HN user
IMO this was already evident in some goods like vehicles. We are already living in the era of the 100k pickup truck. You can hardly buy anything new that is decent under 40k nowadays.
Unless we see commensurate rises in wages we are in for some real difficulty if this continues.
This promulgation and advocacy of laziness and know-nothing-ism is frightening and all too commonplace nowadays.
The ACID example was a bad one, granted, but everyone seems to be giving up after identifying that. I also think that this post is not about interviewing. I am much more concerned with the line the author takes about knowing how a digital computer work is even necessary. How have we arrived at this point?
As an example, how seriously would you take an aircraft flight controls software engineer who willfully chooses to never learn how an airplane flies? What if they just claimed that their sole responsibility was to take flight requirements from “people who know how airplanes work” and implement code? Knowing how horrific the results of this attitude is in even low pressure business situations, would you get on the plane he designed the software for?
People who live by and spread the idea that one only need know the things he or she is ‘required to know’ are dangerous for engineering organizations. When something goes horribly wrong, your mission critical system crashes, when you get dragged before the higher ups to explain the situation and fix it, the excuse ‘I don’t have to know how this works to do my job’ simply won’t fly.
People have lost all respect for the pursuit of excellence. Ask yourself who you would like to have on your team: someone who stops at learning the bare minimum to get paid and inevitably ruins the integrity of a product or someone who continually pursues getting better at their job and accelerates the people around them? Would you rather work with someone who values knowledge or someone who doesn’t?
I think it is drastically foolish to defend the toleration of those who aren’t even willing to learn basics like how a computer works in the name of inclusivity, utilitarianism, or egalitarianism.
Furthermore, I know a slew of extremely bright, tenacious, and committed young people who are ruthlessly pursuing excellence in engineering. If given the chance and enough time they will easily outperform, outwork, and surpass anyone who adheres to these lazy practices. If you do think this way and don’t want these kids to take your job then I suggest you buckle down a bit and learn some basics.