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danjac, to random
@danjac@masto.ai avatar

Personal keywords to avoid in job search:

  • Microservices
  • Blockchain/Web3
  • ChatGPT/LLM

Anyone got their own red flags?

chanakya,

@danjac The problem is not Node.js, but the ecosystem which promulgates laziness

danjac,
@danjac@masto.ai avatar

@chanakya I think that is less due to any specific technology and more about the "Jirafication" of product development.

Everything is reduced to tickets in a sprint, so it's hard to have an holistic view of the whole system, and hard to justify extra time spent on optimization and refactoring.

danjac, to random
@danjac@masto.ai avatar

If you do contract work for a government agency, you have to live with the fact that their IT department will do their best, usually through bureaucracy and incompetence, to make your work nigh impossible.

starbreaker,

@szakib

Second, do not work for free. Either stop at 40h, or report 60.

Do you even know me? I definitely stop at 40. Hell, I'd stop at 12 if I could get away with it; most of the time that's how long it actually takes me to finish my assigned work -- but I pretend it takes longer because the reward for efficient work is more work for the same inadequate paycheck.

BTW, I'm not a JS/web developer. The market for .NET developers who dabble in JS/web and are also familair with Unix-like systems isn't that great, either. I don't even bother talking to recruiters any longer, let alone maintaining a LinkedIn account.

@danjac

danjac,
@danjac@masto.ai avatar

@starbreaker @szakib recruiters like to dangle jobs in front of you, and say things like "the market is picking up". Really they know it's bad, but they have to put on a brave face and keep in contact for when the market does pick up (spoiler alert - it won't).

I don't have anything against recruiters really, I know some good ones, but they are also peddling false hope.

danjac, to random
@danjac@masto.ai avatar
danjac,
@danjac@masto.ai avatar

@grumpasaurus "It Is Difficult to Get a Man to Understand Something When His Salary Depends Upon His Not Understanding It"

danjac,
@danjac@masto.ai avatar

@wakingrufus this is along my thinking - like Conway's Law, the process, whatever the rulebook says, will mutate to fit the organization, for good or ill.

Most organizations (public or private) are hierarchical and top-down, and so Agile (whatever the brand) will become run under hierarchical and top-down lines.

danjac, to random
@danjac@masto.ai avatar

Dumbest advice in tech I've heard repeatedly: "build one to throw away".

I have never seen that happen, not once, unless the project or the company itself dies. Code that goes into production, into the hands of users, will need to be maintained and fixed, maybe for years.

If you have done it right, then it should be easy to refactor over time. If you did it poorly, the you have tech debt you will have to deal with. But it won't be just "thrown away".

danjac,
@danjac@masto.ai avatar

@almostconverge @szakib now I'm intrigued about your ttrpg system...

almostconverge,

@danjac @szakib well, i just wanted something that's reasonably simple but captures the essence of how our group likes to play

also, the idea is that i develop character sheet software and virtual tabletop integration with Tableplop as I'm creating the rules, with the guiding principle being: if it's too complicated to code, it's too complicated to play

danjac, to random
@danjac@masto.ai avatar

The reason I suspect Tailwind is popular is due to the requirements placed on developers by designers and PMs. I have seen many cases of clean CSS end up a mess - even devolving to style attributes - because every page just has to be a unique work of art with each paragraph and form input its own little delightful flourish.

Developers in general like clean, reusable code. Tailwind is neither. But with such stakeholders sometimes you just want the job done by Friday afternoon.

carlton,
@carlton@fosstodon.org avatar
carlton,
@carlton@fosstodon.org avatar

@webology @danjac when I’ve worked it out I’ll let you know. 😜

danjac, to random
@danjac@masto.ai avatar

OK so it's 2024. You are a web developer and you don't have any money, but what you do have are a set of particular skills.

What kind of side project or application would you build today, with the aim of making at least a decent side income?

ultrazool,
@ultrazool@mastodon.scot avatar

@danjac these words "some online store" are doing a lot of work here!

that's the part that needs building (or adapting). a Dropbox-like store but specialised to do only one media type task (e.g, store .kra files and convert them) but also a marketplace-like store - an image search for free clipart and templates with the future possibility for artists to either upload paid image components or take commissions

agreed that UI dev would be a LOT of work, task is friendly documentation, support

danjac,
@danjac@masto.ai avatar

@ultrazool right - I had in mind an online studio, like Photoshop or something.

An online store/marketplace on the other hand is not terribly difficult. I would probably keep it behind some login to keep out the AI bots.

danjac, to esperanto
@danjac@masto.ai avatar

Thinking about how is just dropping courses for less "commercial" languages for example despite their popularity and that these courses are largely built for free by volunteer enthusiasts.

Perhaps there is an opening here for an platform for building and consuming language courses that can be hosted cheaply and can exist as long as people want them. Doesn't necessarily need to be a straight Duolingo clone.

danjac,
@danjac@masto.ai avatar

Duolingo has gamification built into its courses because gamification is about keeping users engaged on your app, which is more to do with commercial imperatives than good language learning practice.

13reak,

@danjac

Gamification also doesn't help if one is missing one full part of a language: the grammar.

I found Duolingo makes one learn full sentences by heart, but one is not able to create new ones really.

danjac, to random
@danjac@masto.ai avatar

I don't know if it's unusual, but I only apply for positions where I have 100% match for requirements.

If you ask for e.g. FastAPI experience, I won't apply (I know Django and Flask very well, and am familiar with FastAPI, just never done any production work with it).

Maybe some people are happy winging it but you are going up against people with 100% match so why bother (except for resume/interview practice).

danjac,
@danjac@masto.ai avatar

@hengymrohebwlad it's one of those things that provides a useful "tell" of their company culture. They probably enjoy leetcode interviews, over-architected tech stacks etc.

danjac,
@danjac@masto.ai avatar

@hengymrohebwlad another "tell": they are enthusiastic about microservices, but they are also a small startup. It's useful how much can be gleaned from a job advert.

danjac, to random
@danjac@masto.ai avatar
danjac,
@danjac@masto.ai avatar

@starbreaker not heard of that service, will bear it in mind, thanks.

danjac,
@danjac@masto.ai avatar

@darth yeah switched to Cloudflare for my blog last night. A bit fiddly but was able to deploy with Eleventy.

danjac, to random
@danjac@masto.ai avatar

Putin may have a third-rate military, but he has learned how to weaponize the stupidity of Western voters.

danjac,
@danjac@masto.ai avatar

@GhostOnTheHalfShell the GOP...isn't that the US branch of United Russia?

kim_harding,
@kim_harding@mastodon.scot avatar

@danjac Not new, he has been interfering in UK politics since at least 2010

danjac, to random
@danjac@masto.ai avatar

I wonder what Prigozhin's endgame is here.

Take over Russia? Sure, but then he would need allies in Moscow to do it. He wouldn't have taken Rostov without some provisional support from other factions.

Would he end the Ukraine War? Maybe, he already said there was no reason to start it, so he has leeway to negotiate a ceasefire. When Lenin seized Russia he immediately secured peace with Germany.

Who knows though, the only thing you can expect from Russia is either chaos or tyranny.

danjac,
@danjac@masto.ai avatar

But even if we get a ceasefire in Ukraine, the thought of the butcher of Syria running Russia should be chilling to Western leaders. Any cessation of hostilities would merely be tactical. Be careful what you wish for.

danjac,
@danjac@masto.ai avatar

@kenmccann @Setok I've pointed this out already. Prigozhin may wish to call a ceasefire, as he sees the war as unwinnable and launched on a bad premise. But long-term he will just use any ceasefire as a tactical pause. So in the short-term good for Ukraine (maybe, and chaos in Russian military will give them opportunity). Long term, nobody - least of all Ukrainians - can sleep easy with Prigozhin in power.

danjac, to random
@danjac@masto.ai avatar

I suspect the death of Navalny was the final straw for leaders who thought there was the tiniest hope that Russia could change.

Putin is all-in, he has no successor other than an ugly power struggle between people worse than Putin, there is no semi-decent, democratically inclined replacement in the wings. And Putin knows he can now only stay in power through perpetual war.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/27/french-president-emmanuel-macron-ukraine-french-ground-troops

Setok,
@Setok@attractive.space avatar

@danjac for me a good starting point is back to the pre-2022 borders and end of active hostilities. But I’m game for 2014 borders. Putin toppled is a bonus. Though I think those are both related.

The way I see it playing out is one way or other Putin is killed or imprisoned. The new leader will not be significantly better but will pull out of Ukraine to focus on ‘other priorities’.

danjac,
@danjac@masto.ai avatar

@Setok maybe. On the other hand you have the makings of a new Dolchstoßlegende when the generals start casting blame on the old regime (and other scapegoats) to save themselves from their failures.

danjac, to random
@danjac@masto.ai avatar

Who in their right minds thought that GraphQL was a good idea?

It's lipstick on the pig that is the SPA model ffs.

danjac,
@danjac@masto.ai avatar

@chanakya @fallenhitokiri maybe the architect wanted to hide a bitcoin mining op in your company

chanakya,

@danjac no. The reasoning was a lot less sinister than that. And a story for another day.

danjac, to random
@danjac@masto.ai avatar

You get the impression from today's Tories (Sunak, Truss et al) that they don't really like Britain or its people very much. They regard the British people as lazy, "woke", workshy and ungrateful.

Hence all their talk about doing away with doctors' sick notes, discouraging work-from-home, "Singapore on the Thames" etc. They would much rather be governing an imaginary authoritarian country somewhere in Asia with zero workers rights.

fishidwardrobe,
@fishidwardrobe@social.tchncs.de avatar

@danjac Enemy within / deep state. Tomato / tomato.

danjac,
@danjac@masto.ai avatar

@fishidwardrobe arguably the Deep State conspiracy goes back to the British comedy show "Yes Minister", which was a favourite of Thatcher's.

danjac, to random
@danjac@masto.ai avatar

What I'd like to see is a TV show like Grand Designs, but posh people who decide to build their own web app.

Kevin McCloud appears halfway through the show in his hard hat, shaking his head sadly.

"Unfortunately their decision to use Kubernetes has led to a very problematic deployment. Meanwhile, their offshore React contractor has left for another job, leaving Jocasta and Tarquin trying to write the JSX themselves..."

stevefenton,
@stevefenton@mastodon.social avatar

@danjac The only problem is that in the typical Grand Designs format, Kevin's doubts are proven wrong by a great end result.

plwt,
@plwt@mstdn.social avatar

@danjac Suggested title "Responsive Designs"..?

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