southpawgirl

A thing of beauty ️

"there's not some massive conspiracy here - go ahead, use React/Ember" I wish it were the case; whilst for my own projects I certainly follow such advice, I've found that in industrial settings Angular is seen like a framework that delivers quickly and "if you don't like it probably you don't understand it", and therefore trying to oppose its choice raises eyebrows ("ah you want to bill us more days", or "duh! our consultant wants us to make exotic||obsolete choices"), more than it triggers any objective discussion.

I agree with the idea of 'sensitivity training'. Sometimes empathy is only latent and needs to be showed the way to express itself. Harsh punishment is of no use in this.

I don't like summary condemnations of people "to set the example". The guy has been uncouth and rude but it was just a (drunken? Tourette-like?) outburst.

As a women in tech I am more worried that, if we don't use with other people the same open-mindedness and fair play we ask for, we'll end up being dreaded or hated more than (maybe begrudgingly) accepted. I see nothing wrong in firing someone who promotes discrimination but hey, this was just a guy being a troll. One could as well have used magnanimity in dealing with it. Just my 2 cents.

Ouch! Thanks a lot.

Agree! Indeed, the comparaison with portals springs to the mind. While the amount of items (links, people, services, cultural niches) available increases, the need for more specialised and fragmented avenues of consumption increases. It's not difficult to imagine a scenario when one can pick and mix completely their online experience and still find their their social connections across different platforms, with the use of some meta tool, like an OpenId that also exposes the patterns of activities of one's friends.

As a purely empirical, nonrepresentative sample, I can see that most of my friends on Facebook are fairly quiet nowadays and my own account is virtually dead. It's still quite useful to have a FB a/c in order to authenticate on other apps; maybe FB will transforms itself into the aforementioned meta-tool...? Until it's superseded by a more specialised one...

I don't "get" SF, not as a place to live in (e.g. one that should satisfy all my needs, practical and intellectual). To me, SF is the mum in the Woody Allen sketch that keeps saying "Do your homework! Brooklyn is not expanding!" -- aka, no time for introspection or philosophical pursuits. I've found there, on top of social inequality, a curious brand of intellectual pragmatism, something like: if you cannot market it, then it's not interesting. But maybe it's a distorted perception?

This post is brilliant. It puts into words an unspoken but pervasive sensation I had in the small town I grew up in, before leaving for greener pastures: it didn't ask me (or anyone else) to be anyone or anything better than I already was. I hated it for its leniency, for its forgiveness that ended up being suffocating. It makes sense to choose to live in a demanding place.

I handed in my notice recently. My situation was somewhat similar to the one of the poster: project really not that interesting, unglamorous company, so-so salary, but casual atmosphere and not much to do, and I got to keep a lot of energy available to study and pursue my own coding projects. Then there was a change in management and pressure went up tenfolds, so I resigned.

First, I recognise now that it's potentially a bad idea to keep a job just because it does allow you to coast. There's a depressing quality in such choice; work representing the most part of our day, underperforming by choice, by remaining in an undemanding job, can even lower our self-esteem. I didn't do me much good, in any case.

Secondly, I am leaving because the market allows me to do it, because I know I am likely to find something better in a reasonable time. I could have handled the pressure, I could have remained and try to make that place a better place, but it's simply not in my best interest and it did more sense to just quit.

The position of the poster baffles me a bit: he recognises that conditions have changed and instead of adapting or refusing the new state of things, he dumps his responsibility to his own happiness to someone else: his manager. Indeed having good developers, in the current state of the market, is a privilege. In five years or ten years it might not be the case. Why making a case of us vs them? Isn't simpler to just take advantage of the bull dev market and leave?

It's naive, but widespread, from the part of managers to believe that by increasing the pressure they will get more bang for their buck. Let's them learn the hard way, until we can afford it. To moan and not budge is almost suspicious - maybe the poster is not so sure of himself after all? - and counterproductive for every party involved.

Or make jobs paying Walmart-style salaries pay somewhat more... ? Although I disagree with the conclusions of the article (it doesn't take lots of complexities into account, education level, family issues, disability, etc), the logic behind choosing welfare over a dismally paying, soul-crushing menial job is totally sound.