What Bums Me Out About the Tech Industry • Hacker News Board

Re: What Bums Me Out About the Tech Industry

#71

Post by woah » Tue, Jan 06, 2015, 8:17 PM UTC

throwaway90446 wrote: post #9

anateus wrote: post #8

This always happens when a scene/subculture hits the mainstream. You could madlibs this article and get a description of every musical genre. It's sad to see what you were so passionate about appear in a diluted form, and external perception be distorted by this new image. But there always remains an underground where true innovation and passion thrives.

This isn't music, or anything like it. The article touches on the Millenials' refusal to learn anything below their chosen layer of abstraction to be a systemic risk to anything they build. It's more akin to every bridge engineer not bothering with materials science or integral calculus because they know how to throw a bunch of trusses together than it is akin to every hipster on the planet learning to play Stairway…

God, you people who don't understand silicon culture and polishing make me sick. A bunch of hipster poseurs who just want to play with their little "programs" without even understanding the wafers that make it all possible! Get a clue!

Re: What Bums Me Out About the Tech Industry

#72

Post by woah » Tue, Jan 06, 2015, 8:19 PM UTC

throwaway90446 wrote: post #9

anateus wrote: post #8

This always happens when a scene/subculture hits the mainstream. You could madlibs this article and get a description of every musical genre. It's sad to see what you were so passionate about appear in a diluted form, and external perception be distorted by this new image. But there always remains an underground where true innovation and passion thrives.

This isn't music, or anything like it. The article touches on the Millenials' refusal to learn anything below their chosen layer of abstraction to be a systemic risk to anything they build. It's more akin to every bridge engineer not bothering with materials science or integral calculus because they know how to throw a bunch of trusses together than it is akin to every hipster on the planet learning to play Stairway…

God, you people who don't understand silicon culture and polishing make me sick. A bunch of hipster poseurs who just want to play with their little "programs" without even understanding the wafers that make it all possible! Get a clue!

Re: What Bums Me Out About the Tech Industry

#73

Post by woah » Tue, Jan 06, 2015, 8:23 PM UTC

throwaway90446 wrote: post #9

anateus wrote: post #8

This always happens when a scene/subculture hits the mainstream. You could madlibs this article and get a description of every musical genre. It's sad to see what you were so passionate about appear in a diluted form, and external perception be distorted by this new image. But there always remains an underground where true innovation and passion thrives.

This isn't music, or anything like it. The article touches on the Millenials' refusal to learn anything below their chosen layer of abstraction to be a systemic risk to anything they build. It's more akin to every bridge engineer not bothering with materials science or integral calculus because they know how to throw a bunch of trusses together than it is akin to every hipster on the planet learning to play Stairway…

God, you people who don't understand silicon culture and polishing make me sick. A bunch of hipster poseurs who just want to play with their little "programs" without even understanding the wafers that make it all possible! Get a clue!

Re: What Bums Me Out About the Tech Industry

#74

Post by fat0wl » Tue, Jan 06, 2015, 8:24 PM UTC

bjelkeman-again wrote: post #68

fat0wl wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if you downvoted this can you please explain why? I am actually desperate for reasons not to be so cynical about my job so i can at least scrape something out of my days until i find a better place... I wish I had a sunnier view of things but I am someone who wants to work hard but feels like an ant on an ant farm. ppl have advised me to go into startup scene but all the startups i've interviewed at in NY are mock co…

I didn't downvote, but maybe it was the tone. "These ppl are pure scum" qualifies for me for others than some devs with other motivations than what I have. There are definitely good jobs which one can be passionate about out there. I didn't easily find that job myself when I was sick of my job and ended up creating it instead. This industry offers so much potential that I feel it is nearly only a matter of looking ar…

thx... I think the reason I get a bit heated is because I come from an arts background actually. There are a lot of slippery slopes in industry, and I am on one. It disgusts me when I see that my peers are just tumbling over one another to reach the bottom first, just to put another $5/hr on their rate whereas I used to work with people who didn't care if they spent their whole careers as penniless musicians so long as they got to experience the feeling of genuine pursuit of passion.

A lot of tech feels like a very spiritually empty game, and I resent it for becoming this gruesome when really programming is a beautiful pursuit. I'm trying to be patient, there is a company that has expressed interest in me that is much more into embracing proper design paradigms and new approaches to back-end code. At my current gig we are handcuffed by lots of legacy code, layers of bureaucracy, "Senior Devs & Architects" who are really at about junior level, and people who are difficult just for the sake of slowing down the average pace of work.

Living with this for 2 years has been maddening & I am relieved that I have enough on my post-academia resume now to escape it one of these days.

Re: What Bums Me Out About the Tech Industry

#75

Post by logfromblammo » Tue, Jan 06, 2015, 8:25 PM UTC

saschajustin wrote: post #34

typicalrunt wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your writing reads like you have a chip on your shoulder. It beats around the bush, but you should just come out an say that you don't like people over a certain age. But be careful, because there's a good chance you will soon be that age (or older) and start griping at younger people who don't seem to hold your viewpoint. Your account is 20 minutes old with only 2 comments, both of which are inflammatory. Please tak…

Good lord! Don't confuse envy with hatred. I don't hate old people, I envy them! I envy Wedge Martin who got into tech in a time when it was professionally acceptable and viable to drill down into details. I envy a time when you could have a career based on fundamentals rather than buzzwords and rapidly learning frameworks. I have tremendous respect for greybeard, which is precisely why I recognize that greybears are…

Try playing a game called "Nomic".

The initial rules of Nomic are such that any game of Nomic can be subsequently remodeled into any other rules-based game. It can also simulate the functioning of real-world political structures.

The one unwritten rule of Nomic that cannot be repealed--the one that makes the game fun to play--is that you can stop playing Nomic.

Real life is not so forgiving. You start playing on the day you are born, and you can't stop until the day you die. The people who make the rules have already changed the rules such that you are not allowed to change or ignore the rules. If you try, other people who still follow those rules can receive bonus points for impeding you for as long as you are in violation of the rules.

That's not strictly true. The public set of rules are set up so that you cannot change or ignore them, but there are also multiple secret sets of rules that can be used to change both the public set of rules and the secret sets of rules. But most of those secret sets of rules have rules that prevent people who know about them from revealing anything about them to those who don't.

You couldn't design a game that sadistic. No one would ever start playing it. But here we are, still taking our turns, trying to figure out how to win.

Re: What Bums Me Out About the Tech Industry

#76

Post by logfromblammo » Tue, Jan 06, 2015, 8:25 PM UTC

saschajustin wrote: post #34

typicalrunt wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your writing reads like you have a chip on your shoulder. It beats around the bush, but you should just come out an say that you don't like people over a certain age. But be careful, because there's a good chance you will soon be that age (or older) and start griping at younger people who don't seem to hold your viewpoint. Your account is 20 minutes old with only 2 comments, both of which are inflammatory. Please tak…

Good lord! Don't confuse envy with hatred. I don't hate old people, I envy them! I envy Wedge Martin who got into tech in a time when it was professionally acceptable and viable to drill down into details. I envy a time when you could have a career based on fundamentals rather than buzzwords and rapidly learning frameworks. I have tremendous respect for greybeard, which is precisely why I recognize that greybears are…

Try playing a game called "Nomic".

The initial rules of Nomic are such that any game of Nomic can be subsequently remodeled into any other rules-based game. It can also simulate the functioning of real-world political structures.

The one unwritten rule of Nomic that cannot be repealed--the one that makes the game fun to play--is that you can stop playing Nomic.

Real life is not so forgiving. You start playing on the day you are born, and you can't stop until the day you die. The people who make the rules have already changed the rules such that you are not allowed to change or ignore the rules. If you try, other people who still follow those rules can receive bonus points for impeding you for as long as you are in violation of the rules.

That's not strictly true. The public set of rules are set up so that you cannot change or ignore them, but there are also multiple secret sets of rules that can be used to change both the public set of rules and the secret sets of rules. But most of those secret sets of rules have rules that prevent people who know about them from revealing anything about them to those who don't.

You couldn't design a game that sadistic. No one would ever start playing it. But here we are, still taking our turns, trying to figure out how to win.

Re: What Bums Me Out About the Tech Industry

#77

Post by logfromblammo » Tue, Jan 06, 2015, 8:25 PM UTC

saschajustin wrote: post #34

typicalrunt wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your writing reads like you have a chip on your shoulder. It beats around the bush, but you should just come out an say that you don't like people over a certain age. But be careful, because there's a good chance you will soon be that age (or older) and start griping at younger people who don't seem to hold your viewpoint. Your account is 20 minutes old with only 2 comments, both of which are inflammatory. Please tak…

Good lord! Don't confuse envy with hatred. I don't hate old people, I envy them! I envy Wedge Martin who got into tech in a time when it was professionally acceptable and viable to drill down into details. I envy a time when you could have a career based on fundamentals rather than buzzwords and rapidly learning frameworks. I have tremendous respect for greybeard, which is precisely why I recognize that greybears are…

Try playing a game called "Nomic".

The initial rules of Nomic are such that any game of Nomic can be subsequently remodeled into any other rules-based game. It can also simulate the functioning of real-world political structures.

The one unwritten rule of Nomic that cannot be repealed--the one that makes the game fun to play--is that you can stop playing Nomic.

Real life is not so forgiving. You start playing on the day you are born, and you can't stop until the day you die. The people who make the rules have already changed the rules such that you are not allowed to change or ignore the rules. If you try, other people who still follow those rules can receive bonus points for impeding you for as long as you are in violation of the rules.

That's not strictly true. The public set of rules are set up so that you cannot change or ignore them, but there are also multiple secret sets of rules that can be used to change both the public set of rules and the secret sets of rules. But most of those secret sets of rules have rules that prevent people who know about them from revealing anything about them to those who don't.

You couldn't design a game that sadistic. No one would ever start playing it. But here we are, still taking our turns, trying to figure out how to win.

Re: What Bums Me Out About the Tech Industry

#78

Post by taurath » Tue, Jan 06, 2015, 8:27 PM UTC

notacoward wrote: post #16

jacquesm wrote: post #2

/me throws one blogpost in the making in the trashcan for fear of being labeled a plagiarist and checks the room for webcams.

Same here. I'll probably get slammed for saying this here, of all places, but if you manage to push out a product in six months then either you're brilliant or what you're doing just wasn't that hard. The thing is, every single person in this position assumes that they're in the first group, but it's not even possible for more than a few of them to be right. Even accounting for the nine out of ten startups that fail,…

Define true innovation. There's been amazing advances in many industries. I think your perspective may be one that is looking a little too hard at the startup hype cycle and not enough at the whole of technology.

Re: What Bums Me Out About the Tech Industry

#79

Post by taurath » Tue, Jan 06, 2015, 8:27 PM UTC

notacoward wrote: post #16

jacquesm wrote: post #2

/me throws one blogpost in the making in the trashcan for fear of being labeled a plagiarist and checks the room for webcams.

Same here. I'll probably get slammed for saying this here, of all places, but if you manage to push out a product in six months then either you're brilliant or what you're doing just wasn't that hard. The thing is, every single person in this position assumes that they're in the first group, but it's not even possible for more than a few of them to be right. Even accounting for the nine out of ten startups that fail,…

Define true innovation. There's been amazing advances in many industries. I think your perspective may be one that is looking a little too hard at the startup hype cycle and not enough at the whole of technology.

Re: What Bums Me Out About the Tech Industry

#80

Post by taurath » Tue, Jan 06, 2015, 8:28 PM UTC

notacoward wrote: post #16

jacquesm wrote: post #2

/me throws one blogpost in the making in the trashcan for fear of being labeled a plagiarist and checks the room for webcams.

Same here. I'll probably get slammed for saying this here, of all places, but if you manage to push out a product in six months then either you're brilliant or what you're doing just wasn't that hard. The thing is, every single person in this position assumes that they're in the first group, but it's not even possible for more than a few of them to be right. Even accounting for the nine out of ten startups that fail,…

Define true innovation. There's been amazing advances in many industries. I think your perspective may be one that is looking a little too hard at the startup hype cycle and not enough at the whole of technology.