7 ms·

If that older Unix or C++ programmer doesn't have a strong bias against Javascript, functional programming, new es6/es7 concepts, and web appliactions in genera

If that older Unix or C++ programmer doesn't have a strong bias against Javascript, functional programming, new es6/es7 concepts, and web appliactions in general, then sure. I see many of these types of people even on HN with biases though. Age shouldn't be used as a catch all filter, but I can see how it might be faster to screen those who have been too content to stick to their tools without catching up to industry trends.

racer-v 9y ago
I presume you wouldn't hire someone who expresses a strong distaste for your software stack, regardless of age (unless their job is specifically to replace it).
- sidlls 9y ago
  And such a person shouldn't be hired. I wouldn't hire me to work on a JavaScript stack. It's not because I don't or couldn't understand it in short order, and very much better than many (most, possibly all) of the 20-something hipsters they're using to fart out garbage. It's because I have strong biases against it and the kind of development style it attracts, some of which (as illustrated in this very comment) aren't really empirically or otherwise similarly justifiable. They're just biases that haven't a good justification. I usually keep this sort of bias to myself because I recognize it for what it is. Honestly though I wouldn't apply for such positions, either, so the bias problem never surfaces.
  - lurr 9y ago
    > very much better than many (most, possibly all) of the 20-something hipsters they're using to fart out garbage. how is this type of attitude not sufficient reason to not bother hiring someone? I immediately don't want to work with or for you.
    - sidlls 9y ago
      From my comment: "I wouldn't hire me to work on a JavaScript stack.... They're just biases that haven't a good justification." I know this. And I wouldn't want to work with JS devs. At all. It's a win-win for all of us that I don't apply to those positions.
      - lurr 9y ago
        I wouldn't want to work with you on anything, as I strongly suspect your attitude extends well beyond javascript.
        emodendroket 9y ago
        You think having preferences, and being aware of them, and avoiding environments not in line with them, makes him a bad prospective co-worker?
        Bahamut 9y ago
        Having preferences is one thing, but being judgmental/presumptuous towards people working in that realm & using slang with a clear derogatory bent to describe them for something that does not inherently relate to morals is another. It’s a sign of a bad attitude.
        golergka 9y ago
        It's a sign of a very healthy attitude to be open about your opinions and not trying to be "nice" all the time. This is a very american thing, to be constantly positive and nice when you really shouldn't, and in my experience, it's a very detrimental thing to morale and productivity because of how obviously fake it is.
        Bahamut 9y ago
        What you are saying is very different than the person’s comments I was referring to. One can be blunt without displaying a trashy attitude, and it doesn’t take that much effort. Most people tell me that I am the most blunt person they know in that I will give some of the most honest observations whether they are uncomfortable or not. I also have a reputation of being one of the nicest people many people know, never needing to put down one group of people to appease another, probably one of the biggest engineering productivity killers one can create (negative politics, cliques, etc.). Engineers often will vent to me (coworkers, teammates, people from various programming communities, etc.), and I lend a sympathetic ear to all, which in turn builds trust, comraderie, and helps use my knowledge & experiences to help guide responses & resolutions to situations generating stress to a healthy outcome for all. It shouldn’t take much effort to treat each person with respect & humanity - if it does, one should look inwards at maybe something being wrong with oneself than to other people, and work on culling out the toxic attitude.
- com2kid 9y ago
  > I presume you wouldn't hire someone who expresses a strong distaste for your software stack, regardless of age (unless their job is specifically to replace it). I'm not sure if I'd want to hire someone who is unable to point out valid criticisms of the technology stack I'm using. People need to be aware of the limitations of their tools. I spent years in pure C, both complaining about it and singing its praises. Right now I'm in JS land, and I can do the same thing. I started off in C#. No real complaints there, except for the lack of stack alloc, and that got added in the most recent version. :-D
  - mrisoli 9y ago
    > I'm not sure if I'd want to hire someone who is unable to point out valid criticisms of the technology stack I'm using. I only interviewed a few of candidates for developer roles a couple of times and this was one of the questions I asked, managed to get some interesting, constructive responses as well as some well-crafted bullshit.
- toomanybeersies 9y ago
  From experience, companies won't hire you if you express a strong distaste for their software stack. I learned this after I told the interviewer that I thought that PHP was a crap language, when interviewing for a PHP developer position.
  - tracker1 9y ago
    I tend to feel the same wrt Java, not so much the language, but the tooling around the language feels like such a pain. I always hated PHP. I've worked with them both though. I happen to like the one language to rule them all (JS).
  - hrktb 9y ago
    Honestly that doesn’t seem a bad decision. You will be eating PHP day in day out. It would be a bad choice for the company if they had candidates who otherwise don’t care that much about PHP’s problems, and a disservice to you if you could otherwise find equivalent jobs in a language you like better. Working in a PHP shop, nobody would care to shit on PHP during an interview. We know the shortcommings, it just doesn’t really matter that much.
    - toomanybeersies 9y ago
      I'm definitely not criticising them for their decision. I honestly probably wouldn't've liked working with PHP all day long, especially since the job would've been working with quite a lot of legacy code.
- vitno 9y ago
  I was once hired for a C++ position _because_ I hated on C++ during the interview.
  - aurelianito 9y ago
    I think that c++ is an horrendous collection of disgusting hacks. I also work as a c++ developer. If I were hiring for a c++ Dev role I wouldn't hire someone who cannot point out several problems with c++, as the main difficulty of the job is to avoid those tar pits.
  - user5994461 9y ago
    C++ is the exception. You can't be senior without despising all the intricacies of the language.
    - icelancer 9y ago
      Linus Torvalds is perhaps the perfect depiction of this.
      - jmalicki 9y ago
        Linus Torvalds doesn't program in C++ at all, only C.
        icelancer 9y ago
        That's the joke, yes.
  - peralmq 9y ago
    Feel like I have to share this hilarious fake interview with Stroustroup (creator of C++) here http://artlung.com/smorgasborg/Invention_of_Cplusplus.shtml http://artlung.com/smorgasborg/Invention_of_Cplusplus.shtml
tracker1 9y ago
I've been building web applications for over two decades... I love most of the newer tooling over anything I had even a decade ago. Though I do prefer React+* over Angular. I've kept up, some things I love, somethings I frankly use sparingly... that said, I'm definitely biased. I'm more likely to ride on the bleeding edge (Node 8, Webpack 3, Babel 7) than most. I am afraid though, in under a decade it will be an uphill battle to find work (I'm 43 at the end of the month).
- sheeshkebab 9y ago
  There is only so far you can go competing with teenagers in node/js space - pick a different tech stack for the future.
  - ilaksh 9y ago
    I'm 40 and also a JS developer for many years after using C++ and other stacks before that. From what I can tell Node.js and JavaScript stopped being cool for many young people like a few years ago when they got onto Go and other stuff. Maybe the trend is web assembly with Rust now or something. Or Ethereum contracts and R are cool. I dunno but trends do matter. Anyway JavaScript is less trendy but still very popular and there are a ton of crap codebases built up over recent years. So any of those that don't get scrapped for a trendier technology will be looking to recruit experienced people to fix up their crap (maybe adding TS declarations for everything or something like that).
  - megaman22 9y ago
    When JS stops reimplementing Unix tools or stuff from the Bell ATT labs from before you were born, I'd start getting worried. The fundamentals are important, when you get into anything more complex than slapping crud apps together. Witness the monstrosities birthed by JS "programmers" that have never slung pointers, or been acquainted with tree operations, or think MVC was birthed with Web 2.0.
    - tracker1 9y ago
      LOL... of course you can build crap in any platform/language. On the flip side, look at what Walmart and Netflix have accomplished with JS, which is a far cry from the monstrosities bemoaned. It's not all simple, because it's a relatively easy and flexible language to start with.
emodendroket 9y ago
People who are early in their careers can be quite dogmatic too.
- lmm 9y ago
  It's possible but it's a lot less common IME.
  - probablybroken 9y ago
    My observation is that earlier on in people's careers they tend to be more certain about the limited experiences they have had due to a lack of contradiction.. Of course, if you keep repeating the same limited experiences this will only be reinforced ;)
    - lmm 9y ago
      My experience is that fresh grads are aware they lack experience and are appropriately modest in their judgements of technologies, whereas people with ten years of experience are dogmatically confident that certain technologies are good or bad.
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    I've found that sometimes people have done one thing their entire careers and, therefore, think that's the only solution to everything. And I think that's more likely when your entire career is a couple years long.
- zbentley 9y ago
  I think graphing dogmatism over age is an inverse bell curve on average, with a lot of point variation.
phkahler 9y ago
>> If that older Unix or C++ programmer doesn't have a strong bias against Javascript, functional programming, new es6/es7 concepts, and web appliactions in general, then sure. I see many of these types of people even on HN with biases though. You might want to check your own bias in favor of functional programming. To the more seasoned programmers this is just the latest fad. That's not to say there isn't value in it, but if you're making hiring decisions around it you've probably got your head in the clouds.
- racer-v 9y ago
  The most seasoned programmers have been using functional programming since the 60's.

racer-v 9y ago

I presume you wouldn't hire someone who expresses a strong distaste for your software stack, regardless of age (unless their job is specifically to replace it).

sidlls 9y ago
And such a person shouldn't be hired. I wouldn't hire me to work on a JavaScript stack. It's not because I don't or couldn't understand it in short order, and very much better than many (most, possibly all) of the 20-something hipsters they're using to fart out garbage. It's because I have strong biases against it and the kind of development style it attracts, some of which (as illustrated in this very comment) aren't really empirically or otherwise similarly justifiable. They're just biases that haven't a good justification. I usually keep this sort of bias to myself because I recognize it for what it is. Honestly though I wouldn't apply for such positions, either, so the bias problem never surfaces.
- lurr 9y ago
  > very much better than many (most, possibly all) of the 20-something hipsters they're using to fart out garbage. how is this type of attitude not sufficient reason to not bother hiring someone? I immediately don't want to work with or for you.
  - sidlls 9y ago
    From my comment: "I wouldn't hire me to work on a JavaScript stack.... They're just biases that haven't a good justification." I know this. And I wouldn't want to work with JS devs. At all. It's a win-win for all of us that I don't apply to those positions.
    - lurr 9y ago
      I wouldn't want to work with you on anything, as I strongly suspect your attitude extends well beyond javascript.
      - emodendroket 9y ago
        You think having preferences, and being aware of them, and avoiding environments not in line with them, makes him a bad prospective co-worker?
        Bahamut 9y ago
        Having preferences is one thing, but being judgmental/presumptuous towards people working in that realm & using slang with a clear derogatory bent to describe them for something that does not inherently relate to morals is another. It’s a sign of a bad attitude.
        golergka 9y ago
        It's a sign of a very healthy attitude to be open about your opinions and not trying to be "nice" all the time. This is a very american thing, to be constantly positive and nice when you really shouldn't, and in my experience, it's a very detrimental thing to morale and productivity because of how obviously fake it is.
        Bahamut 9y ago
        What you are saying is very different than the person’s comments I was referring to. One can be blunt without displaying a trashy attitude, and it doesn’t take that much effort. Most people tell me that I am the most blunt person they know in that I will give some of the most honest observations whether they are uncomfortable or not. I also have a reputation of being one of the nicest people many people know, never needing to put down one group of people to appease another, probably one of the biggest engineering productivity killers one can create (negative politics, cliques, etc.). Engineers often will vent to me (coworkers, teammates, people from various programming communities, etc.), and I lend a sympathetic ear to all, which in turn builds trust, comraderie, and helps use my knowledge & experiences to help guide responses & resolutions to situations generating stress to a healthy outcome for all. It shouldn’t take much effort to treat each person with respect & humanity - if it does, one should look inwards at maybe something being wrong with oneself than to other people, and work on culling out the toxic attitude.
com2kid 9y ago
> I presume you wouldn't hire someone who expresses a strong distaste for your software stack, regardless of age (unless their job is specifically to replace it). I'm not sure if I'd want to hire someone who is unable to point out valid criticisms of the technology stack I'm using. People need to be aware of the limitations of their tools. I spent years in pure C, both complaining about it and singing its praises. Right now I'm in JS land, and I can do the same thing. I started off in C#. No real complaints there, except for the lack of stack alloc, and that got added in the most recent version. :-D
- mrisoli 9y ago
  > I'm not sure if I'd want to hire someone who is unable to point out valid criticisms of the technology stack I'm using. I only interviewed a few of candidates for developer roles a couple of times and this was one of the questions I asked, managed to get some interesting, constructive responses as well as some well-crafted bullshit.
toomanybeersies 9y ago
From experience, companies won't hire you if you express a strong distaste for their software stack. I learned this after I told the interviewer that I thought that PHP was a crap language, when interviewing for a PHP developer position.
- tracker1 9y ago
  I tend to feel the same wrt Java, not so much the language, but the tooling around the language feels like such a pain. I always hated PHP. I've worked with them both though. I happen to like the one language to rule them all (JS).
- hrktb 9y ago
  Honestly that doesn’t seem a bad decision. You will be eating PHP day in day out. It would be a bad choice for the company if they had candidates who otherwise don’t care that much about PHP’s problems, and a disservice to you if you could otherwise find equivalent jobs in a language you like better. Working in a PHP shop, nobody would care to shit on PHP during an interview. We know the shortcommings, it just doesn’t really matter that much.
  - toomanybeersies 9y ago
    I'm definitely not criticising them for their decision. I honestly probably wouldn't've liked working with PHP all day long, especially since the job would've been working with quite a lot of legacy code.
vitno 9y ago
I was once hired for a C++ position _because_ I hated on C++ during the interview.
- aurelianito 9y ago
  I think that c++ is an horrendous collection of disgusting hacks. I also work as a c++ developer. If I were hiring for a c++ Dev role I wouldn't hire someone who cannot point out several problems with c++, as the main difficulty of the job is to avoid those tar pits.
- user5994461 9y ago
  C++ is the exception. You can't be senior without despising all the intricacies of the language.
  - icelancer 9y ago
    Linus Torvalds is perhaps the perfect depiction of this.
    - jmalicki 9y ago
      Linus Torvalds doesn't program in C++ at all, only C.
      - icelancer 9y ago
        That's the joke, yes.
- peralmq 9y ago
  Feel like I have to share this hilarious fake interview with Stroustroup (creator of C++) here http://artlung.com/smorgasborg/Invention_of_Cplusplus.shtml http://artlung.com/smorgasborg/Invention_of_Cplusplus.shtml

tracker1 9y ago

I've been building web applications for over two decades... I love most of the newer tooling over anything I had even a decade ago. Though I do prefer React+* over Angular. I've kept up, some things I love, somethings I frankly use sparingly... that said, I'm definitely biased. I'm more likely to ride on the bleeding edge (Node 8, Webpack 3, Babel 7) than most. I am afraid though, in under a decade it will be an uphill battle to find work (I'm 43 at the end of the month).

sheeshkebab 9y ago
There is only so far you can go competing with teenagers in node/js space - pick a different tech stack for the future.
- ilaksh 9y ago
  I'm 40 and also a JS developer for many years after using C++ and other stacks before that. From what I can tell Node.js and JavaScript stopped being cool for many young people like a few years ago when they got onto Go and other stuff. Maybe the trend is web assembly with Rust now or something. Or Ethereum contracts and R are cool. I dunno but trends do matter. Anyway JavaScript is less trendy but still very popular and there are a ton of crap codebases built up over recent years. So any of those that don't get scrapped for a trendier technology will be looking to recruit experienced people to fix up their crap (maybe adding TS declarations for everything or something like that).
- megaman22 9y ago
  When JS stops reimplementing Unix tools or stuff from the Bell ATT labs from before you were born, I'd start getting worried. The fundamentals are important, when you get into anything more complex than slapping crud apps together. Witness the monstrosities birthed by JS "programmers" that have never slung pointers, or been acquainted with tree operations, or think MVC was birthed with Web 2.0.
  - tracker1 9y ago
    LOL... of course you can build crap in any platform/language. On the flip side, look at what Walmart and Netflix have accomplished with JS, which is a far cry from the monstrosities bemoaned. It's not all simple, because it's a relatively easy and flexible language to start with.

emodendroket 9y ago

People who are early in their careers can be quite dogmatic too.

lmm 9y ago
It's possible but it's a lot less common IME.
- probablybroken 9y ago
  My observation is that earlier on in people's careers they tend to be more certain about the limited experiences they have had due to a lack of contradiction.. Of course, if you keep repeating the same limited experiences this will only be reinforced ;)
  - lmm 9y ago
    My experience is that fresh grads are aware they lack experience and are appropriately modest in their judgements of technologies, whereas people with ten years of experience are dogmatically confident that certain technologies are good or bad.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  I've found that sometimes people have done one thing their entire careers and, therefore, think that's the only solution to everything. And I think that's more likely when your entire career is a couple years long.
zbentley 9y ago
I think graphing dogmatism over age is an inverse bell curve on average, with a lot of point variation.

phkahler 9y ago

>> If that older Unix or C++ programmer doesn't have a strong bias against Javascript, functional programming, new es6/es7 concepts, and web appliactions in general, then sure. I see many of these types of people even on HN with biases though. You might want to check your own bias in favor of functional programming. To the more seasoned programmers this is just the latest fad. That's not to say there isn't value in it, but if you're making hiring decisions around it you've probably got your head in the clouds.

racer-v 9y ago
The most seasoned programmers have been using functional programming since the 60's.