12 ms·

Yay, that's exactly what our industry needs; more cargo cult programmers writing terrible software! Let's just be glad that this RoR guy isn't building anythin

Yay, that's exactly what our industry needs; more cargo cult programmers writing terrible software! Let's just be glad that this RoR guy isn't building anything safety critical.

jeffreybaird 14y ago
Either you didn't read the article or you missed the point.
- zalew 14y ago
  elaborate the point then.
  - jeffreybaird 14y ago
    TLDR If you work your ass off you can get a job doing what you love in a relatively short amount of time. I wasn't claiming that I am an awesome programmer but I got good enough to put myself into a position where I could learn from awesome programmers, on the job, while getting paid.
    - gruseom 14y ago
      Bravo, and if you keep working your ass off you will be an awesome programmer. I did the same thing, by the way, though it was ages ago, so no Github or anything like that. The only thing I'd change, looking back, is that having got that first job I allowed myself to get stuck. I was doing one kind of work using one set of tools and even though I got good at it and made money at it, it constrained me mentally. A lot of programmers fall into this trap. It's insidious because you don't know you've fallen into it. Something ends up having to shock you out of it and that is not a good place to be. Perhaps if I had studied CS I would have started out with a broader sense of the field. In the end it took quite an effort to maneuver my boat into larger (and deeper) streams.
    - zalew 14y ago
      ok then. I guess the party pooper comments come from a different view on what is learning to program, and that different view comes from a different experience. Many people forget that today self-learning is much easier than, say, 12 years ago; yet knowing theory on 'how stuff works' is no less important than back then. Good luck on your job.
      - mattdeboard 14y ago
        Learning to program is learning to program is learning to program. "Programmer" isn't a protected title, it's not a title you earn, it's a description of a thing you do. Farmers farm, birdwatchers birdwatch, programmers program. There's no interpretation available in the phrase "learn to program."
        zalew 14y ago
        not sure if you realize I agree with you. programming is such a broad occupation that even among programmers themselves there is a lot of discourse often tending towards 'no true scotsman' fallacies (usually comming from low-level to higher).
macoughl 14y ago
How very positive and encouraging of you. Exactly what our industry needs, elitist developers who don't want to grow the industry. You know, there is a shortage of strong developers available and you were a beginner too at one point.
- eswangren 14y ago
  Our industry already contains far too many "engineers" who don't understand what their code is doing at a basic level. I have absolutely no problem with people teaching themselves how to program (I did). I have a problem with said people expecting a job after six months of practice. If you want to work with people like that then feel free to hire them, I won't.
OzzyB 14y ago
I tend to think that the success of "this RoR guy" has more to do with the Brand Equity and Mind Share that Ruby on Rails has amongst Management/Recruitment than anything else really. It's alot easier to call for Rails devs since it's so ubiquitous at this point; as opposed to, "We need a Python dev with Django/Flask/Webapp2/Pylons/Tornado experience", the Ruby on Rails echo chamber -- because of its "singularity" feeds itself... Everyone wants Rails guys Bravo, RoR, bravo.
drgath 14y ago
Account created: 91 days ago We've been talking a lot lately about the decline of quality commentary on HN, and the increase of negativity and snarkiness. Parent is a great example. OP, I enjoyed the post and forwarded it on to some friends. Nice work!
- eswangren 14y ago
  I have been reading HN for years, my account creation date is irrelevant. However, I agree with you; my comment was terse, snarky, and didn't allow for any real debate. However, I my stance doesn't change one bit. Six months is not enough time to learn enough to be a good software developer, period. I am a self taught software engineer, but it took a long time before I was capable of writing production quality code (certainly more than 6 months) and I am of course still learning. We don't need more people like this in the field. I interview enough of them and I can't stand it. Great, so you can write a basic website propped up by a massive framework. Do you know how to troubleshoot performance problems? Can you diagnose non-trivial issues, perhaps relating to the underlying hardware? Is your code maintainable? Does it account for edge cases properly? Is it robust enough to withstand serious use? Probably not. I am 100% behind anyone who wants to learn how to program. I am not behind hiring them at the size month mark. I used RoR in a pejorative manner because it is kiddie stuff. Anyone can teach themselves to use it pretty quickly, but that doesn't make you a good engineer ("programmer", whatever.) Our industry is full of incompetent people, we don't need more of them. I work in a systems group and I don't see this problem in mechanical or electrical engineering. Sure, there will always exist people who are in the lower ranks of their respective field, but in software we are inundated by people who simply have no clue what they are doing beyond the most basic of tasks. This is a problem, so when I see "How to get a developer job in six months" it makes me cringe. It trivializes what we do and no one is ready for prime time after six months.

Yay, that's exactly what our industry needs; more cargo cult programmers writing terrible software! Let's just be glad that this RoR guy isn't building anything safety critical.

jeffreybaird 14y ago

Either you didn't read the article or you missed the point.

zalew 14y ago
elaborate the point then.
- jeffreybaird 14y ago
  TLDR If you work your ass off you can get a job doing what you love in a relatively short amount of time. I wasn't claiming that I am an awesome programmer but I got good enough to put myself into a position where I could learn from awesome programmers, on the job, while getting paid.
  - gruseom 14y ago
    Bravo, and if you keep working your ass off you will be an awesome programmer. I did the same thing, by the way, though it was ages ago, so no Github or anything like that. The only thing I'd change, looking back, is that having got that first job I allowed myself to get stuck. I was doing one kind of work using one set of tools and even though I got good at it and made money at it, it constrained me mentally. A lot of programmers fall into this trap. It's insidious because you don't know you've fallen into it. Something ends up having to shock you out of it and that is not a good place to be. Perhaps if I had studied CS I would have started out with a broader sense of the field. In the end it took quite an effort to maneuver my boat into larger (and deeper) streams.
  - zalew 14y ago
    ok then. I guess the party pooper comments come from a different view on what is learning to program, and that different view comes from a different experience. Many people forget that today self-learning is much easier than, say, 12 years ago; yet knowing theory on 'how stuff works' is no less important than back then. Good luck on your job.
    - mattdeboard 14y ago
      Learning to program is learning to program is learning to program. "Programmer" isn't a protected title, it's not a title you earn, it's a description of a thing you do. Farmers farm, birdwatchers birdwatch, programmers program. There's no interpretation available in the phrase "learn to program."
      - zalew 14y ago
        not sure if you realize I agree with you. programming is such a broad occupation that even among programmers themselves there is a lot of discourse often tending towards 'no true scotsman' fallacies (usually comming from low-level to higher).

macoughl 14y ago

How very positive and encouraging of you. Exactly what our industry needs, elitist developers who don't want to grow the industry. You know, there is a shortage of strong developers available and you were a beginner too at one point.

eswangren 14y ago
Our industry already contains far too many "engineers" who don't understand what their code is doing at a basic level. I have absolutely no problem with people teaching themselves how to program (I did). I have a problem with said people expecting a job after six months of practice. If you want to work with people like that then feel free to hire them, I won't.

OzzyB 14y ago

I tend to think that the success of "this RoR guy" has more to do with the Brand Equity and Mind Share that Ruby on Rails has amongst Management/Recruitment than anything else really. It's alot easier to call for Rails devs since it's so ubiquitous at this point; as opposed to, "We need a Python dev with Django/Flask/Webapp2/Pylons/Tornado experience", the Ruby on Rails echo chamber -- because of its "singularity" feeds itself... Everyone wants Rails guys Bravo, RoR, bravo.

drgath 14y ago

Account created: 91 days ago We've been talking a lot lately about the decline of quality commentary on HN, and the increase of negativity and snarkiness. Parent is a great example. OP, I enjoyed the post and forwarded it on to some friends. Nice work!

eswangren 14y ago
I have been reading HN for years, my account creation date is irrelevant. However, I agree with you; my comment was terse, snarky, and didn't allow for any real debate. However, I my stance doesn't change one bit. Six months is not enough time to learn enough to be a good software developer, period. I am a self taught software engineer, but it took a long time before I was capable of writing production quality code (certainly more than 6 months) and I am of course still learning. We don't need more people like this in the field. I interview enough of them and I can't stand it. Great, so you can write a basic website propped up by a massive framework. Do you know how to troubleshoot performance problems? Can you diagnose non-trivial issues, perhaps relating to the underlying hardware? Is your code maintainable? Does it account for edge cases properly? Is it robust enough to withstand serious use? Probably not. I am 100% behind anyone who wants to learn how to program. I am not behind hiring them at the size month mark. I used RoR in a pejorative manner because it is kiddie stuff. Anyone can teach themselves to use it pretty quickly, but that doesn't make you a good engineer ("programmer", whatever.) Our industry is full of incompetent people, we don't need more of them. I work in a systems group and I don't see this problem in mechanical or electrical engineering. Sure, there will always exist people who are in the lower ranks of their respective field, but in software we are inundated by people who simply have no clue what they are doing beyond the most basic of tasks. This is a problem, so when I see "How to get a developer job in six months" it makes me cringe. It trivializes what we do and no one is ready for prime time after six months.