Man spends entire career mastering crappy codebase • Hacker News Board

Re: Man spends entire career mastering crappy codebase

#71

Post by rr808 » Thu, Aug 03, 2023, 12:00 PM UTC

hliyan wrote: post #24

For ten years, I worked on codebases written in C++ without using any third party libraries (no, not even STL -- we needed faster, thread safe versions of strings and maps which were not available at the time; Boost? What's that?), its own custom messaging middleware built directly on sockets, its on distributed process management system built with unix syscalls (obviously). There was not a single line of HTML, Java…

I did the same, I thought C++ was heading for obsolescence. Now a master of Java, Javascript and can write great full stack apps. Meanwhile HFT C++ jobs are paying double, I'm thinking of going back, even if the systems are boring.

Re: Man spends entire career mastering crappy codebase

#72

Post by maaarghk » Thu, Aug 03, 2023, 12:00 PM UTC

hliyan wrote: post #52

bowsamic wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about it would you like to avoid? I don't understand the fears that people have in this thread. To me this sounds like the Platonic ideal of a programming job. EDIT: I'll reply to my replier here because /u/Dang rate limited me (again), though I must commend him for letting me have one more comment than usual before he pushes the button ;) > I would say the ending -- the part where you are unemployed and unable…

I would say the ending -- the part where you are unemployed and unable to support yourself in your old age because you invested decades of your brainpower into a highly specialised, non-transferrable skill.

The web stack might give you more transferable skills but how did you calculate the trade off vs the 50% pay cut? Was the salary not actually very high and at a low ceiling compared to web work - i.e. you expect your salary to soon exceed what you made working in HFT? Or was there a serious risk of layoffs happening far in advance of your retirement? If the goal is to support yourself after retirement, are you saying in certain circumstances halving your salary 10 years into a tech career ultimately optimises your entire-career-earnings?

Re: Man spends entire career mastering crappy codebase

#73

Post by hliyan » Thu, Aug 03, 2023, 12:00 PM UTC

michaelteter wrote: post #62

hliyan wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say the ending -- the part where you are unemployed and unable to support yourself in your old age because you invested decades of your brainpower into a highly specialised, non-transferrable skill.

I should think that years of specialized C++ work in hft environments would have come with impressively high pay… in which case one could retire early and self study anything for fun, not hope to find a job for financial reasons.

Ideally, yes! Unfortunately, there is such a thing as being young and not knowing your own worth / not knowing how to negotiate / not having a manager who looks out for your career growth.

Re: Man spends entire career mastering crappy codebase

#74

Post by throwaway2990 » Thu, Aug 03, 2023, 12:00 PM UTC

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #36

bowsamic wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's quite inspiring rather than invoking fear. I would take a job like this any time.

There was a Dilbert once (no longer available, for some reason), where Phil, the Prince of Insufficient Light, curses Dilbert to select one of two choices: 1) You will be paid well, but your code will be destroyed every night. 2) You will be poorly paid, but your code will be useful and appreciated. Dilbert says "Hey! They're both better than what I have now! Wally, you should come and get some of this!"

Why do people get stuck on these soulless jobs?

Re: Man spends entire career mastering crappy codebase

#75

Post by jebarker » Thu, Aug 03, 2023, 12:00 PM UTC

sneak wrote: post #48

Otek wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly this. Guy had a comfortable stable job for years. Probably knew codebase and technology enough to have lots of time for family/friends/hobbies. More than this story scares me how HN reacted

Having a comfortable, stable job for many years sounds like the worst version of hell one could possibly invent for people who live like I do. There are better things to aspire to than predictability whilst making someone else rich.

Perhaps his aspirations had nothing to do with his day job?

Re: Man spends entire career mastering crappy codebase

#76

Post by bjord » Thu, Aug 03, 2023, 12:01 PM UTC

bowsamic wrote: post #22

bjord wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's supposed to be a "real" article about a real person, I think it's art (that speaks to some of our fears) do you believe that something has to be purely "productive" to be deserving of space on the internet?

I think it's quite inspiring rather than invoking fear. I would take a job like this any time.

that's the beauty of art—it can mean totally different things to different people

Re: Man spends entire career mastering crappy codebase

#77

Post by sph » Thu, Aug 03, 2023, 12:01 PM UTC

DrBazza wrote: post #57

hliyan wrote: post #24

For ten years, I worked on codebases written in C++ without using any third party libraries (no, not even STL -- we needed faster, thread safe versions of strings and maps which were not available at the time; Boost? What's that?), its own custom messaging middleware built directly on sockets, its on distributed process management system built with unix syscalls (obviously). There was not a single line of HTML, Java…

> so that I could learn the web tech stack from the ground up. It was all to avoid this fate. I'd like to think I've succeeded. I'm not sure if that's intentional humour or not.

Out of the frying pan, into the cow manure.

Re: Man spends entire career mastering crappy codebase

#78

Post by Etheryte » Thu, Aug 03, 2023, 12:01 PM UTC

bowsamic wrote: post #30

hliyan wrote: post #24

For ten years, I worked on codebases written in C++ without using any third party libraries (no, not even STL -- we needed faster, thread safe versions of strings and maps which were not available at the time; Boost? What's that?), its own custom messaging middleware built directly on sockets, its on distributed process management system built with unix syscalls (obviously). There was not a single line of HTML, Java…

What about it would you like to avoid? I don't understand the fears that people have in this thread. To me this sounds like the Platonic ideal of a programming job. EDIT: I'll reply to my replier here because /u/Dang rate limited me (again), though I must commend him for letting me have one more comment than usual before he pushes the button ;) > I would say the ending -- the part where you are unemployed and unable…

Are you aware that rate limiting is not something a moderator goes around doing to a single person, but instead a server managing its own workload?

Re: Man spends entire career mastering crappy codebase

#79

Post by bboygravity » Thu, Aug 03, 2023, 12:01 PM UTC

hliyan wrote: post #46

Aloha wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was it something that ran in an embedded environment?

High frequency algorithmic trading. Often ran on colocated hardware within the exchange / trading system data centers. Started with stuff like Sun SPARC, Solaris and Oracle and we slowly made our way to Suse, Intel and... surprise, our own database optimised for fast writes.

Naive question: is this like creating fancy tech that is helping rich people to front-run the poor and middle-class?

Because that's what a lot of people think online. Maybe it's more nuanced. I'm curious how someone from that carreer sees it?

Re: Man spends entire career mastering crappy codebase

#80

Post by bjord » Thu, Aug 03, 2023, 12:02 PM UTC

throwaway2990 wrote: post #9

bjord wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's supposed to be a "real" article about a real person, I think it's art (that speaks to some of our fears) do you believe that something has to be purely "productive" to be deserving of space on the internet?

There’s too much crap on the internet now. So yes.

are you also opposed to higher education/research in anything other than hard science, or do you think people in those fields should just stick to pencil and paper?