https://martinfowler.com/articles/microservices.html Microservices however unfortunately have become a fashionable cure-all that's applied indiscriminately to software projects of all sizes, ages and purposes. Hardly anyone seems to be asking anymore…

I think the strategy of "monolith first" isn't a poor one, but it is a little humorous to see someone who makes part of their living helping companies break apart their monoliths advocate it.

I get what you mean by saying it's humorous, but I think it's important that nobody easily dismiss what he says because of who he is.

A lot of what he's arguing against is cargo cult programming, and I think it's fair for anyone to argue against that. If your only explanation for why you chose one architecture or design pattern over the others (especially if that option introduces a lot of additional drawbacks) is "because that's just what you do", you need to stop and objectively evaluate what you're doing.

Re: Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads

#682

Post by CodeMage »

echolot wrote: post #635
CodeMage wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what I call the Mediocre Mercenary Mentality, this idea that "as long as we can make money off of it, it's good enough". This mentality is the reason why sometimes -- but not always! -- my phone won't play music in my car until I restart the _car_. This mentality is why game development companies get away with charging full price for unfinished, bug-ridden games with crippled features and missing content. Thi…

It sounds like you'd burn out in any profession. Perfect is the enemy of the good. If you're holding your work, and that of others', to a perfectionist's standard, then you're just causing yourself unnecessary stress and anxiety. Most of those bugs and failures you listed are really inconsequential in their contexts. Car won't play your phone's music? Use the radio. Game has bugs? Play another game until it's patched…

> Most of those bugs and failures you listed are really inconsequential in their contexts.

Yes, I expect that for most things we could find a context that could render them inconsequential.

> Car won't play your phone's music? Use the radio. Game has bugs? Play another game until it's patched, or find inventive ways to use the bug. Can't see your CC? You can still charge on it and pay its balance. Experian and Equifax don't report same credit score? Your creditors aren't reporting to every credit bureau.

Elevator doesn't work? Use the stairs. Public restroom is filthy? Hold your breath and don't touch anything. Lost a tooth on the right side of your mouth because of an incompetent endodontist? Chew on the left side.

I'm not being facetious here. I really do agree that almost anything is tolerable if we decide to. That last example is from personal experience: I have lost three teeth on the right side of my mouth and I have to chew on the left. Most of the time, I don't even think about it anymore. And it really isn't that big of a deal -- it doesn't have a very significant impact on the quality of my life.

> Ashamed that someone else's system doesn't work? I can't help you there. That's some deep psychological issue.

It could be. Like I commented elsewhere, I would expect a doctor to be ashamed of Andrew Wakefield, but maybe most of them aren't. And even if they are, it could be a deep psychological issue that I choose to compare the state of our industry to what Wakefield did in his.

But here's the thing: I know that we can do better. Not perfect, better. But we don't have to, because we lack accountability.

Sure, perfect is the enemy of the good. But complacency is the last refuge of the mediocre.

Re: Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads

#683

Post by joe_the_user »

dorgo wrote: post #507
synotna wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's up to regulation - self or government imposed - to factor externalities in, change society and/or change the law

Somehow I never consider to solve a problem by delegating it to government or society. My first thought is always: there must be a technical solution for this. Even government and society are going to be solved by technology: crypto/blockchain or something which will evolve out of it.

There's no tech that specifically gets people to do the right thing. There's tech that might make people do things but that tech can be harnessed to get people to do either right or wrong things.

Re: Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads

#684

Post by whack »

015UUZn8aEvW wrote: post #67

I'm a grad student at an elite American university. Several weeks ago, some other students and I attended a recruiting presentation put on by a large multinational company I won't name. The woman who gave the presentation services her company's contract with a tech company, that, let's just say, has a big share of the search engine market. She emphasized that she was looking for diversity, because, as she said, "the…

I've heard similar quotes before, and always assumed the speaker meant that they didn't want everyone to be a old/white/guy, not that they didn't want anyone who was a old/white/guy.

Context matters a lot - such quotes are usually said in reference to a company's leadership team, and there's quite a bit of truth to them. When you look at the list of CEOs/Senior-Executives/Board-members at Fortune 500 companies, it's overwhelmingly middle-aged/old white men. I would consider that just as problematic as the age-discrimination that the article was referring to.

Re: Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads

#685

Post by jmalicki »

icelancer wrote: post #363
user5994461 wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

C++ is the exception. You can't be senior without despising all the intricacies of the language.

Linus Torvalds is perhaps the perfect depiction of this.

Linus Torvalds doesn't program in C++ at all, only C.

Re: Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads

#686

Post by mr_data »

itsybitsyspider wrote: post #553

I think one of the reasons is because fluid intelligence declines as people get older - it's maybe an unpopular and uncomfortable, but still, a scientific fact proven by many psychological studies. If I was an employer, I'd definitely prefer someone who's at the peak of their intellectual capabilities.

Not just fluid intelligence, but overall energy, enthusiasm, etc.

A lot of old people here seem to be clutching onto "experience" but it is heavily overrated in a society/industry based on learning new things.

Younger people have more potential ( intellectually and physically ), they can work more and they are able to learn new things far more quickly than old people. Add to that the fact that young people are already immersed in new technology and they fit more naturally in a younger tech work force.

It's like asking why magazines seek younger men and women? Because it works and it's the optimal solution.

Re: Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads

#687

Post by tigershark »

dorgo wrote: post #677
tigershark wrote: post #572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) There is no fixed correlation between LOCs and business logic complexity. 2) there is actually an inverse correlation between LOCs and amount of work done. When I'm most productive I actually decrease the LOCs.

1) You tell me that if you take some fixed business logic and add some exceptions to it (make it more complex) you wont need more LOC's to address this added complexity? I don't believe you. 2) You can't be productive having 0 LOCs. So 0 LOCs = 0 productivity. n>0 LOCs = (presumable) some productivity. I would say we have a trend.

1) I said that there is no fixed correlation. 2) I'm most productive when my LOCs are negative, deleting duplicate code or finding a better approach for a problem.

Re: Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads

#688

Post by purple-again »

combatentropy wrote: post #66

It doesn't make sense to me to discriminate against people with more experience. Can someone explain it to me? I have heard that companies like recent grads because they are (1) more malleable and (2) can be paid less. But neither of those reasons seem to me strong enough. I'm talking completely about the company's own interests. Let's address the first reason: malleability. A recent grad presumably will adopt the co…

Another very strong factor is health insurance. A single employee with serious cancer can cause the premiums for the entire company to go up 20%. That’s not a made up scenario or a made up number. United Healthcare is not a small provider either.

Re: Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads

#689

Post by tgb »

JetSetWilly wrote: post #514
wadkar wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> as she said, "the type of people on the other side of the table from us are different than they used to be, and they don't want to be dealing with a bunch of 65-year-old white guys. So those aren't the type of people we're looking for." That's pretty much a direct quote. Not to defend the quote, but I wonder how else would you characterize “non-diversity” in this context? Specifically, if their current workforce co…

I highly doubt that this mysterious "company with a large proportion of the search engine market" is filled with 65yo white males. In fact it would actually make them significantly more diverse if they were to hire some 65yo white males.

You've confused the two companies that the parent was talking about. The company that wanted diversity had a contact with the 'mystery' company that has a search engine.

Re: Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads

#690

Post by marcosdumay »

neuromantik8086 wrote: post #675
BjoernKW wrote: post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because like any design pattern microservices should be used to address a specific problem. Martin Fowler describes that particular design pattern here in great detail: https://martinfowler.com/articles/microservices.html Microservices however unfortunately have become a fashionable cure-all that's applied indiscriminately to software projects of all sizes, ages and purposes. Hardly anyone seems to be asking anymore…

What about flow-based programming ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow-based_programming )? How would you argue (or not argue) that differs from microservices? When would you advocate for a monolith first vs building one tool that does one thing and does it well and then pipes its output into another tool?

It is a design technique that can be used for designing microservices based applications or any other kind of application that is distributed. So, it's something completely different and the difference you asked makes no sense.

There is a link on that page for the more generic dataflow based programing. I'd advise anybody to follow it and simply ignore its specializations until they master the generic one. I'd also say that any program should be designed from multiple points of view, so do not stop at dataflow.

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