Rails made Microsoft change its entire web strategy. It influenced so much. Rails is so mainstream that it doesn't get talked about like a hot new tech anymore. If you were a web developer in 2006~2016 it was still hot tech but kind of lost the plot IMO when they really started futzing around with the asset pipeline.
This has been so deeply politicized in Illinois the last gubernatorial candidates for the Republicans have propagandized the subject so fiercely in Illinois that nuanced debate is nearly impossible. I say this as a person who lives outside Chicago in the same region as one of those rightwing candidates and between McHenry Times rag and the absurd signage leading up to the election it was exhausting and consistenly done in bad faith. This article is an opinion on a right wing bias site that is promoting a key right wing political talking point, so no I do not trust that OP is even working in good faith. This isn't HN, this is something else.
This has been so deeply politicized in Illinois the last gubernatorial candidates for the Republicans have propagandized the subject so fiercely in Illinois that nuanced debate is nearly impossible. I say this as a person who lives outside Chicago in the same region as one of those rightwing candidates and between McHenry Times rag and the absurd signage leading up to the election it was exhausting and consistenly done in bad faith. This article is an opinion on a right wing bias site that is promoting a key right wing political talking point, so no I do not trust that OP is even working in good faith. This isn't HN, this is something else.
I'm dealing with this at my currently. It is a fairly large org and has good people and not so great people like any large enough group will have. What they don't have in my estimation is someone who actually knows how to engage with individual contributors in a meaningful way so struggles with issues of communication and direction, again, not atypical. I've invested into building an internal "meet up" for dev+adjacent folks to hold a weekly tech talk session, and am slowly building trust in what was a relatively low-trust environment. I do all this and some more within approximately the normal amount of working hours as if I weren't doing this with some very careful scheduling. My philosophy is that if we need to be here then might as well find a way to enjoy it and get something more than a paycheck. The effort is also slowly paying of in getting the attention of recruiting and hr, in that they are trying to learn how to engage with technology more effectively. It is slow growing but has been a joyful experience getting people to come out of their shell and give their, sometimes first, presentation at a meet up.
IME convoluted is often mistaken for clever. I've seen systems where the author was proud of how complicated their knots were but the reality was just a tangle to everyone else. Personally I guard for when I need to solve a problem but am having too much fun. It is usually a sign I'm too invested in the code than the goal, it helps me write but my next goal will be to edit it so future me won't say such awful things about now me.
No. Getting too cumbersome for my preference but I haven't learned a good enough alternative to invest learning. Bias is I made the switch to Ruby well-over a decade ago and it is still useful, fun to write in, and pays the bills.
Looking at that I am still wondering how it got there. That isn't something that just happens, someone wrote that code and that means someone put some thought into it. I am not saying it can't possibly be irrelevant but it isn't nothing either.
They walked away from a 6B acquisition by Google. They did believe the sky was the limit. I was not in the specific meetings but was there for everything around it. There was a sense of optimism no matter how naive it was in hindsight.
I was a developer at Groupon in that early era and remember IPO day. I am literally wearing the IPO shirt as a pajama top right now and stumbled on this. It was such an interesting and exciting place to be at the time. I still miss those days when the Chicago developer scene was so active and fun.
Just turned 47 this morning. I do have the kids, house, and accomplished most of the things I wanted to when I was a kid... but there's always more, there's always the things I haven't done, the things I have failed at, and the list goes on. I too feel the bitterness, anger, and disillusionment of the current state of the economy, my career, etc. I wonder how much of this is a product of those of us working in tech related/adjacent fields and the industries promises of the past few decades really not panning out. I feel like we're in an age of disillusionment for those of us who bought into those promises only to ... <<gestures broadly at the Internet>>.. see what has come of it.
I am never going to be rich, it is never going to be "easy", and while it could be worse it could be a lot fucking better too. And it is going to get harder before anything else changes.
What can you do about it? Fuck if I know. I can't deal with my own shit. But the one thing that has helped is trying to re-evaluate my current situation. Sometimes I feel locked into focusing on the things I can't have, the things I didn't accomplish, the mistakes I've made, and just have to accept that I cannot change them. I can only look at where I am now, take inventory, and try to re-orient myself. I've heard that works for others and it has helped me in the past, but it isn't a one-and-done exercise. Maybe I'm wrong but it has gotten me this far.
"You Are Not Alone" by Andrew WK (yeah, the Party guy) has been a fantastic cathartic resource for this middle aged dude in the 202Xs. I recommend a full listen -- end-to-end -- through on decent headphones and a place where you can safely process emotions. https://red.lnk.to/AWKYNA
Take care man, I hope you find a way to accept where you are, that you find peace, and make a plan for where you want to go next.
It will be interesting now that competitors know that all they have to do to appeal to a large segment of the workforce is simply not require a commute.
The point made about "bias towards merging" is my favorite. It's hard enough to get people to contribute without compounding the problem by kicking back their work over minutiae.
What seems to be misunderstood is that working more than 40 hours per week isn't the problem. It's what and where one is working and how much they value their time. I regularly work and study well over 50+ hours per week but not all of it is on my primary job. I also work on personal projects, small side jobs, learning new skills, etc. This whole concept is like the conversation a few years ago about the 5 o'clock developer. Our profession demands a great deal of time and dedication but that doesn't mean you have to subordinate your life to your employer. ---- For the people who think that chaining yourself to working 80+ hours to an employer is good, you need to step back and ask what do you think you're going to own after you finally burnout? Might setting up boundaries and investing in your own projects and external skills leave you with something you can own and take pride in or are you going to have to leave everything you've built behind and have no ownership when it's all said and done? I've been down that path and regret it. Learn to value your own time and invest that extra energy and time in building something for yourself.
What seems to be misunderstood is that working more than 40 hours per week isn't the problem. It's what and where one is working and how much they value their time. I regularly work and study well over 50+ hours per week but not all of it is on my primary job. I also work on personal projects, small side jobs, learning new skills, etc. This whole concept is like the conversation a few years ago about the 5 o'clock developer. Our profession demands a great deal of time and dedication but that doesn't mean you have to subordinate your life to your employer. ---- For the people who think that chaining yourself to working 80+ hours to an employer is good, you need to step back and ask what do you think you're going to own after you finally burnout? Might setting up boundaries and investing in your own projects and external skills leave you with something you can own and take pride in or are you going to have to leave everything you've built behind and have no ownership when it's all said and done? I've been down that path and regret it. Learn to value your own time and invest that extra energy and time in building something for yourself.
I was just let go from a company the day before yesterday and this was a primary reason. It was a startup and the CEO said that it's just how things had to be. I did in the end explain my position and why what they were doing was chaos and unnecessary. They were in a constant state of breaking or incomplete but they think that spending nights and weekends is how it's supposed to be so they will continue on down that destructive path and just keep on patting each other's backs for being so dedicated.