Am I the only one that's sad to see this?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8672200

which part, the question or the answers?

Both, really. I mean, no one is going to say things like "Dude, programming isn't about how many languages you know."

It was a bitter pill to swallow back when I started, but a necessary one.

Of course, that attitude may mean I'm an elitist snob.

I thought this was the best reply:

This is good practical advice, which most of the responses do not contain.

The responses about learning CS patterns like algorithms and data structures and such are another example of the curse of knowledge, imo. Like, some of that is good advice, but some of it is like saying "man, when I learnt chess, I wish I'd been taught about positional concepts like backward pawns, weak squares and so on right off the bat. It's so fundamental". This guy needs to learn how the horsey moves first.

I think this OP's attitude to what programming is reflects a general attitude to software engineering though. He was like "I just learn how the tools work and I'll be good to go, right?". At work my boss's attitude, although I think it's changing, is that it was a good idea to get an offshore team to rapidly develop an app and then get us to fix it. This is like buying a Daihatsu and being like "OK guys, now turn this into a Lexus". The only way to achieve this is to gradually replace all the Daihatsu parts with Lexus parts.

The problem is that people have no frame of reference by which to judge programming. You can show people the work of a builder and be like "look at this join, this is shoddy, this is a supporting structure, it's not good enough to do this" and people will grasp the problem even if they have no knowledge of house building. When I was repairing some horrible code written by an offshore team, I found a SQL stored procedure which used nested cursors to do something that could be done with a normal set query. There's no way for me to adequately explain how bad that is, or what it implies about what else I'm going to find in the codebase, to non-programmers.

Two questions:

1. What did you find?

2. What were you hoping to find?

I'm not talking to him until next week but I'm going to assume he's going to find me good 6+ month w2 contracts at 1.5-2 times my currently hourly pay rate (fulltime at a very large company) as this was literally the 1 in 20 recruiter that was actually really good and found me several other positions in the past few years.

Then I'm out of current job which has been simply painful to work at in the past few months. It is my first "senior" role and I've been there 1 year this month but I just can't take it any more.

If you don't mind, what's been so rough about this position?

Its really just the epitome of the point of the "software developers should work for companies whose product is software" cliche. I don't think I'll take a long term position that doesn't fulfill that again. Its just.. incredibly hard to get anything done, or to get anyone remotely talented hired on to replace the marginally talented people who just left.

I feel ya on that.

I don't understand the overall sentiment though. I've never worked with stock software that works as promised. As far as I can tell, the software costs the end-user more money than they earn.

I do understand the business reality of not owning your own, but I don't think it is a smart decision in most cases.

Yes, doubling your pay rate is definitely positive. There always seems to be a good time to leave and as a contractor it seems easier to recognize. Don't burn your bridges, put a positive spin about making your move to current and future clients which I'm sure you know. GL.

I think he is referring to companies that essentially don't view software they develop as the key component of their products. For example, a product that entails hardware development and software development but hardware is viewed with more regard. I've worked at places where the director of engineering was a person that at one time was a hardware engineer, had never really developed software and viewed software as a necessary evil (actually stating that). Needless to say the opportunities in software development were limited. I think these attitudes are much less prevalent now. Alternatively, maybe it is because I've been working at places where their product is software though and I don't encounter such attitudes .

Great read

Does anyone here have any experience or thoughts on square space? I have an associate in the auto body paint and repair business who is wanting a professional looking website. They are currently on vista print., but reviews I've read say they are kind of a scummy company, double charging people's credit cards and buggery like that.

I equate them to GoDaddy

I didn't know Vista Print was scummy. I've done a bunch of printing stuff with them and they've been great. Including at one point completely reshipping an order within a couple of days because the first one was slightly damaged. Plus they gave us a store credit for the value of the order.

I have also used Vistaprint to print stuff and it went well, would recommend.

I used vista print too. They tried to upsell me like 5 pages worth of products before letting me checkout. Felt super spammy to me but didn't have issues with the product in the end.

I don't think I'd use them again simply because I'd rather spend $5 more to not have to deal with so much upsell nonsense.

Oh yes I remember how annoying that was, but it was pretty consistent so after a few orders you remembered what to avoid.

Comcast did that to me when moving recently. I was able to do almost everything to transfer service using online forms, but a chat "agent" had to finish the process. Between the slow typing and the agent having 15 chats going at once, it took 20 minutes to confirm the order and be done.

Aside from confirming the new address and service install date All that he did was pitch triple play 4 times. Twice after
"Look I'm really not interested in phone service at all"

Lesson #1 in open source. It is very easy to get back all your stuff and start hacking away again:

Spend the next two hours reading error messages.

Quit. Just ****ing give up.

For example, I work for a technophobic e-commerce company. Yes, I am entirely convinced that all of the 3rd-party programs they use causes the company to lose money, and I'm not alone in this opinion.

This is why I took a risk on bringing in the db girl. I think the concept is well-proven, but hard reality, similar to what you describe, tends to get in the way, you know?

On the other hand, I get the appeal of hiring out other companies, as they are theoretically able to vet talent and create a stable, working, and profitable program. I've yet to be convinced that this is ideal is attainable.

A technophobic e-commerce company is a weird concept to parse.

I think it's the rule more than the exception.

I believe with the right leadership this is absolutely attainable and is even optimal.

Outside companies can have all kinds of pressure and high expectations put on them that you just can't do with your own employees. Most notably, if you are interested in a new vendor, it is often quite possible to have them jump through hoops with POCs and guarantees and only once they have proven themselves, make the cut over, firing your incumbent vendor for that technology.

These companies need to be much more efficient and results oriented than your own employees because the competition is inherently significantly more intense vs. your average internal company conditions. While this doesn't make sense for a company like Google, your standard run of the mill enterprise would on average (imo) do better to hire out most of their technology related work and then invest in a good vendor management/ relations effort. And good here means minimal rules and significant freedom to bring vendors on outside of a whole vendor management/ sales prevention team.

If a company expects software to add significant value or differentiation - they need to build it in house. Otherwise its probably generally a mistake to build it yourself. Whatever is available elsewhere is probably good enough and a lot cheaper to use.