Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard
If you have ever worked in software-related industries, the chances are that the word “Rockstar” will elicit a visceral reaction. It’s a word used by a Certain Type Of Manager for an elite software developer who’s so 1337 they don’t play by the rules of ordinary mortals. In reality it’s use is invariably an indication of trouble ahead, either from clueless startups or troublesome rockstar developers making a toxic atmosphere for the mere members of the backing band. Hackaday has a team that brings together a huge breadth of experience, and we’ve been there.
Think I'll stick to being a roadie developer. You know, get my job done so other people can do theirs.
Source: https://hackaday.com/2018/07/28/become-the-rockstar-developer-youve-always-dreamed-of-being/
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 29 2018, @04:31PM
The CSP was an event that was meant to teach people to share with others to make society better for all. Each participant would bring their consumables and then share them with others until they were all gone. Or, at least, that was what was supposed to happen.
How? How had this happened? This was supposed to an event where people shared with and cared for one another. Yet, everyone was fighting over the last item...
Yes, it was the last one. Left arm. Right arm. Left leg. Right leg. Hair. Neck. Buttocks. All of these things were grabbed, pulled, and tugged on from every direction. The little girl - the only child to survive the brutality of this year's Child Sharing Program - did not even have the energy to scream, even though all the men were viciously pulling on her. The men had quickly broken each of the other children by being far too rough while violating them, so when they noticed that one child was still alive, they all charged towards her at once. This was the result.
"She's mine! She's all mine!" one man screeched.
"Get away from her! I grabbed her first!" another man responded.
It was complete chaos. Instead of sharing her until she was broken, each man was thinking only of themselves. The grabbing and pulling continued, and numerous cracking sounds were heard; they were the sounds of various bones breaking. The man grabbing the girl's hair kept pulling out large chunks of it. The men grabbing her limbs eventually broke them. In the end, the man pulling on her neck snapped it, and it was all over.
The men began screaming at one another, trying to assign blame to the others. Any neutral observers would be brought to tears by the plight of the men, as they only wanted to enjoy themselves. If only these men could just get along. How unfortunate. How tragic.
The arguments continued for hours with no real resolution, but one thing became clear: This was the true tragedy of the commons.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by VLM on Sunday July 29 2018, @04:40PM (3 children)
To me, rockstar developer means living in a van down by the river, culturally appropriating lower class and other race clothing styles and speech patterns, drinking a bottle of whiskey every night, then as a result having marketing panties thrown at me when I step up to begin my meeting presentations, right before my drummer/project manager dies of a heroin overdose onstage. I mean, its like that for all you guys, right?
Seriously though, I know by definition 50% of management is below median performance, and all that, but what kind of retard grows up watching "The Partridge Family" and "This is Spinal Tap", and then decides, yeah, what I really need for software development is those dweebs sitting in front of laptops in an open office. Like, I seen dumb, i seen really dumb, I seen Army dumb, and this is like a whole nother circle of hell of dumbness deeper than that. I strongly urge my competitors to conform to the "rockstar dev" meme.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 29 2018, @06:22PM (1 child)
To me, this looks like TMB lampshading his self-image as SN's cool, leather-clad, motorbike-riding pr0grammer icon [1].
[1] With easily the best one liners since Duke Nukem.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday July 29 2018, @11:42PM
Haven't owned a bike since my 20s and there's no point in getting a new one in TN. Riding a bike with a helmet on is like using a dildo instead of your cock for fucking; it might still be fun but knowing how much more fun it could be utterrly ruins the experience.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by jelizondo on Monday July 30 2018, @06:14AM
I’m sooo glad that cultural appropriation wasn’t invented until recently.
Fuck, let’s talk about the Indo-Arabian number system [wikipedia.org] (yep, the one we use today), and the Phoenician alphabet [wikipedia.org] (yes, we use a variant of it).
And don’t get me started on Spaghetti Bolognese, you shouldn’t try to cook it unless you’re are Italian of course, or you do realize that tomatoes [wikipedia.org] came from America (the continent) and the spaghetti from Arabia [1]; so as they say, if you steal from a thief you get one hundred years of pardon. (Ladrón que roba a ladrón, tiene cien años de perdón. There I go, appropiating shit!)
<sarcasm>Fuck, fire was invented by the Neanderthals so we are screwed!</sarcasm>
[1] It appears that spaghetti was invented in the Middle East. References: 1 [wikipedia.org] and 2 [101cookingrecipes.com]
(Score: 2) by Ken_g6 on Sunday July 29 2018, @04:45PM (2 children)
TFS doesn't describe TFA well. It's about a silly, stupid programming language. Like Brain**** [wikipedia.org], but less readable and less useful.
(Score: 3, Informative) by VLM on Sunday July 29 2018, @04:57PM (1 child)
My brainfuck goes up to 11, see thats better than 10.
I like the comment from the article:
Uh, what about Visual Basic or Java?
Java is a very agricultural language in that there's this inbred group living in distant hills (India, mostly) who spend inordinate amounts of effort on ridiculously complicated and dangerous often fatal rube goldberg contraptions to do unimaginable things; meanwhile the rest of the world is like "don't troll me with your enterprise java hello world factory pattern bullshit, everyone knows that food comes from supermarkets not all this combine harvester make believe harry potter object oriented witchcraft that you talk about all day that apparently randomly rips the arms off operators occasionally, just assign x=1 + 1 like every other civilized language and put your UML diagrams and development patterns over there by the pile of Sears catalogs so we can wipe our butts in the outhouse". But other than that, I really love Java, no really. Naw just kidding, I hate that bullshit.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday July 30 2018, @12:14AM
But you can't dust for vomit.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 29 2018, @05:18PM
The toxic environment comes from the gaslighting asshole manager who's constantly calling the programmer a rock star above her/his insistence that it's not some innate Gandalf-like superpower, but an application of experience, skill gained over decades, maths and logic. It's always the manager engaging in sexual harassment and refusing to hire women.
At least something can be done about the sexual harassment. Always be recording. Listen to people who say they've been sexually harassed. Destroy the gaslighting asshole when you catch him in the act.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 29 2018, @06:10PM (10 children)
I've known two double rockstar programers -- as well as software, they both excelled at electronic hardware design and construction. One was building analog electronics in primary school (soldering up discrete components in 3rd grade) and graduated from an Ivy in three years, taking graduate control theory courses in his third year because he'd already gone through all the undergrad EE requirements. The other started hacking on cars, but once he got to a different Ivy he built all kinds of digital stuff, including a Z-80 homebrew computer in the S-100 bus / Apple II hobbyist era. Both continued to design and build analog systems, in one case, all the electronics in a stereo, starting with phono preamp and reel-2-reel tape electronics, bi-amplification, and ending with home made electrostatic speakers.
They both programmed in assembler, later using C on various platforms (often VAX as well as multiple microprocessors in arcade games) and even some work with Lisp Machines. Given memory and speed limitations they both wrote amazing stuff for real time control and physics simulation, working on advanced R&D projects for the "skunk works" divisions of some Fortune 50 companies. This went on in the '80s and early '90s.
One was so intense that (imo) he gave himself an autoimmune disease and other complications, died age 40. The other was also a unique personality, but eventually burned out after dealing with a ~5 year family situation, still living, but no longer working.
Some people really do burn bright (and sometimes die young).
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 29 2018, @07:44PM (8 children)
Ivy league school lol. At least we've established that being born upper class is a requirement for being a "rock star." Working class programmers with excellent skills need not apply.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 29 2018, @07:56PM (5 children)
Having connections is the most important thing, which is the true purpose of these Ivy league schools. If you don't have connections, there's a tiny chance you'll have some success if you have a piece of paper. But if you have skills and no paper? You're mostly doomed. Meritocracy is a comforting illusion.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday July 29 2018, @11:48PM (4 children)
Sour grapes. I do just fine with a GED and my skills/experience. Broaden your myopic window into the job market and you can as well. Unless you suck. I'd advise management if that's the case.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 30 2018, @02:22AM (3 children)
I said that you're "mostly doomed". It's impossible to deny that credentialism is common, or that the vast majority of employers are utterly clueless about the jobs for which they are hiring. If you don't have a degree, you will be discriminated against by many employers. Your options are to use any connections you have, find the increasingly rare employer that will look past your lack of a piece of paper, or to start your own business. Not much of a meritocracy when you're living in a society full of shallow, short-sighted retards.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday July 30 2018, @04:15AM (2 children)
It's not remotely rare except in corporate life but then you'd need to go out into the wide world and find this out for yourself instead of sticking within what falsely appears to be a safe little bubble to know it.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 30 2018, @03:18PM (1 child)
Whatever. Many jobs that never used to require degrees now require them. That doesn't mean there are no employers that do not require degrees, but they are fewer in number. I own my own business anyway, so it's not currently an issue.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday July 30 2018, @03:25PM
Fewer != few. There are a hell of a lot of tech jobs outside large-to-giant corporations and almost none of them require anything but demonstrable competence.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 30 2018, @02:35AM
Sorry, should have mentioned that one was the son of a small town car dealer and put himself through his Ivy with a combo of two years of ROTC and then took time off to work and save up (no help from parents at all). The other had a retired father with an OK pension from a career in middle management at a large research lab (uni was cheaper back then).
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday July 30 2018, @08:53AM
My dad was by then a EE for the naval civil service, mom a clerk for the county health department
I didn't even think about applying to Harvard
I only got to go to Caltech
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 30 2018, @02:44PM
Yep I knew one at uni. Briliant. Aced everything. Awesome. Did the entire project in days by himself. After uni he got a job making specialist electronic equipment, got into WoW, got really fat. That's it. Nothing more.
(Score: 3, Touché) by stretch611 on Sunday July 29 2018, @07:49PM (4 children)
It doesn't matter if you are a rockstar or not...
No one wants to pay for more than a 3rd world salary
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 29 2018, @08:18PM
You don't know what you're talking about. All of the employers on The Global Employer Index [soggy.jobs] pay six figures for coder jobs and seven figures for rockstar coders. You have the personal guarantee of Michael David Crawford.
(Score: 2) by arslan on Sunday July 29 2018, @10:43PM
Spoken like a true PHB! Give yourself a pat in the back.
Joking aside, both PHB and rockstar programmers do exist and are toxic in their own way to the workplace. That said, back on topic, this is quite an amusing spec. Heh, poetic literals, if only language designers were this creative back in the days..
(Score: 2) by tibman on Sunday July 29 2018, @11:44PM (1 child)
With software devs you get what you pay for (most of the time).
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday July 29 2018, @11:49PM
Only if someone competent is doing the hiring.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Subsentient on Sunday July 29 2018, @11:56PM (1 child)
Is there room for groupie developers, I wonder?
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 4, Funny) by Gaaark on Monday July 30 2018, @12:20AM
I wanna be the developer that supplies the hookers and blow.
I want a Microsoft bigwig to jump around like a monkey yelling "Pimps, pimps, pimps..."
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 1) by Acabatag on Monday July 30 2018, @02:05AM (4 children)
I saw the title "Become The Rockstar Developer You've Always Dreamed Of Being" and was concerned that 'sponsored stories' had become a reality on SN.
So I can't pay $39 for an online course that's normally $1499?
(Score: 3, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday July 30 2018, @04:17AM (3 children)
Of course you can. Make checks payable to The Mighty Buzzard.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by jelizondo on Monday July 30 2018, @06:21AM (2 children)
Ha! Cash that check and I'll sue you for fraud! You are impersonating a Deity to get money!
That's the way we lawyers make money, you know.
(Score: 4, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday July 30 2018, @06:37AM (1 child)
Who says I'm impersonating? If Donald Trump can be POTUS, there's no limit to what I can be.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Touché) by jelizondo on Monday July 30 2018, @02:43PM
Touché