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"Yep, 51 is young to die", said the 51 year old programmer.
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Only the good Youngs die!
I'll get my coat...
If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack.
--Winston Churchill
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I have a question for the old timers. The youngins won't understand this unless they've lived a pass life they recall. Anyway, y'all ever get jaded with the technology industry? Just sick and tired of it all? The buzz words. The fact 99% of the industry is BS. PHBs. The acronyms for that matter. The fact that we've all probably lost hair due to our work. Not so much the actual tech, but the relatively young industry that grew up around it.
And yet, we do this because we're creators. Programmers are some of the few I've seen will to do whatever it takes to get the job done. Sometimes out of fear of being fired from poor management but sometimes it's out of passion and love for the work of creating. You don't really see that type of passion in most industries. It's so ingrained in tech in fact, I think the industry counts on it. The industry is spoiled by it.
And despite this. There really isn't much else we'd rather do. Think about it. We're the future. Technology is taking over the world. Knowing what you're doing with your life, would any old timer rather be a lawyer that doesn't know much about tech? As a whole, we're changing the planet. When I see people like Elon Musk, well that dude is a programmer. He's changing the world. I think it's hard to imagine a life better spent than one helping humanity take the next step.
Not every job gets to do that in their tiny way. So has anyone else found themselves jaded for a period while the industry finds itself, yet to only realize that as people we are right where we are meant to be?
Jeremy Falcon
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Jeremy Falcon wrote: The fact 99% of the industry is BS.
How so?
There are two kinds of people in the world: those who can extrapolate from incomplete data.
There are only 10 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
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Ok, maybe it's 98%. I'm generalizing here.
Jeremy Falcon
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I still have no clue what you're talking about. Tech is running the world, so how can it be nothing but BS?
There are two kinds of people in the world: those who can extrapolate from incomplete data.
There are only 10 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
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That's a loooooong answer to a short question. It's not just tech actually. It's been my observation that in most industries actually a significant amount of people just simply do enough to get the job done and that's it. The more people you talk to you the more you realize just how many people are involved in the industry that don't know the first thing about what tech really is. Granted, there is more than one skill set in the world besides knowing bits and bites that is useful, but I digress.
Jeremy Falcon
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Jeremy Falcon wrote: significant amount of people just simply do enough to get the job done and that's it
I get what you are saying. I often stumble upon this too. So much supposedly works but, in fact, doesn't actually work (see my recent rant on Nuget/Visual Studio).
I often feel like Systems are carried out to a certain place and then just dropped. Now we are at a a place where hundreds of systems are in place that are only partially carried out.
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I always just do what I have to, to get by...... Then I notice that there is just one more thing that I could do to make the outcome soooooo much better..... and then I do just that one thing. and on and on and then I am scrambling to get it all shinny to meet the deliverable schedule.
As far as BS. Hummmmm, does seem to be a lot more middle management involved now. That is good and bad. Mostly bad it seems.
Scrum, kind of necessary with the new gen of programmers, not so much with the silverbacks.
Got to go now, I just noticed a bit of code that needs just one more pass to make it soooo much better.
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RyanDev wrote: Tech is running the world, so how can it be nothing but BS?
My take on that is that more often than not, tech creates a solution for a problem that didn't exist, except in the mind of some penny pincher or stock holder.
Does an automated answering system where you have to go through 5 layers of options improve talking to a live person from the get go? Hell no.
Does all the record keeping and analysis that goes on behind the scenes improve your auto insurance coverage? From what I've seen, no, all it does is make insurance more expensive by adding layers of services and bureaucracies that people don't know about, like your policy rates going up if you have a low credit score.
Does Facebook and Twitter actually improve the quality of people's lives? Everyone credits the Arab Spring to tech like instant messaging, and look where the Arab Spring is now.
Has tech actually improved the quality of care we get from doctors? Maybe, but maybe not, what with, for example, the 6 visit "results based" requirements in mental health services based on filling out computerized forms that in no way capture the real issues.
Of course, for every example, there is a counter example. I know a lot more about drug side effects, astronomy, physics, etc., because I can look the things up and get informative answers.
But let's not forget that all this tech we're creating is accessible to a small % of the world population that has bigger problems than checking their Facebook wall.
Marc
Latest Article - Create a Dockerized Python Fiddle Web App
Learning to code with python is like learning to swim with those little arm floaties. It gives you undeserved confidence and will eventually drown you. - DangerBunny
Artificial intelligence is the only remedy for natural stupidity. - CDP1802
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This is why I like you Marc. You're smart. Just don't tell anyone. It'll be a cold day in hell before you hear that from me. 
Jeremy Falcon
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Marc Clifton wrote: Does Facebook and Twitter actually improve the quality of people's lives?
Not generally. 
There are two kinds of people in the world: those who can extrapolate from incomplete data.
There are only 10 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
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Oh the questionnaires and layers of forms.... Flow charts to tell the customer service representative or some algorithm which path to take down the bunny hole to get an appropriate answer.
But then technology can also come in and help us with the problems caused by the previous solutions.
I am a volunteer firefighter and first responder in my down time. The previous area I worked in implemented a way bloated version of Medical Priority Dispatching and the questions could take a few minutes to get through. The problem is the national standard says the dispatch must be out within a minute of answering a 911 call. The answer that has been implemented is to give a preliminary dispatch of location and type(EMS, Fire; default = Police), and then when the flowchart is completed a second dispatch is made to give more information so that the responders know what they are going to see and need when they get there.
Director of Transmogrification Services
Shinobi of Query Language
Master of Yoda Conditional
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Jeremy Falcon wrote: maybe it's 98%
No, its 99% - you were correct.  The truth is in the facts, and the fact is, the IT world is BS.
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Jeremy Falcon
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Make that the corporate world and I will agree with you.
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If you have to ask, this wasn't written for you. You can pretend you never read it.
Yeah whatever...
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jhegedus wrote: this wasn't written for you.
Apparently not. Clearly my 20 years experience in the industry has been better than a lot of yours. Lucky me, I guess.
There are two kinds of people in the world: those who can extrapolate from incomplete data.
There are only 10 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
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One example of the BS part, Scrum's daily stand up meeting. It used to be a once a week status meeting and your manager might stop by your desk every day or so just to see how you are doing. Now it's every FRIKKIN' day.
ScrumMaster, "Let's go around the room."
Developer A, "I'm working on X, no blockers."
Developer B, "I'm working on Y, no blockers."
Developer C, "I'm working on Z, no blockers."
etc.
Two week sprints that are really only a week and a half because QA has to be on the same Sprint schedule as the developers and you have to allow time for them to finish testing. Plus the Sprint planning, Sprint Demo, Sprint Retrospective meetings on top of the daily stand up.
And don't even get me started on the "Open Office" crap. I want my walls and shelves back, Dagnabit!
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MarkTJohnson wrote: ScrumMaster, "Let's go around the room."
Developer A, "I'm working on X, no blockers."
Developer B, "I'm working on Y, no blockers."
Developer C, "I'm working on Z, no blockers."
etc.
This worked really well for us. But we were not set on 2 week sprints. We had short goals but never let reality get in the way. We were flexible.
There are two kinds of people in the world: those who can extrapolate from incomplete data.
There are only 10 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
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Jeremy Falcon wrote: has anyone else found themselves jaded for a period while the industry finds itself, yet to only realize that as people we are right where we are meant to be?
Not for me. I just focus on the task in front of me and enjoy myself. 
Having been doing this stuff since slightly before personal computers existed, I gave up worrying about what the industry as a whole was doing, mainly because it's always going the wrong direction according to me, but always ends up someplace cool and interesting enough that I'm glad to be along for the ride.
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patbob wrote: mainly because it's always going the wrong direction according to me
It's like market foresting forecasting with stocks. Most folks try to predict the future of it and nobody really knows what the market will do. And it is an interesting ride my friend. Just wait until Japanese robots become the norm.
Jeremy Falcon
modified 28-Jun-17 13:36pm.
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Jeremy Falcon wrote: market foresting with stocks
I didn't know the US Forestry Service was involved! 
Jeremy Falcon wrote: Japanese robots
Shades of Battlestar Galactica. We're on a repeat cycle.
#SupportHeForShe
Government can give you nothing but what it takes from somebody else. A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you've got, including your freedom.-Ezra Taft Benson
You must accept 1 of 2 basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe or we are not alone. Either way, the implications are staggering!-Wernher von Braun
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