Comment by mk_stjames | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mk_stjames | Hacker News Reader

One thing I've noticed more now that I read HN more than other places...

Software people sure like to talk/write a lot of about their business. Like, a lot.

I'm a mechanical/aerospace engineer, and I've done some short term consulting for startups (but now mostly retired).

There is verrry little online in the form of blog posts like this mulling over how people work in that type of engineering (especially in the higher-end of the field, like what happens in automotive and military/commercial aerospace- it's all very closed-doors). Especially less in the methods/metas of the field and the business surrounding it.

But software people? HN is flooded everyday with long form exposition just like this blog post. And it's honestly been pretty eye opening reading how much people pontificate in this area. Like, goddamn. I'm starting to think people talk about their ways of work more hours of the day than they actually.... you know... work.

<< Just an observation; don't kill me. >>

Corollary: Take a generalist observation about any type of creative work, stick "developer" somewhere in there, and act as if developers are unique and/or the observation is new.

Example: Not long ago I kept seeing some variation of articles about how meetings are bad for developers. Specifically developers.

Guess what? This is true for pretty much any creative type work like writing, design, or any type of work that involves deep thinking. But it was treated like a revelation because it was about developers and made no case for all the other workers in the same boat.

This piece? I could've written this 20 years ago as a freelance writer. Generally I refused to stick an hourly rate when dealing with clients for lots of reasons, not least of which that when I know a topic and it's in my wheelhouse I write very fast. (And if I struggle with a topic, it isn't on the client to pay for extra time...)

My dad could've written it 45 years ago as a sign painter and pinstriper. He charged by the job / value of the work delivered, not by how long it took to do. (Insert Picasso anecdote about "but that only took you 30 seconds," "yes, but it took me a lifetime to learn...")

At the time his craft was highly valued, hard to learn, and the difference between a good sign painter or pinstriper and a bad one was enormous. If there'd been a Hacker News for his field, maybe we'd have seen the same thing. Then came vinyl signs...

In this particular case the author is using a controversial headline to drum up attention for his business, which he plugs about 2/3rds of a way through the article. I think web developers in particular are more familiar with SEO and web-based sales and are more likely to write about software in an attempt to funnel eyeballs towards their software business ventures.

I think it's startup people, rather than software people. You don't see as much of this kind of discussion in other software developer forums.

Building and running a business is its own field of expertise. If you think software people talk a lot about it, you should hear your average MBA!

I think it has more to do with software engineers being more likely to have spent a significant amount of time with the internet, (some form of) internet culture, and then sharing on the internet. Outside of software engineers, there are so many people who run businesses whose internet exposure ends at writing emails. These people might be just as willing to talk about what they do, but it's going to happen in-person, not on a blog post.

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