One of the most salient features of our Tech Hiring culture is that there is so much bullshit. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted.
There are buzzwords that annoys me but are very helpful. For example whenever I see some smart ass libertarian macho who has Bitcoin&Blockchain in his bio, I am annoyed but it's helpful because I know I can safely spend my time elsewhere.
The really annoying words are those that people in good faith assuming their meaning are obvious without realizing that others have a very different meaning in mind and are also oblivious that it's not universally accepted.
I'm a software developer who writes about Laravel, JavaScript, Rails, Linux, Docker, WordPress and the tech industry. Follow me on Twitter @tylerlwsmith
While trying to put yourself in the shoes of users is a good thing, boldly proclaiming that you have empathy for users doesn't necessarily mean that you do.
It often feels like when the empathy card is invoked in technical arguments, the subtext is "I care about my users and you don't." It especially feels this way when talking about performance.
There are contexts where page load speed and minimal battery usage is important to users. There are also contexts where the velocity in which you can add features is the only thing that matters. Rather than discussing empathy as a nebulous concept, it may be more fruitful to discuss what our users need from a piece of software, and be mindful that users of other software may need something entirely different.
One of the most salient features of our Tech Hiring culture is that there is so much bullshit. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted.
Sometimes the key thing to understand is that page load speed and battery usage matters a lot as you pointed out. Sometimes it's completely different though.
Empathy is powerful but it is neither good or bad. I have female friends who were in a toxic relationship, and they were fucked up because the dude was good at using empathy to manipulate them.
I think the problem with empathy is that HR-speak in english speaking countries invented this incredibly stupid term of "soft skills" and put it into it. One more thing where you can evaluate people between 1 and 10. I'm being sarcastic.
Empathy is neither soft nor a skill.
It's very hard, and it's not a skill, it's something that you do or it's a personnality trait.
I'm a software developer who writes about Laravel, JavaScript, Rails, Linux, Docker, WordPress and the tech industry. Follow me on Twitter @tylerlwsmith
One of the most salient features of our Tech Hiring culture is that there is so much bullshit. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted.
Nimble. And the phrases "powerful" and "easy to use" put together in the same sentence, very often one after the other. That would very often be an indication the product touted as such (powerful and easy to use) is neither.
Haha, I like that. There's a trend of saying "if you're building stuff you're an engineer and it doesn't matter if you have the degree that goes with it", but as someone who has 10 years of experience but no degree I like the idea of saying "No, I'm not an engineer.".
βFull-stackβ always seems to raise my eyebrows.
In my experience, people claiming to be a βfull-stack devβ meant they were either a talented backend dev with some frontend experience, or a frontend dev wizard with a little backend experience; βsuper skilledβ with A and βonly know enough to be dangerousβ with B. π€¨
Iβm sure there are true full-stack dev unicorns that exist out there, Iβve just never met one, yet see the term used everywhere. π€·ββοΈ
On the flip-side, with JavaScript being used for both frontend and backend solutions these days, perhaps that term is genuinely becoming more accessible and even correct? π€
One of the most salient features of our Tech Hiring culture is that there is so much bullshit. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted.
That's unironically a great question, thank you for asking.
Macho here is a shorthand for "loads of toxic gender bias".
That's true in many sub-cultures of the IT sector, so you have to understand the general issue first before you can evaluate it in any particular sub culture.
No finger pointing here, we have loads of smart people everywhere in our industry.
It's just that being in sector with 90+% males, while women would typically be better programmers in an ideal world - smart people can be at the same time r/SelfAwareWolves handicapped by pretty basic gender biases they were raised with.
Again, not their fault. But the effects of those bias are pretty bad, not only for the others - women typically - but also for themselves.
If you are looking for answers, you will find them by reading more about feminism.
There are many great books on the subject.
In fact maybe too many books.
I understand that is overwhelming, I can give recommendations if you want some pointers.
If you don't have that many time, Wikipedia is always a good starting point.
Personally "loads of toxic gender bias" and "feminism" are for me as crypto buzz words are for you. As the target audience this would supposedly "benefit" i.e not only a person born female but also someone from the "rainbow coalition" ..it feels like a lot of empty virtue signaling. Its the crypto grift ..but for a different audience. I think most people had very good intentions when they started out on this crusade -- then they promptly shot themselves in their own feet by devoting copious amounts of time and energy to actual nonsense. They became incapable of having a technical conversation without dragging whatever their pet cause is into it. They started blindly reaffirming all the people who self identify as cats, colors, and vehicles again, afraid to call bullsh!t on bullsh!t this is because unfortunately the crowd most promoting "understanding" and "tolerance" .. is in actuality the least tolerant group of people I've ever encountered. Again, the best of intentions. But I've heard the road to hell is paved with those.
Have you ever considered that women perhaps don't want you playing the hero? That perhaps its a little sexist in itself to presume you were needed for this battle? Are women not capable of doing it themselves? I thought we were equal? You seem like a nice enough guy and this is not meant to be a personal attack in that regard. Again, I think you have the best of intentions. I just find it insulting and exhausting and 99% of the people who think their "helping" are not, they tend to be instead helping themselves and hoping society and their social circles will clap and call them a good person.
In reality everything moves on a pendulum so the swing to the far left will ultimately result in a swing to the hard right. In turn potentially creating a very unsafe environment for the people we were all intending to help. Many other women, trans people, and people of color are also tired of being used as people's "I'm a good person I help" chip. Its degrading. Its insulting. Its unhelpful. It often only serves to grow the ego of the "helper". Its become some peoples entire personality to the point that I now have good child hood friends I outright avoid because they can't make it through a 5 minute conversation without lecturing me about whatever cause is trending on Twitter this week.
Also ...Wikipedia is a terrible source and there are plenty of good reasons why most universities laugh at you if you cite it in a paper. The idea that "anyone can contribute to Wikipedia" died a long time ago -- most edits now come from a select group of ultimately nameless (may as well be, their names are meaningless to the crowd of readers) of power users. Meaning the entire site is being curated by people who frequently have no actual experience or knowledge of the topics they are in charge of editing. Meaning they are making calls about edits, etc without actually having any idea what they are talking about. If I want to know the details of Feminism I want them presented in an honest, unbiased, and factual manner. Wikipedia has proven numerous times to be incapable of such things. This is concerning particularly when so many people suggest it as a 100% valid source and cite it in their debates.
One of the most salient features of our Tech Hiring culture is that there is so much bullshit. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted.
If I want to know the details of Feminism I want them presented in an honest, unbiased, and factual manner.
I do want to know the details so now I'm really curious.
Which litterature on feminism that is presented in an honest, unbiaised and factual manner have you read so far and can recommend to us?
In reality everything moves on a pendulum so the swing to the far left will ultimately result in a swing to the hard right.
The problem with the pendulum theory is that nobody is against feminism, or ever was apparently. They just think that feminism was good twenty years ago. But that was also the case twenty years ago. And twenty years before that.
French software engineer with 15 year experience on 3D data visualisation and processing. Lots of C++, and switch to Unity recently.
I like when it run fast π
Does "Metaverse" count?
@ben I just saw this while scrolling Google news, right after seeing your comment:
Report: Facebook Begs Staff To Use Own Broken Metaverse
The VR project needs some internal love, according to leaked memos
Quiet quitting, Metaverse, block chain, unprecedented, NFT, etc. Pretty much anything that has been in the mainstream the last couple years.
Then there's overused marketing words that are annoying, like "Blazingly Fast"...
"Blazingly fast" has become a meme of its own lol. Now my head just automatically discards that word from a marketing line in any product
There are buzzwords that annoys me but are very helpful. For example whenever I see some smart ass libertarian macho who has Bitcoin&Blockchain in his bio, I am annoyed but it's helpful because I know I can safely spend my time elsewhere.
The really annoying words are those that people in good faith assuming their meaning are obvious without realizing that others have a very different meaning in mind and are also oblivious that it's not universally accepted.
Examples: "unit test", "startup", "architecture", "technical debt", "agile", ...
Empathy.
While trying to put yourself in the shoes of users is a good thing, boldly proclaiming that you have empathy for users doesn't necessarily mean that you do.
It often feels like when the empathy card is invoked in technical arguments, the subtext is "I care about my users and you don't." It especially feels this way when talking about performance.
There are contexts where page load speed and minimal battery usage is important to users. There are also contexts where the velocity in which you can add features is the only thing that matters. Rather than discussing empathy as a nebulous concept, it may be more fruitful to discuss what our users need from a piece of software, and be mindful that users of other software may need something entirely different.
Empathy really boils down to the principle Seek First To Understand, Then To Be Understood
Sometimes the key thing to understand is that page load speed and battery usage matters a lot as you pointed out. Sometimes it's completely different though.
Empathy is powerful but it is neither good or bad. I have female friends who were in a toxic relationship, and they were fucked up because the dude was good at using empathy to manipulate them.
I think the problem with empathy is that HR-speak in english speaking countries invented this incredibly stupid term of "soft skills" and put it into it. One more thing where you can evaluate people between 1 and 10. I'm being sarcastic.
Empathy is neither soft nor a skill.
It's very hard, and it's not a skill, it's something that you do or it's a personnality trait.
After reading your comment I'm realizing "empathy" has even more to unpack than I thought. You've got a lot of great points in there.
There are great books on the subject, but as I pointed out in this article, I stumbled on them while learning how to dance
Can beginners make a simple but meaningful contribution? Some unconventional advice #hacktoberfest
Jean-Michel Fayard π«π·π©πͺπ¬π§πͺπΈπ¨π΄ γ» Oct 1 γ» 7 min read
Depends on the context, but I think "web3" and "FAANG" are pretty annoying. Maybe also because the main people using them are grifters?
The grift is pretty strong these days.
Nimble. And the phrases "powerful" and "easy to use" put together in the same sentence, very often one after the other. That would very often be an indication the product touted as such (powerful and easy to use) is neither.
Blockchain, CryptoCurrency, NFT
Haha, I like that. There's a trend of saying "if you're building stuff you're an engineer and it doesn't matter if you have the degree that goes with it", but as someone who has 10 years of experience but no degree I like the idea of saying "No, I'm not an engineer.".
MUST, SHOULD, EVERY, NFT, WEB3
"It depends"
βFull-stackβ always seems to raise my eyebrows.
In my experience, people claiming to be a βfull-stack devβ meant they were either a talented backend dev with some frontend experience, or a frontend dev wizard with a little backend experience; βsuper skilledβ with A and βonly know enough to be dangerousβ with B. π€¨
Iβm sure there are true full-stack dev unicorns that exist out there, Iβve just never met one, yet see the term used everywhere. π€·ββοΈ
On the flip-side, with JavaScript being used for both frontend and backend solutions these days, perhaps that term is genuinely becoming more accessible and even correct? π€
After all, change is constant π
That's unironically a great question, thank you for asking.
Macho here is a shorthand for "loads of toxic gender bias".
That's true in many sub-cultures of the IT sector, so you have to understand the general issue first before you can evaluate it in any particular sub culture.
No finger pointing here, we have loads of smart people everywhere in our industry.
It's just that being in sector with 90+% males, while women would typically be better programmers in an ideal world - smart people can be at the same time r/SelfAwareWolves handicapped by pretty basic gender biases they were raised with.
Again, not their fault. But the effects of those bias are pretty bad, not only for the others - women typically - but also for themselves.
If you are looking for answers, you will find them by reading more about feminism.
There are many great books on the subject.
In fact maybe too many books.
I understand that is overwhelming, I can give recommendations if you want some pointers.
If you don't have that many time, Wikipedia is always a good starting point.
Personally "loads of toxic gender bias" and "feminism" are for me as crypto buzz words are for you. As the target audience this would supposedly "benefit" i.e not only a person born female but also someone from the "rainbow coalition" ..it feels like a lot of empty virtue signaling. Its the crypto grift ..but for a different audience. I think most people had very good intentions when they started out on this crusade -- then they promptly shot themselves in their own feet by devoting copious amounts of time and energy to actual nonsense. They became incapable of having a technical conversation without dragging whatever their pet cause is into it. They started blindly reaffirming all the people who self identify as cats, colors, and vehicles again, afraid to call bullsh!t on bullsh!t this is because unfortunately the crowd most promoting "understanding" and "tolerance" .. is in actuality the least tolerant group of people I've ever encountered. Again, the best of intentions. But I've heard the road to hell is paved with those.
Have you ever considered that women perhaps don't want you playing the hero? That perhaps its a little sexist in itself to presume you were needed for this battle? Are women not capable of doing it themselves? I thought we were equal? You seem like a nice enough guy and this is not meant to be a personal attack in that regard. Again, I think you have the best of intentions. I just find it insulting and exhausting and 99% of the people who think their "helping" are not, they tend to be instead helping themselves and hoping society and their social circles will clap and call them a good person.
In reality everything moves on a pendulum so the swing to the far left will ultimately result in a swing to the hard right. In turn potentially creating a very unsafe environment for the people we were all intending to help. Many other women, trans people, and people of color are also tired of being used as people's "I'm a good person I help" chip. Its degrading. Its insulting. Its unhelpful. It often only serves to grow the ego of the "helper". Its become some peoples entire personality to the point that I now have good child hood friends I outright avoid because they can't make it through a 5 minute conversation without lecturing me about whatever cause is trending on Twitter this week.
Also ...Wikipedia is a terrible source and there are plenty of good reasons why most universities laugh at you if you cite it in a paper. The idea that "anyone can contribute to Wikipedia" died a long time ago -- most edits now come from a select group of ultimately nameless (may as well be, their names are meaningless to the crowd of readers) of power users. Meaning the entire site is being curated by people who frequently have no actual experience or knowledge of the topics they are in charge of editing. Meaning they are making calls about edits, etc without actually having any idea what they are talking about. If I want to know the details of Feminism I want them presented in an honest, unbiased, and factual manner. Wikipedia has proven numerous times to be incapable of such things. This is concerning particularly when so many people suggest it as a 100% valid source and cite it in their debates.
Have a great day sir.
I do want to know the details so now I'm really curious.
Which litterature on feminism that is presented in an honest, unbiaised and factual manner have you read so far and can recommend to us?
The problem with the pendulum theory is that nobody is against feminism, or ever was apparently. They just think that feminism was good twenty years ago. But that was also the case twenty years ago. And twenty years before that.
Maybe we are right today, but how do we know it?
But some of us do (won't specify if an engineering degree or a train driver's license to keep it cool... maybe both? π)
Elon Musk π₯²
AI and ML are my top favourites
Exchanging coins here and there obviously π
"IA", "Smart" and all "Marchine Learning" related.
Putting at threshold on a variable doesn't make your application βIntelligentβ π