- Often, corporate culture is more about maintaining status-quo vs. actually achieving or organizing efforts. People often just want to hear themselves talk, stroke their ego, and position/politic. As an IC/leader/owner this can be _so_ annoying.
Anecdotally - this happens at the majority of places/teams/situations unless it's a very small, and coherent team.
- Yep! And, I send that exact message/email all the time in good faith. But, even with that - if someone just wants to talk, trying to nail them down on a topic can be _seen_ as obstructive, even though it's productive. Unfortunately, lots of people who schedule meetings just want to talk with not much outcome.
I'm being pedantic, but my experienced inverse of these slides is that meetings are the "social" part of work. It really really depends on the company, the leadership, the people. But, sometimes - it's more in your professional interest to talk about + market the work vs. actually doing it.
Ultimately, we agree :)
- Love these slides, hard agree on _all_ points. But, be absolutely certain on the culture before you start declining meetings, even if for valid reasons like outlined in this presentation. Declining meetings can be seen as a negative, "not a team player", thing... and, I really have to be certain on my leadership, the company, and the context before I push back on someone wanting my time. Even if their request for my time was arbitrary, or useless.
- And, furthermore - being a "noisy Nancy" is often a bad move for your career, socially. As I age, I realize it's more important to get along in most corporate/professional settings than it is to be the person fixing things.
All work represents a social entity (person/persons) and when you're the one calling out issues, pushing for proactive measures, and pushing against bad practices/complexity you're typically taking issue with _someone's_ work along the way. This is often seen as a "squeaky wheel" or "noisy Nancy" - or hell, outright antisocial. Most of the time it is not in your best interest to be this person.
The people who keep their nose down + mouth shut, those who prioritize marketing their work, and the sycophants are the ones who have longevity and upward trajectory - this is corporate America work culture.
- > were in people's tiny apartments, small rented houses, and small yards
Anymore this feels impossible due to neighbors, landlords, and police. I have so many anecdotes... I don't think it's "getting ready" as much as it's an intolerant society of chronically entitled people. Also, it's increasingly expensive to go out + I truly believe we're experiencing the destruction of "3rd places"
My 20's had a good amount of that too... but it was increasingly at odds with real consequence and risk. I'm just safer at home with my SO, in my space. It's getting much worse for younger generations :(
- > Yes, perception has a correlation with reality.
Ope.. getting hung up on the statement "perception has a correlation with reality." Reality is the way things are, and perception is quintessentially subjective. It is not guaranteed that perception correlates with reality - just spend 10 minutes with my family for this lesson.
I argue the difference between school districts in the US is not perception, as it is not subjective - it is fact. It is reality. This is something that has been so extensively studied I wish all of us could accept it as fact.
Sorry to get hung up on a word. I find that people making these decisions aren't typically doing it from a subjective place -- they're making data-driven decisions to maximize their child's opportunities.
Sorry to be pedantic... cheers!
- > When people perceive one school to be better than another
Often there's more to it than just perception. My parents moved to a smaller suburb so my brother and I could attend schools with higher standardized test scores, lower class sizes, less violent incidents, more extracurricular activities, and ultimately _a lot_ more funding. Both districts were public. They made this decision looking at publicly accessible data in the 80s/90s.
Looking back, it was objectively one of the best decisions they made for our future... if not the best.
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Sure - address fraud is very common in regards to getting your kid to a better education opportunity but when there are stark, vast differences between districts I have a hard time blaming people. Especially given my anecdotal experience.
- Art is subjective so everyone's entitled to their takes on it.
Personally, I don't like when art makes me contemplate the delta between _intended ideals_ vs. actual execution.
Especially for this piece... it's just fake. "We made a camera that's going to take a 1,000 year exposure!" - and it's like... maaaan. No, no you didn't - and it's unethical to market that you did.
- I used an EIZO FlexScan EV2730Q (1:1), and upgraded to a DualUp.
It is the best configuration I've found for programming and CLI work. For gaming I typically use one of the normal widescreens to the left/right of it.
Only downside I've found is that I screen share often, and the odd aspect ratio means sometimes I have to use one of the normal widescreens instead to avoid small text on the audience's side.
Also I ran into some scaling issues on Mac but got past these using BetterDisplay.
Overall - love the LG DualUp, my only suggestion is to pair it with a normal monitor :)
- 100% behind this change as well.
I get the reluctance to change HN and appreciate the consistency. But, in good faith, this one is a clear accessibility issue that needs to be addressed. I think a change to just get the contrast to minimal best-practices/standards would't compromise the platform.
Devil's advocate against myself for a sec: HN is a site largely used by engineers/technical professionals. We can be an insufferable bunch, especially in regards to change. Maybe the social fallout isn't worth the change and I just would't have the data/context to understand that...? Just throwing it out there. I may just not understand.
- > It's much more important to just ban Bluetooth
In addition to audio quality, people have _constant_ problems with their audio setup across all platforms when using Bluetooth. I've gotten to the point where I will just outright buy someone a plain USB mic just so I can consistently get them on a call without 10 minutes of fumbling audio interfaces.
Unfortunately, even after buying them a USB mic + explicitly banning Bluetooth on calls I still catch devs trying to use their fancy Bluetooth gaming headset (or whatever) which can easily push meeting start times back by 5-10 minutes.
- Another important thing to mention is that WebP, HEIC, and AVIF are all based on video codecs whereas JPEG XL is a traditional image codec.
I find this article describes the differences and pluses/minuses incredibly well: https://cloudinary.com/blog/how_jpeg_xl_compares_to_other_im...
TLDR in the article is that both technologies are valid and have a significant use case. I still work plenty with the browser and would _absolutely_ use JPEG XL as a replacement for WebP images, traditional JPEGs, and PNGs if I could.
It's a shame Google/Chrome is not supporting the tech. It would be a major improvement in the landscape.
- Lots of devs out there have great social skills which can translate well to sales. Sales is primarily communication and human connection and plenty of devs are capable of that.
Lots of devs start in sales because those jobs/careers are incredibly prevalent. Think basic sales jobs like retail, call centers, etc.
Lots of business people unironically "learn coding" to great success. Some even build "huge products" that solve big problems.
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Anecdotally, I know people who fall into all of these categories. I don't think we should condemn people to one function/talent... and, I don't think we need to talk down to cross-functional devs or business people.
- > Have you read what you're replying to?
Yes. I find it sorta offensive that you assume otherwise.
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Let's boil this down. I said "the boilerplate ChatGPT provides me is incredibly valuable," and further elaborated that using the tool is "valid."
You disagree with "incredibly valuable" but "don't disagree" with the tool being "valid."
So - I'm saying. We disagree that boilerplate output from ChatGPT is "incredibly valuable" and frankly that's just gonna be subjective regardless. Let's agree to disagree here. I just find it funny that you say "I don't disagree" then outright disagree with the exact language I used in the first sentence of our conversation regarding the value of this tool.
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> We're commenting under an article that talks about how ChatGPT supposedly makes most of human's skills worthless. Similar sentiment can be seen in many places when it comes to programming. It can't do that if all it helps with are some trivial snippets sometimes.
And honestly I feel like this is why our communication and conversation is frustrated here. I don't see our conversation as being a proxy for the infinitely complex and complicated "making human skills worthless" conversation... personally, I just wanted to say "I use this tool for X, and personally have found great value in it."
- > I don't disagree. I just don't see it as "incredibly valuable"
Lol - that is by definition disagreeing with the first sentence that I said in our conversation. You disagree that it is "incredibly valuable" and have spent every comment saying that the overall impact of ChatGPT for developers is "negligible overall."
You do disagree with me... and that's OK =)
- In good faith I really don't know what you're arguing for.
If you re-read our conversation I express that simple snippets of code from ChatGPT have been accurate enough, ultimately saving me time (paraphrasing). You then push back on me with the following:
> The thing is - how often do you end up needing such snippets? How much more useful is receiving it from ChatGPT than looking it up in a search engine?
> [...] but the overall benefit seems negligible, especially when you need to watch out at every step for convincingly-looking nonsense
I doubled down, doing my best to elaborate where it has added value to my workflow, when it breaks down for me, and addressed specific concerns in your comments. When you say "overall benefit seems negligible" - I read that very clearly as overall the benefit (of ChatGPT) seems negligible (regarding the context of our conversation). That context to me was that ChatGPT helps me with simple snippets and POCs. I did my best to politely rebut that with my personal and professional experiences regarding the tool.
Now you say:
> its main value comes from my ADHD mind not being able to focus on boring stuff I already know how to do - in those cases, GPT gets me the boilerplate I can start operating on right away, which sure is helpful
This is directly compatible and agreeing with what I feel I have been advocating for since my first message in this conversation - that using ChatGPT for simple boilerplate code can be valid (paraphrasing). But, I feel like this is contradictory to, and in conflict with what you previously said: "the overall benefit seems negligible".
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Overall this conversation seems to contradict itself, and with that it's confusing and frustrating to me. Sorry.
Cheers
- All in good faith, I believe that receiving assistance from ChatGPT is far more useful than looking up snippets on a search engine. Instead of delving through semi-appropriate snippets, I can concisely describe what I need in one or two sentences and ChatGPT typically provides an accurate result, unless the query is opinion-based, complex, or obscure. I am not expecting perfect code since I take it upon myself to polish the output.
I am now experimenting with ChatGPT parsing our own historical documentation, such as API references, and even basic markdown notes. When it comes to API endpoints I can get 80-90% accurate boilerplate. Admittedly, ChatGPT cannot provide assistance in understanding unexpected behavior, unless perhaps it is due to a misunderstanding of the language. And, though it is true that resolving API endpoint issues can be a time-consuming task, this does not negate the time savings that ChatGPT can provide in other situations.
I would urge you to try it out in your own workflow before calling shots on if the usefulness is negligible or not. And even then, I'd say not every tool is for everyone. This thing is really helping me out and I'm seeing long-term viability for it in my workflows.
- > Trying to get some non-trivial code out of GPT that isn't a mindless boilerplate
For some of us, the boilerplate code generated by ChatGPT is incredibly valuable. I have been utilizing it to create snippets of code for languages that I am not familiar with in terms of syntax. I understand that I may be criticized for this, however, I am not an expert in all of the languages I am required to support. Thus, I often find myself struggling with the syntax while understanding the overall concept I am attempting to accomplish.
Example prompt: "Write me a proof of concept in language X that serializes JSON then POSTS to a HTTP API endpoint."
- Tried five searches, things like "test," "bed level," etc. All common terms for 3D printing calibration.
Was only able to get one search to go through which took >20s. All others timed out with "We encountered an error."
Not sure the tech is ready for this to show off and first impressions are everything.
- Devs who push for monolith all-in-one SPA frameworks are seldom ones who stick around long enough after shipping to experience what you're discussing. They're far more concerned with the new framework hotness vs. building a lasting and consistent user experience.
Just my anecdotal experience.
- Also at formal senior/project lead/management levels myself. I do not find what you are positing to be my reality, at all.
I don't think bullshitting leads to high productivity or task throughput. Anecdotally, I find the bullshitters are the ones holding the 20-40% of productive IC's back because of constant distractions, spec/scope socializing (and subsequent creep), and just general talking while others are trying to work. If there needs to be a meeting to work out spec I'd rather it be on the calendar where it's company sanctioned, has an agenda, and where we can formally gather action items to be delegated and assigned -- that last list of things does not happen with "bullshitting."
> At some point you'll get involved with a project that's so interesting you'll never really stop thinking about it, and then your idea of what someone looks like when they're "working" will change.
I've been very involved and interested in my work and this has not happened to me yet. People socializing in adhoc 1:1 conversations is where the "good ol' boys" comes from, and it has typically been incredibly damaging to my clients, specs, and timelines. My idea of people working is people traditionally working, adhering to the SDLC, and ensuring technical communications are not private.
In my anecdotal experience, "bullshitting" is a negative thing. I'd rather not be a "bullshitter," and I hope those around me don't use such language to describe me -- especially at a professional level.
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Just to reiterate:
"Bullshitting" != "where a lot of the work gets done." "Bullshitting" is a negative thing.
And, being incredibly invested into a project has not yet changed my opinion on this. I find this comment makes assumptions of future me with the "at some point" language. Using a hypothetical regarding someone else's future self isn't ideal when arguing a point. It feels condescending in a "you just don't know yet" sorta way.
Just sharing random coffee break thoughts... it always blows my mind is how many people _don't_ think like this. When base conditions improve for society, the conditions improve for _everyone_ regardless if they directly benefit you.
I'm also in the boat where I don't have kids, but I'd also like to live in a place that has educated people - so schools make perfect sense to me. Heck, even if I didn't benefit from it, providing children education is just the gosh-darn right thing to do.