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Comment by rnmmrnm | Hacker News Reader

Indeed one of my favorites as well. Can't stop thinking about its modern angle where for example our industry is full of mediocre programmers that only really can do more of what they have already seen. I'm really longing for colleagues that actually put research effort into their code.

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Did you include the eternal pressure from bad managers in your... analysis, let's call it generously? Did it occur to you that people want to put research into their code but are not given time to do so?

And finally, did it occur to you that "just leave and find a better company" is not possible for everyone? Not to mention that most companies are mediocre-to-bad so the "better" companies are a small and very finite pool.

Comments like yours paint a wrong picture and are not helpful or productive.

I see the same approach to the craft when people talk about personal projects or their own startup efforts.

You seem to have taken the OP's comment very personally, and I'm sorry if you're stuck in a job that forces you to compromise your practice even when you know better. But there's also a (admittedly familiar) problem of a prolonged growth boom flooding the industry with bad engineers that produce fragile work and have poor foundational knowledge.

Yes, both can be and are true at the same time. It's not an either/or.

I get hurt by managers messing with my scope every day. It is a struggle :). Because of it I also find solace in open source where I am the boss of everything.

But, I don't give up. I pitch my bosses research trails all of the time. 90% they don't hit the mark, mostly because I don't try to conform to the whatever roadmap the product team has laid out. But once in a while my ambition and their plan converge, and this is when I get to play out the really cool stuff I do at my job.

Cool, I try to do the same and yeah, my success rate is roughly the same. :)

No, I don't think they do paint a wrong picture, and it is helpful for people to say it so others realise they're not the only ones thinking it.

Making one-sided claims is painting a wrong picture. As mentioned in other sibling comments, it can be both things.

I think of another modern angle, in that Neura-link tech is being promoted, which is a path towards indoctrination, and ironically, the AI Safetyists that criticize unregulated AI/unregulated tech are somewhat indoctrinators themselves. I try to avoid using that term (as it suggests too much). It's more out of the question as to when a student has reached the ability to think independently, that they no longer need a basic amount of instruction to work (and self-study) in other fields.

I think it's also a direct consequence of scale and the commoditization of most software.

You can't have people on a team of 10 all going in their own direction on their own schedule. It's too unpredictable and there are deadlines and contracts to fulfill. And for most commercial software, I don't need the team to research how to do it. We know exactly how to do it. We need the team to execute the plan.

It absolutely sucks, but that's the reality of most coding jobs. At least in my experience.

I think one modern angle would be the certification scam, where if they're looking for, say, a Windows Server 2022 admin, but you cert is for Server 2019, you never get through the HR regex filter.

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