Due to a series of airline mishaps I’ve been at MDW since crack of dawn. I usually fly out of ORD.
I realize my sample size is 1, but this is striking: I’ve overheard more casual homophobia in this one visit to MDW than in seven years of flying out of ORD. Like, combined.
Wtf?
I’m also not sure why it’s so trendy to hate ORD.
It’s a GIANT intl airport. I can count on my fingers the number of U.S. airports that face the logistical challenges that ORD does.
And, you don’t want to hear this: given what those challenges are, ORD does pretty good.
Jean identifies a narrow slice of perspectives that disproportionately drive the conversation about what "good software eng" looks like: both the code itself and the work that produces it.
Here's my $0.02, as a S.Eng and an educator, on what this conversation misses.
So first of all: a few tweets downthread, Jean brings up FAANGs. I promise, I'll get to FAANGs. But that's not where this conversation starts.
It starts with the dissonance between what 90+% of devs do and what they THINK they do.
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The lion's share of "THE OTHER STUFF," from my perspective, are the parts of engineering that The Conversation about "good software engineering" habitually ignores or under-discusses.
Once again, educator and practitioner here: I think "the parts" are like 80+% of the job.
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So, organizers try to include all the realistic contingencies in these simulations. Otherwise the simulation is useless for preparing people to act under pressure.
As of 2021, all the simulations I participated in while studying have been shelved.
Why?
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Because all of those simulations fail to account for an organized effort from a reasonably large, highly connected portion of the population to resist epidemic response measures.
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I have, four times now, witnessed a group of software and machine learning whizzes gather in a room (or Zoom) to brainstorm the reinvention of transport for eco-friendliness and human convenience.
All four times, the brainstorm "invented" buses. To the letter. All four times.
This is why, when people ask "can AI save XYZ," I usually think to myself "If AI can save XYZ, listening to folks who didn't grow up rich can save XYZ for like a millionth of the cost of AI trying to save it"
By the way, all four times were personal experiences.
I'm not counting the time when E**n M**k tried to reinvent transportation and invented the bus, or when Via tried to reinvent transportation and invented the bus, or when Uber tried to reinvent transportation and invented th
I want to share an observation that might prompt some thought.
Anytime a colleague who has been at a company <6 months has tried to get me to apply to their team, they either didn't stay for 6 months or they wanted out by 6 months.
This impacts how I respond to that request.
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I don't blame my colleagues for this.
I think tech companies (maybe all companies but I'll stick to what I know) tend to try hardest at the recruitment step and a lot less hard at the retention step.
And sometimes they effectively sell a fantasy to hire.
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Look.
Working for someone is a big bet.
Selling my friends on working somewhere is a BIGGER bet, by an order of magnitude.