This was 22 years ago... it's honestly so tiring to see people use this as a "got 'em!" argument. Times change, businesses change. This is not a case of ideology.
265 karma · joined August 28, 2012
hackattic.com whenvroom.com
Isn't the honest answer "I don't know. No-one knows."?
You also helped me realize that part of all this mess is that I HAVE been feeling old. Well, maybe not old... older. I feel like I got hyper-focused on being a programmer (and I feel I never explicitly committed to it, just sort of went along with it) and now I just realized it's been 16 years.
Something I realized when reading your response is that I winced a tiny bit when you mentioned "finding meaning in your work" - as if that was something I did not believe could be achieved.
I think in my mind it's more about going to work and doing things are not... so made-up. I find this extremely hard to communicate. This may be due to me being too far removed from the actual impact whatever we deliver may have. Or as other posters have pointed out, lack of confidence in the general mission.
Or maybe I haven't yet figured out the real reason and this is just something my brain has made up.
Again, thanks for your response.
Funny thing. A few months ago I've also decided to improve my communication skills - both in reading and writing. (Long way to go...) It did hit me that whatever I end up doing in the long run, communication is the only 100%-reusable skill that can pay off anywhere. And so much time is wasted due to sub-optimal communication.
Forgive me if my central European bias is showing, but I've always discounted how important it is to align yourself with the mission of the company you decide to work for. Seemed to me like it's a complete bonus and luxury if the two overlap, and the default is just... work.
Of course as long as the company isn't actively working against something you would consider your values.
But it's definitely a question that can't be ignored if one wants to do some digging.
Acting on it, though... :-)
Life seems balanced now, I get to scratch my itches, not unhappy at my current job, and I don't feel like I'm saying "no" and making excuses. A tiny step here, a tiny step there, worst case it turns out to be a pleasant stroll.
One related story I like is how Assetto Corsa Competizione devs bumped into "weird" behavior emerging from their simulations which seemed like a bug - but then confronted with the actual manufacturers and found out that it happens in real life as well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFxIZ-9Awj4
Highly recommended, video is titled "A traction control bug that was a realistic feature".
EDIT: And this is before you get to aerodynamics, which is a whole different can of worms. With todays GT3 cars, how you simulate the front splitter and rear diffuser can make or break the accuracy of the simulation. It's fantastic stuff. Wish I worked on this day-to-day. On the other hand I have trouble putting it down and going to bed when doing it as a hobby, so...
Why is there such a strong tendency towards treating things as a this-is-it(-this-time-for-real) thing? This only confuses people and muddles up expectations.
It's a pretty standard Django app. Some bland Docker trickery around generating the actual challenges/problems, but that's probably it. Simplicity was definitely a goal. I wanted to waste the minimal amount of energy on stuff that wasn't directly related to the implementation of the challenges themselves.
I also have this weird idea of keeping the site as JS-free as possible - in homage to... simpler times.
A few words of background - I was always sort of frustrated how unbelievably dull the usual programming challenges are. I mean all those nearly pure CS-y things that make you invert binary trees and stuff.
They don't really translate well to what the real world offers, and having solved quite a few over the years, I've always been left with the thought of "what the hell did I actually learn?".
The answer was, usually, not much. It's all theoretical skills that fade away if not re-enforced, and that's what I found HARD, because at the end of the day, it all seemed like folly, especially compared to what I had to handle at work.
I had a few ideas, so I put it all together and released a set of 5 challenges. Take a peek inside.
I've always had this general idea of building a truly ambitious-but-also-down-to-earth community, so I hope to push it that way over time.
But like the sorry excuse of a landing page says, this is step zero - you have to start somewhere.
Would love some feedback!
- learn the bare minimum: up, down, left, right, deleting words and lines, stuff you do everyday
- DON'T just look for tutorials learn stuff out in the void, you'll waste time since you'll end up forgetting 95% of it. don't distract yourself. Screw four week plans, the basics you can get in an hour.
- work. write code/stuff. whenever you catch yourself pressing a button > 3 times (you know, left-left-left-left or something like that) THEN look for a better solution. you'll discover plenty ways to navigate around the code you're working with. find a new way, stop looking, start using it.
- happy? no pain points? good. keep using vim, wait until you find something you'd like to improve. look for a solution.
The point is... just because vim can do something, doesn't mean you need to know it. It doesn't mean you need to use it. It's a tool, it's optional.
The other point I guess is... stop worrying so much about if you're using something "right". Are you happy with your workflow? Good! That's what we're aiming for.
These plans and intros and guides... it's almost like they're meant to overwhelm. It's a damn text editor, you can use 4 commands and be happy. There are no rewards and no raises for "knowing" 60%+ of vim's feature set. And after the basic what, 20%? it's diminishing returns anyway.
"hero" - I smiled here! :-)
Are the main characters in books, plays and movies called "heroes" in Latvian? I ask because it is so in Polish. In English a book has a protagonist, while in Polish it's the "bohater" ("hero") of the book.
"A contrived collision on MD5 in 2004 got perfected to a single block collision in 2010 [1]" so they'd have at least years to fix it were they using md5?
He says they'll migrate, but it's no reason to go crazy. If anything, calmness of this sort is what we need more of (this industry, anyway... we go crazy about stuff way too much).
As for the parsing, it's done on the back-end, front simply fetches an AST every time input changes.
In Rome on the Campo dei Fiori
baskets of olives and lemons,
cobbles spattered with wine
and the wreckage of flowers.
Vendors cover the trestles
with rose-pink fish;
armfuls of dark grapes
heaped on peach-down.
On this same square
they burned Giordano Bruno.
Henchmen kindled the pyre
close-pressed by the mob.
Before the flames had died
the taverns were full again,
baskets of olives and lemons
again on the vendors' shoulders.
I thought of the Campo dei Fiori
in Warsaw by the sky-carousel
one clear spring evening
to the strains of a carnival tune.
The bright melody drowned
the salvos from the ghetto wall,
and couples were flying
high in the cloudless sky.
At times wind from the burning
would drift dark kites along
and riders on the carousel
caught petals in midair.
That same hot wind
blew open the skirts of the girls
and the crowds were laughing
on that beautiful Warsaw Sunday.
Someone will read as moral
that the people of Rome or Warsaw
haggle, laugh, make love
as they pass by the martyrs' pyres.
Someone else will read
of the passing of things human,
of the oblivion
born before the flames have died.
But that day I thought only
of the loneliness of the dying,
of how, when Giordano
climbed to his burning
he could not find
in any human tongue
words for mankind,
mankind who live on.
Already they were back at their wine
or peddled their white starfish,
baskets of olives and lemons
they had shouldered to the fair,
and he already distanced
as if centuries had passed
while they paused just a moment
for his flying in the fire.
Those dying here, the lonely
forgotten by the world,
our tongue becomes for them
the language of an ancient planet.
Until, when all is legend
and many years have passed,
on a new Campo dei Fiori
rage will kindle at a poet's word.
Warsaw, 1943or complex