Respect

by Alupis • 12 years ago

65 49 12 years ago

donall• 12 years ago

This was hard to read. I couldn't get the first paragraph to parse right. "the lone hacker building a billion website overnight in his dorm and here about the excitement of building a new product" reads like maybe "dollars" is missing. I don't know what "here" is doing. I suspect something was edited rendering it ungrammatical. There are also some odd homophone errors, like "higher" for "hire". Maybe the "here" was "hear"?

The underlying concept is interesting; it's just hard to follow because it's so badly presented.

umanwizard2• 12 years ago

Yes, "dollars" should be added after "billion"; "here" should read "hear", and "higher" should read "hire". I think you're exaggerating a bit; those were the only errors I noticed, and other than that the article was easily comprehensible.

The errors seem like the result of either poor text-to-speech software or mild dyslexia. They don't really detract from the content.

methodover• 12 years ago

They don't really detract from the content.

They do, though.

I do believe that programming has a low social status compared to some professions, but this article doesn't do a good job of illustrating that point. The poor grammar/spelling come off as ironic, in fact.

sanderjd2• 12 years ago

My thought was english-as-a-second-language. I didn't have too much trouble figuring it out once I switched into inference mode reading.

zheshishei• 12 years ago

I tried editing the article to make it more readable (and for fun), but failed after the fourth paragraph. I realized the author is addressing two audiences, the managers and the developers, and forgot to take that into account in my editing.

Here's what I've got so far:

Software development is, at its core, a terribly frustrating profession. You're lured in with promises of being a lone hacker building a billion-dollar website overnight in your dorm and hear about the excitement of building a new product or even embarking on a new project for a client. It's only later that you find out that most people who stay up all night hacking away on side projects never ship them (or if they do, they never make a dime) and that most of your work is going to be maintaining and updating code rather than writing your own from scratch. Eventually, you fall into some sort of coping mechanism such as the pomodoro technique, Agile development, or some other poor solution to the fundamental problem of the profession. The problem is that the software development industry hates software developers. It really hates us and, if you think about it, that makes sense, because we can make a lot of demands to business types that others simply can’t.

Recently, the industry has tried to curb our influence by outsourcing our jobs. It was thought that business could just hire seventy-five (75) percent off their staff offshore for one-third of the price and use that as downward price pressure in the domestic market. Though that hasn’t gone as well as some would have liked, it certainly hasn’t failed completely. Still, the results were less than stellar and a lot of business are now hitting pain points with foreign development, causing many of them to bring their dev projects back home. But, these businesses don't want a seventy-five (75) percent price increase overnight, so what’s a slick talking, frugal businessman to do?

You sell the lone hacker myth and hand out little bottles of Facebook-style startup Kool-Aid. After all, it turns out that a lot of young programmers have an inflated sense of their abilities and can be easily manipulated into working what amounts to unpaid overtime. Only an idiot would put a young developer on an hourly wage when they could instead give him a set salary with unrealistic deadlines to squeeze the extra work out of every penny. Well, guess what? It worked! These young developers will work 50-60 hour weeks for their businesses and still promise to work harder next week. Better still, if they have a personal event or other issue, they will even apologize for that rare 40 hour week! You've got to love kids! You must be so happy. Look at all the value you can show your investors and how modest the L side of your P&L is!

But wait, something seems wrong. It’s been about a year and your dev is becoming a little harder to work with. He’s starting to mention things like vacation tim. Doesn’t he know that <insert random month here> is super important for <insert company name here> and it’s crunch time? Sure, it was crunch time the month you brought him on and pretty much every month after that, but isn’t that just the nature of the business? Worse still, he is out the door every day after his eight hours – is he no longer committed?

Then, it happens. Your dev up and bails on you. Maybe he gives you two weeks of notice; maybe he doesn’t. Either way you're down a dev and probably not sure why. Well, the answer varies based on the dev – it could be family, a better offer, or any other reason. But, there is a commonality in most of these cases: on some level the dev figures out that the economics just don’t make sense; at least not if he is to work the hours that you expected. Before wondering what happened ask yourself this: if that dev were a lawyer or CPA would you have expected the same type of “commitment”?

Let’s face it no business manager would think about asking for the level of commitment and self-sacrifice that is commonly asked of software developers of a lawyer or CPA. The reason is simple: most businessmen value lawyers and CPAs – they respect them and see them as professionals. The see them as professional adults where developers are just overgrown teens in their eyes. The sad part is that we allow this. We have created the youth culture around “hip” development technologies that allows this sort of age discrimination against more mature developer while simultaneously promotes the abuse of young developers. It’s time that we as software developers demand the same respect that other professionals get and end these age issues.

We are of course not blameless in this lack of respect. Whenever a dev shows up to a meeting in a hoodie or gaming tee, he sends the message that he is not a professional. So please give the hoodies to the Salvation Army and throw on a polo. Also, you are not a “rockstar”, “ninja”, or “code samurai”. You are, however, a “Software Developer”, Software Engineer”, or “Programmer”, so make sure your business card has one of the latter titles on it rather than the former and use the more professional title in conversations. One more thing. Keep your conference presentations PG13 and please don’t make sexual comments; that goes double for dongle jokes. If we can all act like professionals maybe we will be treated like professionals.

hyperliner3• 12 years ago

Upvoted for effort.

m_t2• 12 years ago

My own form of self respect is not having to wear a polo to work.

Scuttles• 12 years ago

Not having to, and choosing to wear a polo to work are different things.

Even if it's just on those all-day-meetings days where you interface with your PM and other biz types...

"Don't dress for the job you have, but rather the job you want".

m_t2• 12 years ago

And the job I want let me wear whatever if feel like. Which excludes polo.

jdpage• 12 years ago

Polos can go to hell. I usually wear nice jeans and a black t-shirt to work (but then, the CEO appears to be wearing bright orange shorts), but if somebody said tomorrow "jdpage, we need you to dress a little more professionally", then I will come in the next day with a full button-down shirt. I've never met a polo that's as comfortable as a decent button-down.

hyperliner3• 12 years ago

You can wear a tshirt and yet look professional. I think OP used the wrong example. The worst case I think is not wearing shoes while not taking care of your nails. That is disgusting.

The second worst would be not attempting to brush your hair or teeth after getting out of bed.

The third would be not taking showers at a frequency high enough to overcome your personal natural tendencies to actually, physically, smell badly.

ForHackernews2• 12 years ago

Agreed. Polos are Best Buy salespeople. If I'm dressing up to look professional, it's going to be in a suit.

joncrocks• 12 years ago

Let’s face it no business manager would think about asking for the level of commitment and self-sacrifice that is commonly asked of software developers of a lawyer or CPA

I suspect the author has never been a just-out-of-college grad in any job other than development. I can assure you that there will be the expectation of providing your services for >40h/week in many industries.

Do you know how hard the big law/accounting firms work their new recruits?

Alupis2• 12 years ago

In fairness, a CPA is not likely to be "fresh out of college" recruit, and likely will be a bit more firm in what they will or will not due in regards to time commitment and expectations out of the company.

rqebmm2• 12 years ago

Yeah this part was laughable. Fresh-out-of-school lawyers, accountant, and business-types are routinely expected to work 80-100 hour weeks at large firms.

I have a friend who worked at Goldman Sachs up until their manager called them on Christmas Eve and demanded they drop everything and get to the airport ASAP for a big meeting. There was no meeting and upon reaching the airport they were told their job was safe and to go home and enjoy their Christmas. Those who did not report were fired upon returning from vacation.

Do we hear about that kind of stuff ever happening to devs? (Well, outside the gaming industry)

jiggy20112• 12 years ago

That sounds shitty, but I assume Goldman Sachs employees are at least well compensated for it.

hartator• 12 years ago

I would say that's maybe one of the reasons this company had crashed.

x0x02• 12 years ago

I well take your point, but biglaw offers $160k [1] plus bonus starting comp. Even if you don't make it through the up-or-out crucible, the 2-4 years you should make it ought to at least zero any school debt you have and leave you with a good chit on your resume.

And my rule is to quit jobs if I have to work weekends and I don't see the c-staff in there as well. Even if they have no work to do; if they screwed up badly enough that I'm working they better not be fucking off with their kids or hobbies.

[1] http://abovethelaw.com/2012/10/the-160k-plus-club-which-law-...

MetaCosm• 12 years ago

That is a handful of firms offering that, and some are tiny. W&C is legendary and like 200 people out of a single office... they grew to 200 people in 45 years -- do the math. These firms are hiring the absolute best... heck, if we keep an exclusive list like that, I bet with stock options software developers crush lawyers -- if we only care about the top sub 1% .. with some of the crazy stock adjusted packages at Google, MS, Amazon ... excluding the crazy start-ups.

dennisnedry• 12 years ago

This is an awful article. Not only does the author not understand the difference between "your" and "you're", the whole thing is written from a very negative point of view. I'd recommend for the author to get into another industry if he feels it's "so hard".

umanwizard2• 12 years ago

The difference between "your" and "you're" has nothing to do with how insightful the content is.

rqebmm2• 12 years ago

while that's true, it still does affect how readable the article as a whole is.

And besides, the content was hardly insightful.

yellowapple3• 12 years ago

It does when the "insight" is about respect for programmers and professional conduct. Frequent spelling and grammar errors do not convey a professional, respectable impression.

peteypao• 12 years ago

I agree. The author sounds like a whiner. "OOOhhh my manager expects so much of me..." Boo fucking hoo.

I can't stand reading all these whiny diatribes. Ask all your fellow non-STEM friends and you'll see how much they'd rather be in your position.

sanderjd2• 12 years ago

None of my non-STEM friends has any interest in doing what I do. They'd love the paycheck, but nothing else about it entices them. There are lots of trade offs; it's neither the world's best nor worst job. This author comes off a bit whiny, but many of his points are sensible. In particularly, ageism is a bigger problem in computer technology (especially on the web, where a lot of the jobs are) than in most other industries. Outsourcing too, though less so. Somebody above linked a better written and less whiny post from michaelochurch about the same stuff.

forgottenpass• 12 years ago

The number of homophone "mixups" is so high, I can't see it as anything but on purpose.

Dewie• 12 years ago

Well, I'd rather be treated with respect than to have a ping pong table in the reception and a mini fridge for beers in the office (I mean, open office plan) if I'd have to choose.

dogecoinbase• 12 years ago

Here is a significantly better-written article on the same topic: http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2014/07/13/how-the-other...

borkabrak• 12 years ago

This page is itself a poor example of the principle it's trying to expound. Unfortunate, and especially disappointing as its an idea that I agree with.

yellowapple3• 12 years ago

You get lured in [?] with images of the lone hacker building a billion dollar [?] website overnight in his dorm and hear about the excitement of building a new product or even embarking on a new project for a client.
It was thought that business could just hire 75% of their staff offshore for a third of the price and use that as downward price pressure in the domestic market.
Either way you're down a dev and probably not sure why.

Corrections are emphasized. It's worth mentioning that - in addition to the ending list of things that programmers/developers/etc. should do to make themselves look professional - proper spelling and grammar is absolutely vital. When writing a commentary about how programmers deserve respect, having spelling/homophone errors detracts from that argument.

tomrod2• 12 years ago

Not to be pedantic, but shouldn't this read that proper spelling and grammar _are_ absolutely vital?

ianmcgowan• 12 years ago

Muphry's law in action!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muphry's_law

xikrib• 12 years ago

"not to be pedantic" ... is pedantic "proper spelling and grammer" can be considered a singular. He's not wrong

yellowapple3• 12 years ago

It depends on how you interpret it. I'm treating "spelling and grammar" in this case to be a single object. It's techically wrong in an English language sense, but in a logical sense treating them as a singular is more appropriate, since it's rarely helpful to have one without the other.

Alternately: I done goofed :)

thomasloh• 12 years ago

By the end of day, it's all about delivering substance, not style.

hyperliner3• 12 years ago

I would say "Delivering substance, while having style that does not overshadow the substance."

vermooten• 12 years ago

A good read - I work with managers who don't like being 'held to ransom' by the senior experienced devs. One of the managers thinks that a pair of hands is a pair of hands - and prefers younger enthusiastic devs to 'fat old men with beards'. Sigh.

lohankin• 12 years ago

Ideal unit of software professional (officially: "resource", unofficially: "body"), as seen by employer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfGs2Y5WJ14

BTW, here you can see agile technology in action, too. The entire movie is well worth your time.

jedanbik• 12 years ago

Respect? Isn't this what unions are for?

eldude• 12 years ago

Software engineering is the only trade I'm familiar with that lacks a skill-based career progression. In most companies, it's generally expected that you will eventually become a manager and cross over into the business side of the house. You don't see this in other trades: doctors remain doctors, lawyers continue to practice law, accountants continue to deal with tax returns, etc... etc...

Even at famous Silicon Valley companies with a tech track, becoming a Staff Engineer is a generally inferior career path compared to the title inflation seen on the business side. Ben Horrowitz endorses this in The Hard Thing About Hard Things when advocating that title inflation is "free" in respect to competing companies.[1] Fortunately, it's juxtaposed with Zuckerberg's / Facebook's title normalization, which ensure engineering titles remain comparable with non-engineering titles.

Software engineering needs stronger leadership and career tracks that encourage craftsmanship and mastery. Why continue in an inferior career track, when you can start your own company and leap frog all of middle management altogether? The value proposition simply isn't there. We need a new management structure, one that resolves the multiple and independent types of leadership and encourages engineers to become better engineers, and not to become managers who don't code.

[Edit] What's really interesting is the way in which this power dynamic plays out in most tech companies. Engineers clearly possess the upper hand, but aren't interested in power and so are heavily placated with a pile of perks to the resentment of others because of their lack of corresponding responsibilities. In SV, engineers are the "talent" and everyone else implicitly fills support roles, even PMs. This also of course creates cultural disparities where you can make $250k/yr (including bonuses and RSUs) and work < 40hr/wk.

[1] http://blog.skillbridge.co/teams/unless-its-king-james-be-wa...

Respect

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