av501

It is a function of incentives and punishments. The nature of the company you are in and the risk the org is willing to bear plays out. I work for one that puts in a lot of effort to get rid of all the user data if they request a deletion based on the laws of the country they are from which we can expand to any user as needed. Whenever we have found gaps in our existing data storage, we go back and really try to clean it up. However there is a lot of legacy that surfaces out time to time.

   The reality is doing this is messy and is going to remain so for some time.  One cannot suddenly start after years of no incentives in the online economy to do this and get to cover all areas without huge cost. This requires giving up competitive advantage today. Mid to small organisations that were beyond startup state but not yet having 1000's of engineers, which have to balance growth and operational aspects are left in the most difficult situation. As the laws started taking hold, their incentive structure is still not fully aligned with this as the digital economy does not yet reward them for this enough nor does enforcement create a large enough risk yet.  Same thing plays out with some of the larger orgs, just that they have more lawyers to help them stall this as humans are always biased to keep the status quo if it is beneficial to them.

   Personally I think we've had a start but its going to take some time to get to where we need to be. I really applaud the idea of the privacy laws and the intent behind them. Its just that one has to recognise we won't be getting to a state of good behaviour within a few years after a couple of decades of not having those requirements baked in from the get go.  Old habits have to be replaced as well. The enforcement is hard and that will be something that has to be bubbled upwards from the ground up by users themselves to create a digital economy where consumers/users reward those that respect their privacy. It is just not yet that way today, so why would the organisations change? The risk is low as enforcement is hard and the user demand is not enough.

   Most successful would be attempts by large organisations such as Apple and laws like GDPR which forces developers and companies to change their thinking. By asking for change and continuing to iterate on that you can start seeing a slow move towards development practices that will have privacy by default. You need the whole chain of actors to move towards this: The product managers, the engineering leads and architects, the decision makers, the risk assessors. Once enforcement is more steady alongside more demand from users the balance will come. All of this moves slowly whether we like it or not.

Yes, In India incoming calls are free (been like that for a very long time).

Nothing says GDPR is something that can't be improved upon. Better enforcement, refinement of laws, everything is possible. It has to begin somewhere and that beginning is rarely perfect. Every failure is also an opportunity to learn what to do better. As some other people have commented, the intent is right, the execution has to be improved. Edit: Fixed grammar and some words

  Ever since i have had a kid, I have started asking the reverse question; Is my career dragging my parenting down?

The principle of non-violent communication (NVC)[1] completely changed my approach in life to stressful situations. Practicing the same with my family, friends, work colleagues changed my life. Changed the way I approach situations. Allowed me to also apply it in reverse where I am now able to lead those stressed with me towards a NVC path. I am trying to understand their fundamental base need rather than just focus on what they are saying. This allows those around me also to become in tune with themselves and I can see it on their faces when they get the aha moment. I've received simple thanks sometimes for this so I know it is not just me that finds it useful. Works wonderfully well with toddlers as well! The whole premise that kids are stupid or don't understand stuff also gets upturned when you apply NVC to communicate with them or help understand their point of view.

It wasn't easy, took months before it became habit, just had to keep it going. Even now sometimes I forget and my lizard brain pops up from years of conditioning that will take some time to undo. But am I so happy I found out about it.

[1] https://baynvc.org/key-assumptions-and-intentions-of-nvc/

My guess is that they test it in chambers with lowered air pressure and composition to match 100k feet?

Just because you are small does not mean not doing the right thing is something you should get away with. I see lot of comments of how doing the right thing can be a burden. However, I see it the other way. Not doing the right thing is a burden you have to carry with you everyday. GDPR is helping you with guidelines on how to shed that burden. I do not know how and won't imagine it is easy, but I wish something in our existing socio-economic systems would slowly edge towards making 'doing the right thing' a significant variable that everyone has to care about for their own wellbeing and prosperity.

That was presumptuous on your part. First I shall talk about C. 2 reasons. 1.Any engineering graduate in India should know C. It is the first language they learn and use in curriculum. 2. We work in embedded and kernel domain. Welcome to a world where C is important.

Also it is not about deep understanding of pointers and stuff like that. The sad part is that most of them can't even write it in pseudo code.

As for the question of you not buying it, I can't convince you except that there are other commenters in this thread who have pointed out the same problem. This problem does exist.

Having interviewed 100+ candidates in past 2 years for my own startup and a similar number before in my previous job, I completely understand what the author is trying to say. Believe me when I say that 90% of my interviews simply stop at the first question (Can you write a function in C which given an integer array and its size as arguments, returns the number of zeros in an array?). My interview then turns in a small career counselling session telling them to learn and how learning to learn is important because it breaks my heart to see the young ones come out with no ability. Most of them though dejected at not clearing the interview thank me and tell me in the past 4 years that they were getting their degree nobody told them what I did. Shows really that there is nobody guiding them out there and the mindset is wrong.