stirno (u/stirno) - Readit News

stirno commented on How do self-taught developers get jobs? (2016) brianknapp.me/how-do-self... · Posted by u/_qc3o

georgemcbay · 8 years ago

The enterprise isn't the only place you'll find Java.

As much as the title pains me to type here (as a former C/C++/Assembly snob), I've been essentially a "Java programmer" for the past 5-6 years due to a focus on native Android development.

stirno · 8 years ago

Thats a very good insight that didn't occur to me right away actually.. Android dev has lots of opportunities in general.

stirno commented on How do self-taught developers get jobs? (2016) brianknapp.me/how-do-self... · Posted by u/_qc3o

Mandatum · 8 years ago

> but I can't imagine a harder place to come in as a young untrained programmer than Java Enterprise development.

It's funny, I can't think of a better place. Well-established companies will have the money to support you as you learn, cogs move slowly in these orgs so you don't have to rush - take your time as you learn about the code base, and figure out how things are done certain ways and make suggestions to improve.

stirno · 8 years ago

Ya I understand that, if you can get in the door. Those same companies are also the ones I've found more likely to automate rejections of applicants who can't check the right boxes though, making it harder to get in without experience.

stirno commented on How do self-taught developers get jobs? (2016) brianknapp.me/how-do-self... · Posted by u/_qc3o

stirno · 8 years ago

Nearly 20 years in now as a self-taught developer.. and I agree with most of what the post says. I would just add that a young person should continually keep trying to get a job, any job, building software. The process of applying for these kinds of jobs helps you identify areas to focus on.

I think the biggest thing that keeps people from being successful is the assumption that, even with all the effort they are putting in, their potential peers are better at the job. In some strict sense that is true but delivering customer value is number one. Keep your focus on that, people will want to work with you. Ignore any feelings of being an imposter.

I got my first contract development gig at 14, first salaried position at 17. Stick with it and make it happen. Be confident. Don't be a dick.

Also, the original question talked about using Java. There is nothing wrong with Java and there are a lot of jobs in that space but I can't imagine a harder place to come in as a young untrained programmer than Java Enterprise development.

stirno commented on We only hire the trendiest danluu.com/programmer-mon... · Posted by u/profcalculus

bryanrasmussen · 9 years ago

I think this is an U.S thing where this kind of division has sprung up - so you have contractor ("temp", "paid less") full-time employee consultant ("paid more")

stirno · 9 years ago

There is a pretty important distinction here -- We have seen in the US consulting market (at large corporations) an influx of 90s style contractor arrangements for staff augmentation. This is basically the counter to failed outsourcing efforts. These contractors almost entirely work for large groups like Robert Half, Tata, Infosys, Tek Systems and others.

We also still have a very very strong consultant labor force making 2-3x what W2 full-time employees can pull in. These consultants generally work through smaller consulting firms that take smaller cuts for the placement/handling billing and invoicing.

stirno commented on 802.11ah Wi-Fi Standard Approved wi-fi.org/discover-wi-fi/... · Posted by u/sengork

Havoc · 10 years ago

Cool. I'd rather see a standard capable of carrying gigabit traffic. Sure there is ac, but after noise & overheads it comes nowhere close.

So you've got people like me that can both get and afford gigabit but opt for 100mbps because the wireless tech isn't keeping up.

stirno · 10 years ago

Using an admittedly expensive Asus RT-AC88U with my MBP connected over 5ghz, I can get ~900mbps on speedtest.net using my gigabit connection.

Example test below [0], admittedly the downstream results aren't the best but I've got some rather large downloads and streaming going on right now. Upstream shows the capability though.

[0] http://beta.speedtest.net/result/4980829561

stirno commented on Landlords are trying not to rent to startups in San Francisco 42floors.com/blog/cre/lan... · Posted by u/jtbed

Johnny555 · 10 years ago

We've tried and found that remote engineers are less effective, they miss out a lot from group whiteboard discussions, overhearing office chatter "Hey bill, service XX crashed again because of YY (and Mike overhears and says "Oh yeah, I saw YY in service ZZ too and fixed it"), and just general team cohesiveness. In theory we could hire more people for less salary if we had a remote workforce, but we're still a small company (less than 100 people) and it's a lot harder to manage a 100 person geographically spread out engineering team than a 50 person local team). Paying the San Francisco premium for salaries (and rent and everything else) is less than the cost to build and manage a distributed team. As we grow, that will likely change as we'll be able to have specialized teams and open satellite offices, but for now hiring in the Bay Area makes the most sense.

We could likely build an accomplished team in any major metropolitan area, but since our investors and board members are here (as are the other companies they invest in and manage), it makes sense to have the company here. (not entirely our choice, when someone invests millions of dollars into a company, they want to be close to it)

stirno · 10 years ago

When teams have problems with remote v local employees, I've found this to be because they actively treat them differently, sometimes without realizing it.

It takes work to establish your culture to work remotely well -- if you just hire some people that you only ever hear on Skype during standup and give them work, they don't become enmeshed in the fabric of the company. Cliques form everywhere but they can be especially brutal in excluding remote workers from the 'core' teams that are seen as successful within a company.

I'm sorry to hear it hasn't worked for you. If you attempt it again, make sure you evaluate whether you've built a culture based on 'being there' before hiring people who can't be. Lots of people make this mistake and just see cheaper workers.

stirno commented on FBI operating fleet of surveillance aircraft flying over US cities theguardian.com/us-news/2... · Posted by u/tchalla

diafygi · 10 years ago

> "Aircraft surveillance has become an indispensable intelligence collection and investigative technique which serves as a force multiplier to the ground teams," the FBI said in 2009 when it asked Congress for $5.1m for the program.

Holy military state, Batman! It seems that the FBI has really taken to heart the change in mission statement from "law enforcement" to "national security"[1].

> The surveillance flights comply with agency rules, an FBI spokesman said. Those rules, which are heavily redacted in publicly available documents, limit the types of equipment the agency can use, as well as the justifications and duration of the surveillance.

Given the duration and location of these aircraft, it's very hard to see how these aren't an illegal search, given the past few years of judicial rulings[2][3]. It's become very clear that collecting movement data, even if that movement data is public, requires a warrant. No wonder the FBI wants to keep a layer of fake companies between it and these planes. Also, if you do collect wide area data for a specific target, can you keep the wide area data for use later on for another purpose?

I volunteer for an organization[4] that works with cities to adopt privacy policies regarding the data they collect, receive, and share. To date, our privacy policies have mostly been focused on disclosing how local offices are sharing local data (license plate readers, stingrays, etc.) with the feds, but now it seems we need to add sections about disclosing incoming data feeds from the feds.

[1]: http://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word/fbis-main-mission-now-not...

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Jones_%282012...

[3]: https://www.eff.org/cases/united-states-v-vargas

[4]: http://www.restorethe4th.com/

stirno · 10 years ago

I think your last point about data retention is really the big question. Given the ever-growing use of Parallel Construction in making cases from illegally obtained data (or data authorized only for a different use), its not enough that all these policies be stopped -- we need to address how long they can keep the fruits of their labor.

stirno commented on Visual Rust 0.1 is out blog.piston.rs/2015/05/14... · Posted by u/wspeirs

osense · 10 years ago

I would prefer a cross-platform solution much more... like an IntelliJ IDEA plugin, for example.

stirno · 10 years ago

Once we get our plugin repository ready to go, Scrawl [0] will have some support for Rust as well, thanks to some great community projects.

Paul did a quick POC today [1] that added autocomplete, go to def and some basic code intel tooltips.

[0] https://fluentco.de/ [1] https://twitter.com/pzumbrun/status/599017886276026369