1,380 karma · joined July 7, 2016
Sure, you "connect" people to friends/family they may not be able to see in person or communicate with regularly. You're also verifiably playing god with information and misinformation, as well as spying on your users, selling their data to other people that want to spy on them, paying employees to view toxic content (which results in PTSD), etc. Is all this worth being able to communicate with people you don't really care about, or that don't really care about you?
And for something like Twitter, you'd probably Publish but then also log to some kind of "Notifications" store, so if a user did care but was not actively watching, on their next subscription they'd receive the messages they'd missed.
On the flipside, many many remote jobs pay significantly more than you're describing, more in line with every other non-FAANG developer jobs. If you're just looking at those poorly managed "Remote Job Board" sites, of course you'll think that, because most of those jobs are just subcontracts and gig-type roles.
Yes, there'll be a COL difference, but it's not like you're describing. Gitlab, as an example, pays a Data Engineer in nowhere Indiana 90-120k for remote work.
I suspect not before 2022. And even that is generous.
I generally take a look at their resume and then do some research about the tools they've used in advance. Then, during the interview, I ask about what they like/don't like/find interesting about those tools. The goal is absolutely not to gotcha them, but instead to find out what they're interested in in that space. If I ask a question that it becomes clear they've lied/fabricated about on their resume, I say something to the effect of "No worries" and change the subject.
Depending on the role, you need more info than just what languages/frameworks they've used. For more senior roles, or roles that involve architecture/cloud functionality, I'd ask about how they've built systems in the past. If they call out AWS, I ask about what resources they've used, how, and why. If you've written down DynamoDB but cannot speak intelligently about access patterns or secondary indexing, it's kinda clear that you just used a system someone else defined. Whether or not that's a problem depends on what role they're applying for. If they can speak intelligently about how they got to a specific DynamoDB structure, they probably are being honest enough about their experience. Note, it needs to be clear that the candidate is not speaking in the abstract, but about things they've actually done. Googling stuff is easy, finding the weird parts of tech in practice is hard.
Ultimately I want them to feel comfortable enough to get chatty about development. Usually I find out enough about their skills while they're chatting - I think most would be surprised to find how clearly you can understand a person's abilities without directly asking about them. You just kinda have to spend some time up front learning pros/cons/common pitfalls of the tech on their resume.
At the very least, for the most part, businesses won't forget that possibility, even if they don't rely on it heavily post-pandemic. We've removed a significant blocker, that doesn't necessarily mean that we've reinvented the office dynamic or anything like that, but we've at least opened up a new channel for some businesses that didn't have it before, which IMO is objective improvement.
You said this, and then wrote the rest of your post about the opposite? Why do you think we'll need offices?
I don't know how you possibly came to this conclusion from the ordinances, but I would rethink this take.
> but lived in an area where you couldn't safely walk.
It was 1 mile on a four lane heavy traffic road with no sidewalks.
> I genuinely tried to read this and take it seriously but this is just the most cringe-worthy thing I've read in ages. I'm sorry.
> As a composition of prose, this little essay is just stylistically terrible and reallllly hard to read.
> A really dumb essay.
Just from the one post.
Separating "I like and use Haskell" from "Learning Haskell will amplify your career and employability" is, I think, what they're going for, and I would generally agree with. "The exception that proves the rule" is a thing, after all.
Specifically, though, this comment is a pretty good example of what this article (and I, now), am talking about:
> Certain problems, like working with databases in the principle Haskell way, are still open questions (e.g. see effect systems). But to call a mere difference in approach "arrogant" is extremely arrogant in itself
Which points to a problem very specific to haskell, brought up in the article, which is "How do I actually get things done?" Which, according to that comment (supposedly in support of Haskell) even points out that something as obvious and boring as "using a database" isn't clearly defined in Haskell. Most programmers want to use a programming language to solve a problem. The haskeller's argument, I guess, is that Haskell tries to do that while also applying very strict constraints on how problems are solved. Great, right? Except that those constraints are so strict that even problems that aren't significant or meaningful are difficult/not well defined (like using a database).
So if the answer to "How do I get things done?" isn't "Like this" but instead "Haskell doesn't work that way", most programmers will consider this a nonstarter.
It's fine to acknowledge that some have it harder than you, but to also wish that you had it easier. I wish we all had it easier. Sometimes, when I'm feeling most frustrated with everything, I wish I also had an excuse to work part time but keep my entire pay (which is, ignoring all else, what a lot of peers with children get). Humans are complicated and can have lots of feelings, some of which are irrational and some of which are unempathetic. We're all getting squeezed right now.
From the article: There was an arrogance in the Haskell community. Not the evil kind, but the kind that told them that they were somehow better. That the tools they were using were somehow better. That the things they were doing were somehow better. There was the arrogance of those people who believed that victory was inevitable. This was not the slapping your face “you, stupid fool golang programmers” kind of arrogance, although there was plenty of that, too. Instead, it was a kind of arrogance of power. Because the Haskell people were writing a pretty powerful code, they did have a tiger by the tail. It was a powerful compiler, it was a powerful language, and they knew they could work miracles. And yet, that wasn’t enough. Something insidious, something subtle happened. It caused their separation, they set aside the rest of the industry. The people outside the community who were writing everyday programs began to look at the corner of the eye where the Haskell people were doing: “Emm… Haskell people don’t seem to like us very much, I don’t think we’re gonna like them”. Some of you might remember the Reddit discussions in the mid 2000s. A bunch of people were there. And they were talking about cool math things there. In those talks, they often were snickering about other languages like Go. It wasn’t anything significant, it wasn’t anything evil, they were just snickering: “He-he-he, mainstream people, ha!”. But I was a mainstream golang guy at that time! I didn’t like that. And I’ve been dealing with language wars in the next couple of years. And I said to them at that time “Do we really want to have language wars on Reddit?”. And the interesting thing about it was not about what they were snickering about, because they probably had a right to do that. What was interesting about is my reaction. My reaction was defensive. My reaction was “Well, you guys, go ahead and do your Haskell thing, but I’m the one who gets real work done.” That’s the interesting division that got set up at the time. And it was fairly pervasive. There was an attitude among the Haskell community, and again, it’s not an evil attitude, not one that was born out of ill will. But there was an attitude that said “You know, our tools are so good, our language is so good, we don’t need to follow the rules. We can do something else. We don’t have to talk to other people. We don’t have to do the other kinds of programs.” Haskell people didn’t want to do the regular kinds of programs. They didn’t want to have to deal with the corporate database. They didn’t want to have to deal with the horrible schema that had evolved twenty years. It was just distasteful. And they found ways instead to do things like using category theory, and dependent types. They’ve built a wall around themselves, and they’ve chosen to live in a technological bubble. Isolated from the evils of the outside world.
> I'll take this opportunity to remove that common variable by wrapping up discussion here.
This conversation has continued to be the status quo.
> Snark aside, I wish you well.
Best of luck!