ok, what's a packed struct in C and when would you use it?
#career-advice
distant crow
how and why would you make a bidirectional binding in Vue, versus when would you use vuex
having said that, you've literally named my stack - I've done a lot of embedded C, Python is my main language, and I also do Vue.js
what would you use to build a Python/Vue.js app, and why is django not appropriate for the task versus say Flask?
fiery solar
😂 must feel great to demeaner someone looking to improve man
crude crown
typically for junior roles remote might not be the best idea
however, the times have changed
distant crow
I want to demonstrate to you how easily telling people you know 12 languages will backfire
because so many young programmers do it to try to stand out, but ultimately it doesn't help, you get branded as either flexing, or unfocused
you should specialize
crude crown
I would bit the bullet and risk on those entry level remote gigs, but do ask if there's good mentoring by more senior people during the interviews
distant crow
3 languages is a good number. if you tell people you know 3 languages well, it is better than telling people you know 12
you just braged that you are confident in all of them and have been tested deeply, if you can't answer those questions, it's not me demeaning you, it's me calling you out
harsh lesson, yes
but I'm also giving you advice: focus
fiery solar
there was no bragging im asking how to keep up to date on several languages and you went off on me
distant crow
don't. pick 3. focus. gain depth. specialize
fiery solar
so half of my schooling was worthless?
distant crow
probably
distant crow
learn the library ecosystem. learn how they work together. you are not competing with people on the basis of knowing lots of languages, you are competing with other people who spent all the time you did scattered across them, but they spent it on one
distant crow
would I hire someone who spent 1/12th of their time on the language we use, or the person who spent all of their time?
1 month experience vs 1 year experience?
crude crown
but yeah, do listen to what @distant crow is saying, it's better to focus on a small set of languages for professional reasons.
fiery solar
so are you going to give me tips on trying to stay upto date even on if 3 languages?
distant crow
yes, I just did
learn the library ecosystem, learn how they work together
python works very well with vue.js
you have four options of getting them to talk
fiery solar
I know ive made a production app with flask and axios over aws
distant crow
django, flask and other REST, websockets and Tornado, and Graphql with Graphene on Python
(django is also REST, but significantly more framework)
on the javascript side, axios, vue-native-websockets (works with vuex), apollo
on the backend your various databases and ORMs, if you're not using Django, learn sqlalchemy, learn how to work with nosql databases. learn to use AWS cognito, AWS lambda
since you're basically doing the full stack with Vue thing, make sure you know vuetify, make sure you know vuex, vue-router
know what MVC and MVVC is, and how that relates to vue.js and django
make sure you're aware with what's coming up with Vue 3 - particularly Typescript
and understand how that affects the use of vuex, and why you'd switch over to proxies and maybe not even use vuex at all
fiery solar
plz stop...
crude crown
you do know quite a bit of stuff meseta. I'm curious, what do you think about React in comparison to Vue? I dabble once in a while with some stuff in React.
distant crow
I like Vue a lot, but React is still the market leader, and it's undeniably going to remain that way for some time
I think they share a lot in common. Vue definitely has a gentler learning curve, but I feel because Vue can also use JSX, it's no less powerful
however, "power" is probably not one of the main considerations you'd make
crude crown
not for me for sure, I only dabble on what's strictly necessary in the context of frontend stuff.
distant crow
I think Vue's bidirectional bindings are really nice to use, which in React, you'd have to do something more complex, or use redux for. However, there's something to be said for being forced to do single-direction. How vue's bidirectional bindings work is a mystery to me, it does some things that really shouldn't be possible, so it must be quite smart under the hood
Also, I think Evan You pushed Vue a lot in a similar direction to React, he came from an Angular background, and probably wanted to fix things he didn't like about Angular, and draw on the good parts of React. As a result, I think it's relatively easy to switch from Vue to React. So I don't think it's a bad thing to pick up only Vue first, with the option to switch over
actually, I highly suspect given the gentler learning curve, you might actually be able to go from beginner to React expert quicker by first going through Vue. It's weird saying that, but I didn't understand React at all when I first looked at it, and then when I looked at it again having learned Vue, it all made sense, and I could also contrast and compare the two
(I have only dabbled in React. Also my vue is, like you, only what's necessary for frontend, but that's turned out to be a fair bit now)
meager jolt
vapid jay
Do you guys think a degree is neccesary to climb the ranks in IT
I need to decide in the following months what to do with my life
not fun
distant crow
hard question to answer because a degree is not just about having one line item in your resume, there are a lot of other reasons you'd go to college/university as well
so it's hard to answer "should I get a degree"
but the answer to "is a degree necessary to climb the ranks in IT", the answer is no, but having one helps in the beginning
but if you asked "what's more valuable, 4 years of work experience, or 4 years worth of a degree?" then that's a harder question to answer, it might be the work experience, but depends on position
no easy answers if you're trying to decide whether to go to college/university. Consider the other aspects of it - the friends you make, the experiences you have, the networks you draw on, and the other non-academic experience and opportunities you find. Versus the costs, including money, time, and opportunity (i.e. going to college versus getting on-the-job experience is an opportunity cost)
I got a degree, and I think it was a good choice. But plenty of people don't think theirs was a good choice, and plenty of people without degrees fine without them. 🤷♂️
vapid jay
Well I'm not from the USA so my local universities are free for the most part. Although I believe that, while being free, they're not as good as the ones abroad... They can get... crowded, classes cancelled without warning, etc
For now I think I might just need to continue learning from online resources and building up my personal website, pushing blog of things i've been doing and building up a github page for myself
distant crow
(I also didn't study in the USA, so the cost wasn't prohibitive either)
those are all good things to do, but also things you can do while studying
so, definitely do them anyway
vapid jay
You'd be right on that note, but it'd be a hard squeeze since I'd still have to live with my parents I suppose
I'd need to heavily balance either time spent with friends, working, studying and other personal projects
And the question has been bubbling up in my head for a while since I really wanna move out
Although I love my close family living with them has proven stressful
distant crow
for what it's worth, these days I have to balance work, personal projects, and sleep. I don't have time for friends, family, or studying, unfortunately
(which is not good)
distant crow
👍
mint citrus
getting a degree makes it easier to work abroad due to visa conditions
distant crow
this is a very good point
mint citrus
i am always asked about my degree when applying to places abroad and tbh it makes their life easier and more likely to hire you. They would hire you without a degree but the visa application might not pass through
strangely enough in this country you dont need a degree to be an english teacher 
shadow moss
that's alot of countries
since from what I understand, few countries school will hire English Teachers that are not from US/Canada/UK
distant crow
yes, the visa application is tied to things like degree and pay. they want to make sure you can't find someone else locally, and so it's easiest to argue that the degree means you have the skills not easily found
mint citrus
^
placid folio
Well I'm not from the USA so my local universities are free for the most part. Although I believe that, while being free, they're not as good as the ones abroad... They can get... crowded, classes cancelled without warning, etc
@vapid jay french right ?
nocturne snow
Alright. So heres the thing: I want to go into data science, and I have an 'IT management' degree background. I got into Columbia MS Data Sci (actually enrolled rn), but it's about $150k for the degree (tuition + NYC costs). I can also get a 'free' degree in the Netherlands (roughly IT management + Policy) from the uni I already went to, but it's ehh.. I want global experience + Data Sci experience. I also have the option to go to Carnegie Mellon University for MS information systems management - which will allow me to choose Data Sci courses on the side, and costs roughly half as much as Columbia. Normally, I would choose Columbia Uni instantly, since it's sort of my dream. But now, the US is quite fucked up, and I'm not sure what to do. Advice?
nocturne snow
It's not about having $150k to 'waste', it would be an investment in the future. Wages are quite a bit higher in the US compared to europe in the field, and getting a degree there allows me to get a foothold in the american job market. A bit.
I have to loan the 150k.
marsh wind
What about enrollment in DS program in Netherlands or EU since you are here already
nocturne snow
Well, the issue with that is that I'm pretty much too late for every university, since applications are long overdue
I'd like to continue my academic development starting in September, but each Dutch uni I've talked to said I'm too late.
marsh wind
I would be cautious with US uni cause with covid, remote/live classes and new visa restrictions it might get weird
Plus job market for hiring young grad there is probably totally fucked up
viral ridge
so, u think with EU edu u cant get a US job?
distant crow
no, it's not like that, but if you go to uni in the US on a study visa, you have a year to three years afterwards on an F1 visa OPT program to work
I think the OPT extension is pretty easy to get, and the STEM OPT would probably be available to all programmers, so you immediately have 3 years after graduation to work in the US on a visa that is pretty much guaranteed if you can graduate
viral ridge
right
nocturne snow
I think the OPT extension is pretty easy to get, and the STEM OPT would probably be available to all programmers, so you immediately have 3 years after graduation to work in the US on a visa that is pretty much guaranteed if you can graduate
@distant crow This is exactly it.
Getting into the US without OPT is quite hard.
Then again, do I really want to go to the US in the current climate? Ehh.
craggy elm
If you're only using wages as your metric for determining where you want to live, then you're using some piss poor metrics imo lol
You need to factor everything into account
nocturne snow
Wages is an easy way of measuring both relative strength of the local economy and translates to comfort of living, but in no way a valid indicator, you' re right.
craggy elm
To me, it's like using the U2 unemployment rate (US metric) && GDP to measure economic health
If I'm fine with the environment, I use the difference between a ballpark cost of living for the area & wage.
woeful spruce
You have to really ask yourself if you will get 150K extra in value from your education at Columbia. My guess is, no. You are paying more so for the name and rep of the school
arctic oyster
Looking for a professional Python tutor who can provide data-driven learning solutions to someone who wants to provide data-driven solutions.
opaque silo
@woeful spruce 150K could be worth the rep
distant crow
I don't think it matters that much after your first job
and personally I have no interest in your college or degree for a junior developer role
(though I know others are different)
gilded valley
In the UK in some industries it does quite a bit. In the US some companies will always require a bachelors, no matter how much experience
distant crow
for sure, it depends on position. some data science roles require a PhD. But frontend/backend devs, aside from requiring bachelors in the job description to help filter out ineligible candidates, I don't personally believe it matters, and any job description that I have a hand in writing puts degree requirements into the "nice to have" section, and task requirements will only require a certain amount of years work experience depending on position
HOWEVER
in the US I tend to avoid putting even the number of years work experience as that has in the past been challenged for age discrimination
gilded valley
What do you mean by matters? If I was looking to hire a dev, I'd list a bachelors in the requirements purely because you'd get so many terrible people applying without that as a listed requirement
distant crow
yes, I agree
gilded valley
Not because people with degrees are better
but just because you get so many applications
distant crow
that's what I meant with "help filter out ineligible candidates"
gilded valley
you want to filter out as much trash as possible earlier
yeah
just making sure i understood you properly
but assuming Bob applied and didn't have a degree, but looked otherwise competent - I'm guessing you'd still interview him?
upbeat elm
in the US I tend to avoid putting even the number of years work experience as that has in the past been challenged for age discrimination
wat
distant crow
not consciously anyway, I might scan over it, or look at the dates to give an idea of career progression
I don't know, the US is a weird place for lawsuits relating to job finding. I don't take the risk, it's not even worth it even if it would be a frivolous lawsuit
because then that's another thing that I have to deal with, and lawyers have to be paid to deal with it properly, etc. etc. there's no way to come out on top, so the best way is to just not risk it
mortal wedge
I've seen quite a few postings recently that want 10+ years of experience only
distant crow
there's a potential for it to be seen as indirect discrimination. Whether this is an actual problem or not, I choose not to deal with it and therefore try not to put actual years
I'm not saying it's outright discrimination or illegal, I have just gone through a couple of frivolous lawsuits relating to hiring before, and it's a big waste of time and money
vapid jay
@placid folio Oh I prefer not to say, but I am from South America
distant crow
if you want to hear the story, the gist of it is we did have someone who seemed to have been a good candidate, they had been a contractor for a long time but their story was that they were looking for a long term position and project to work on. They did well in the programming task. Everything seemed good. Since they would have bene a senior hire we had our board look at the candidate, and they outright said no do not hire, which we were shocked about until we found out why
if you search for the person online you start finding various blogs and articles written by them showing behaviour that we found objectionable, and would not have been a fit for the company
opaque silo
to someone's earlier point, I think rep is an indication of character, if you can graduate from an ivy league/top UK uni it holds a lot of intangible value
distant crow
so we rejected the candidate at the last stage. The candidate proceeded to try to sue us for many things, including age discrimination on the basis that they think we were discriminatory because of their age; racial discrimination on the basis that at some point during the interview we asked them about a language proficiency which was written in their resume which would have been useful for the role, but they offered up their entire family history that we didn't ask about; and also suing us claiming that we stole their work that they did for the programming assessment and were going to profit from that work, and therefore they own a certain percentage of the company
you know, the exact kind of behaviour that we found objectionable and 100% justified our decision not to hire. The candidate also got legal papers couriered by hand to the office in triplicate, and all sorts of stuff like that
We were absolutely in the right on that one, yet it took a lot of time and money to deal with the fallout. It was a pointless waste of resources
So that's why I'm extra careful about job descriptions, even though things like number of years of job experience is justifiable as non-discriminatory, just the fact that it could be challenged means it could be another of these situations where we have to spend resources just to be able to justify it
It's also why I don't give feedback to candidates unless they make it to later stages where I've interviewed them, and I'll only give feedback by phone unless in exceptional circumstances
gilded valley
to someone's earlier point, I think rep is an indication of character, if you can graduate from an ivy league/top UK uni it holds a lot of intangible value
@opaque silo
It matters less and less as time goes on. In the UK, engineering is one place where it really matters a lot - but companies are getting much better at looking past where you graduated from and focusing more on how you're valuable to them.
It annoyingly (for me at least) does matter somewhat, but one of the bigger things about going to a good university vs shit one is that you have more oppurtunities whilst at university - more hackathons and companies looking to recruit you and whatnot
opaque silo
@gilded valley for sure it matters less in a technical sense, but you can't help but be impressed if someone has graduated from MIT or Imperial no matter how long time goes on, imo anyway, and im guessing recruiters will feel the same way, also holds weight in terms of consultancy etc, so it does last in some sense
low condor
hey anyone out here?
mortal wedge
Nope
I think once you have X years of experience under your belt it matters less, but for your initial job it weeds out a lot of candidates, by virtue of them not knowing the quality of education you got from being self-taught if nothing else.
vapid jay
its just hard to get started but once u get started it becomes easier
little wadi
Does anyone have any resources for a remote job board? Currently full time employed developer but looking to measure my options.
Also -> US based
opaque silo
@mortal wedge many jobs require a degree, or msc or phd dependent on job, so its highly dependent on what you want to do
mortal wedge
That's true
opaque silo
yh but like imo if someone else wants to be a SE don't really need a degree though
mortal wedge
Either way, it almost always helps
opaque silo
yh for sure, i just think ppl have had some false narrative pushed upon them by these super successful dropouts
gilded valley
yh for sure, i just think ppl have had some false narrative pushed upon them by these super successful dropouts
@opaque silo
I've definitely seen this. I've seen people claim you can learn programing on 3months and land a 200k/y job writing Ruby
little wadi
@gilded valley I have also heard this. I have a BS and am working on a MS and 18 yrs in the industry and still dont make that much.
uneven trout
@little wadi That's the story we're hearing more and more coming up. College has become (at least in the US) a minimum 5-figure lottery ticket. Maybe you'll make enough to pay the loan back. Maybe not.
mortal wedge
Keep in mind too that right now the job market blows chunks in the US due to how rampant the coronavirus is
Companies will pay you whatever and you'll be happy to take it because it's stable employment
little wadi
Yep. I still owe about 50k in loans. Im actually currently looking for a different job due to a bunch of stuff but the US corporations are back asswords about CoVid. Ive been working in an office since May
vapid jay
they dont allow u to work from home?
little wadi
But yeah I'm on par with the if it pays reasonably well or is more stable I'll take it. Remote preferred
Nope. The entire management staff is full of micromanagers. Its not a huge company's
Company. So while I'm one of 3 application programmers I am also their db developer too
dense furnace
what would you guys do if you had a job that paid well ($100k+ & benefits) but NO ONE can program, everything that is made doesn't work, and you're forced to utilize systems that inconsistently work and the teams that own them have no idea how they work
dense furnace
beyond frustrating, it makes me not want to program outside of work, and not be able to build a portfolio >.<
really demotivating
mortal wedge
Honestly, a portfolio isn't that necessary if you have relevant recent work experience
Unless you're jumping career fields
dense furnace
I guess I don't know what companies/sites to work on applying to, or I need to work on my presentation
job postings look really difficult, compared to my low level skills, but being viewed as a god because no one knows anything here heh
mortal wedge
Depends on who's big in your desired field. I used a search engine to generate lists of all the major companies in my field then reached out to any contacts I had to see if they knew anyone who worked at these companies.
dense furnace
and I feel almost certain I'd have to take a pay cut
it seems like most companies use python experimentally, not as many postings vs java or some general job posting
opaque silo
sometimes a pay cut is worth the enjoyment you'd find in that other role
distant crow
that's odd, plenty of places use python seriously
dense furnace
yeah, dunno what I'd enjoy
distant crow
but maybe the jobs are rarer
dense furnace
serious python places probably look for more experienced developers
distant crow
ah, I see what you mean
dense furnace
I have like 1 year javascript 2 years python, I try and keep my C skills up in my personal time
my resume kinda looks like I job hop, but it's mostly because these places have no mentors or way to improve my skills, really bad culture =T
uneven trout
I'm in the same boat @dense furnace, every job's in a different industry
distant crow
if you have time to do personal projects and develop your skills, you'd have the benefit of using your job as cover, and your projects to develop your skills
as far as the other company knows, you learned what you did at this company
dense furnace
yeah I know that's the best plan of action
distant crow
and when they ask you questions in interviews, you're actually talking about your personal projects
dense furnace
but really demotivated because of my work, and with covid stuff I like talk to no one
distant crow
but they don't know that, and you can demonstrate the skills anyway, so everybody wins
that's a shame
dense furnace
it's just work, eat, sleep ;_;
distant crow
it's like that for me, but as an introvert I quite enjoy that, and also I have some engaging personal projects to get on with
dense furnace
I really like working on stuff with people, covid was like the worst thing to happen especially since I moved >.<
uneven trout
I feel that. From a different perspective though, covid could provide the best time to get involved in some online project
dense furnace
yeah I'm introvert/extrovert, I hate just talking with people, but I enjoy working on something with people
the thing that made me /quit today was when I asked a coworker (software dev IV) to mouse over an outlier on a graph, and he had no idea what I was talking about mousing over everything on the screen going "this?"
it's sad that he doesn't know, but it's a whole other thing that he isn't comfortable saying "what's an outlier again?"
distant crow
"forget" might be giving them more credit than due
that implies the knew it at one point
dense furnace
yeah -.- also language issues too, just work with indians 95%
zinc fractal
oof
distant crow
well ok, if it's a language barrier thing, I'd excuse that more
zinc fractal
theyre remote too?
dense furnace
so again, it's like, it's such a good excuse to say "what does an outlier mean?" but nope, just make a fool of yourself by mousing over titles, series etc
usually we're on prem, I'm remote fully
but now everyone is remote
zinc fractal
i meant are the indians local or just hired from india?
dense furnace
my company is in the top 50 of fortune 500 btw, it feels like such a sham
yeah local
dense furnace
yes
zinc fractal
that doesnt really excuse them
distant crow
this is kind of why startups have a chance at anything
uneven trout
I'm waiting for the shockwaves from that move, making everyone remote. Working remote takes a whole different set of skills that a lot of folks don't have, and a lot of organizations don't teach.
zinc fractal
if you live in the us and are a software engineer dealing with data you should absolutely know what an outlier is
dense furnace
yeah, everyone here is generally incompetent, we're firing a consultant that has a (punjab) masters degree in computer science, but cant do anything better than chaining elseif's
the real sad part is that I don't have faith that we're going to get someone better
but people will think this will change things
distant crow
(but what if he's manually unrolling all the loops?)
broken shore
anyone who has done any statistics at all should know what an outlier is
zinc fractal
yh lol
broken shore
so basically anyone with a science or business background
distant crow
maybe he's an...outlier
zinc fractal
i did 1 shitty ds course and i know what an outlier is
vapid jay
this makes me think so many ppl fake it till they make it
dense furnace
basically all 'software engineer's at this place could be replaced by highschoolers that are interested in comp sci and we'd be better off
zinc fractal
lmao
broken shore
remember kids, success and power have little to do with ability
so there is no guarantee whoever is a higher up at your company is there because they are good
zinc fractal
basically all 'software engineer's at this place could be replaced by highschoolers that are interested in comp sci and we'd be better off
@dense furnace yeah but highschoolers dont have degrees and thats what matters to the conservative management i guess
dense furnace
yup
zinc fractal
and actual talented people dont want to work in such shitty companies
so you get dumb people with a degree
dense furnace
thats me D:
zinc fractal
:D
white karma
It’s nice to know the mediocrity extends to other companies
Which (should) mean the people who actually want to be there and try will succeed
dense furnace
I think a big issue we have is that we have a lot of out of the box solutions, but people have no idea how to actually work the solutions so when you try and connect some code with SaaS the saas workers don't know what the heck is going on
so in the end the people that actually code (me) get blocked by people who don't know how to use their systems (saas people)
white karma
That bites ice man
dense furnace
it sure is frustrating that's for sure
brittle jungle
wow -- wowee
viral ridge
Everything is relative I guess , not that frustrating to me
white karma
Incompetence/bureaucracy frustrates me
crude crown
@dense furnace, I've kind of been in that "handcuffs" scenario before... I would bite the pain and stick with the gig, notwithstanding the ennui you're feeling in general.
But don't stick for too long, do what other people said and work/study on relevant things during work hours (after you've wrapped up the work that you have to do) in order to find something else.
mint citrus
vapid jay
if you search for the person online you start finding various blogs and articles written by them showing behaviour that we found objectionable, and would not have been a fit for the company
@distant crow what kind of stuff were they posting about?
it truly is a huge mistake not making that kind of stuff anonymous
mint citrus
sounds more like a question not for #career-advice
wintry imp
thnx removed it ahahah
mint citrus
im not a mod tho
was just saying
I need to fix my ips now
turns off all his services
this will be a pain 😦
wintry imp
👍
livid mantle
um
well not the first name to come to mind
I think this server has something about nicknames having to be appropriate so u might have to change it 😦
tender canopy
MATLAB or Python for Machine Learning? 🤔
clear orchid
Python has a much larger community which means more ML implementations already existing and it supports other applications, like web development. Not to mention that it is free and MATLAB is not. IMO Python GPU support is much more mature than MATLAB's, which is really just another function of the larger community.
vapid jay
i heard some math + stats courses still use matlab tho
clear orchid
Wouldn't surprise me. My undergrad courses used a language called IDL since it was given to the school for free (to try to get future employers to buy it). I then switched to MATLAB (for similar reasons) in grad school.
MATLAB certainly has some nice features, but Python is superior for applied ML and it's become quite popular among researchers too.
vapid jay
i think with python ppl who dont really know the details of networks can still use ml
clear orchid
Do you mean deep learning networks?
vapid jay
im not entirely sure tbh
cuz from what ive heard in hackathons
ppl just call libraries
clear orchid
MATLAB has come pretty far in that realm in the last few years: https://www.mathworks.com/help/deeplearning/ref/deepnetworkdesigner-app.html
static pond
If you want a nice introduction to ML, deep learning in particular I recommend the fast.ai course part one https://course.fast.ai/videos/?lesson=1 followed by taking a udemy course or two on pytorch.
if you get the concepts down you can write neural nets from scratch in no time
clear orchid
I wouldn't recommend PyTorch to anyone new to ML. I mean you're using python but barely. It'll be like theano soon.
static pond
I agree, its just this is the careers section, if they want career, pytorch over matlab in my opinion.
clear orchid
Tensorflow over Pytorch over MATLAB (IMO)
static pond
This is a tangent. Advanced but a fun resource https://paperswithcode.com/
clear orchid
This is super surprising: https://paperswithcode.com/trends PyTorch is essentially useless in my world (Applied ML)
static pond
Id say its very popular for research but implementation is still tensorflows domain. They are fixing this though with things like TorchScript.
clear orchid
Yeah and TF is trying to address it's shortcomings with research with TF 2.0, both are coming together but it's disheartening to see the less-performant of the two winning that battle for researchers.
warped crypt
We have a mix of TF and torch in my research lab, it really depends on who's doing it and whether they have any c/c++ experience or are purely python
crude crown
I'm currently using PyTorch for stuff running in production
clear pond
i think careers in python will be damn near impossible to get into soon
too many people are invested in python
warped crypt
Honestly, if you're looking for a change in the next 2-5 years start looking at rust and GoLang. From what i'm seeing most places are putting interest into them now.
But having said that, python be used for the forseeable future, just a bit overcrowded
opal perch
nah big doubt, just think there will be a higher discrepancy between the good people and the people who are meh
clear pond
how hard is rust and golang
i dont wanna invest in learning another language that will end up flopping
warped crypt
Not that difficult really. If you have any C++ knowledge rust will be an easy pickup (since it's just a safer C++ at its base). Some people at google are looking at converting a large amount of the linux kernel to rust, so if that goes well it will be here to stay.
GoLang is another scripting language, by google so they have invested a lot in to it (fairly sure it's used a lot in fuschia/zircon), so probably here to stay aswell
clear pond
personally i feel as if C is a bit too hard for me to learn at the stage im at
theres so much writing that does very little
warped crypt
hah, yeah the memory management is difficult to get your head around at first. It is a useful one to know though since most modern languages are based somewhat on C. C++ make it a bit easier because it's object oriented so easier for someone coming from java/python to figure out. Rust builds on C++ removing some of the bloat that's entered in modern standards, and adds a lot more memory safeness to it, so it's a bit less 'dangerous'
But don't believe anyone who tells you you need to learn C/C++ to be a good developer, or if they tell you python is 'slow' . Unless you are doing really low-level stuff python will for the most part keep up. And you can do most things in python these days
clear pond
my question is, do people who program, or people who are starting programming, are they actually supposed to remember the syntax? i find myself just using the cheat sheats provided in the libraries i cant really remember anything too well thats why i love python
distant crow
I have bad news for you
knowing the syntax is a small part of programming
the rest is knowing patterns, libraries, frameworks, and architecture
clear pond
fuck. me.
warped crypt
Syntax yes, that's important. Remembering every single thing that a library can do - no, thats what API documentation is for
clear pond
... whats an api documentation remind me?
warped crypt
The documentation that tells you what functions a library supplies, what they do, what parameters they take ect
clear pond
ooooo
distant crow
right, but you still need familiarity with libraries and frameworks. People hire datascientists who know tensorflow; or backend developers who know django. Interviews will test you on patterns, not syntax
clear pond
will interviewers ask me to code?
distant crow
almost certainly
clear pond
if so, can i still look up the cheat sheats for the syntax?
distant crow
as much as I want to assure you, I think realistically you should have an understanding for most of the basic syntax
looking up documentation is expected though. But I think having to look up basic syntax might give the wrong message
warped crypt
right, but you still need familiarity with libraries and frameworks. People hire datascientists who know tensorflow; or backend developers who know django. Interviews will test you on patterns, not syntax
@distant crow Yeah, when you start getting more experience, settling on your toolchains ect you will start to remember the details of those libraries. but when first starting using api documentation is fine.
Yeah, any basic syntax stuff you should try to remember
clear pond
what constitutes as basic? I started programming with python yesterday, i made a few bots for automation and stuff and i want to build an ai that can write a story, do you think i can do it?
warped crypt
Basically a coding interview will ask you to write something to complete a given task in whatever language you're applying for. They then expect that you will get all of the standard stuff correct (function definitions, for loops, if statements, class definitions). But if for example you decide to use numpy, and you get the parameters of a function in the wrong order, that will be acceptable.
clear pond
But if for example you decide to use numpy, and you get the parameters of a function in the wrong order, that will be acceptable.
@warped crypt thats actually really cool
warped crypt
For junior/entry level roles they basically want to see an understanding of the basic syntax and awareness of libraries. they don't expect you to write perfect code during a short coding interview that you generally can't test
For senior roles it's a bit different, but wouldn't worry about that
distant crow
here's a quick example, given a list of numbers, remove the duplicate values
values = [11, 39, 44, 11, 2, 9, 6, 44, 0, 11, 3]
something like that
distant crow
you're asking about beginners right?
clear pond
especially if you work for google or stuff
warped crypt
for entry level yeah, you could get things like that.. it's just to show you aren't completely lying about your skill level
clear pond
oooooooooooooooo
warped crypt
Google doesn't actually do coding interviews
clear pond
??? what do they do then
they just stalk whomever they find interesting and invite them?
distant crow
they do that as well
distant crow
Google interviews tend to be whiteboarding, or using a text editor
I was given a choice of writing it in a text editor (on a chromebook), or whiteboard
clear pond
do they have a preferred option? like youre so good you dont need the chromebook to correct you on syntax and stuff
distant crow
I had a couple of interesting questions, one of them involved supplying a robot trying to complete a maze using a string of instructions like "LRRUD" (left, right, right, up, down)
but the question got progressively harder, such as changing the syntax to "L2RUD" etc.
and then further still. I gave a solution which I think caught the interviewer off-guard. Instead of trying to write something to iterate over this string, I suggested defining the rules in PEG grammar and using an existing lexer/parser
PEG grammars are often regex-based as well
and would have been appropriate for the next steps which started involving nested stuff like "L2(RU)" (left, and then two lots of (right, and up))
clear pond
i have no idea what that means but that sounds cool lol
distant crow
since it is recursive
this is what I mean by "syntax is a small part of it" because at no point was the interviewer testing my syntax
clear pond
how do you even learn stuff like that? its never mentioned in any youtube tutorial or of the like...
distant crow
in my case, at some point I had a personal project that needed to allow a user to write a small programming language. It's actually the parser of a dialogue engine for a game. The idea is to allow a game writer to put simple if statements in the dialogue so that different options come up based on the state
warped crypt
do they have a preferred option? like youre so good you dont need the chromebook to correct you on syntax and stuff
@clear pond standard text editor, no syntax correction :)
Google likes problem solving. So you kind of get freedom on how you do things. So you could be in the interview and they ask you "how would you sort x data" . You would have access to a laptop and write code, you'd be allowed to just speak it through them, or you could jump on the whiteboard and draw it out. Completely up to you, interviewers will have their preferred options, but that's just how they work.
It's more about problem solving than actual knowing the code
distant crow
to do that, and to avoid having to force the game writer to learn a full programming language, I decided that I would invent my own tiny scripting language that they could use instead. In order to do that, I needed to get into writing a program to understand another programming language, which led me down the path of lexer/parsers, and PEG grammars. This personal project turned out to be useful for me for acing that particular programming question
clear pond
jesus christ that sounds like alot of work, how long have you been working with python?
warped crypt
this is what I mean by "syntax is a small part of it" because at no point was the interviewer testing my syntax
@distant crow That's a good way to put it actually. Interviews don't care about syntax. But if you then get the job and don't know basic syntax you're going to be slower than those around you and find it harder to move forward 🙂
distant crow
for python, I think only seriously for about 7 years
clear pond
firestorm, do you do AI stuff?
for python, I think only seriously for about 7 years
@distant crow Thats a super long time, what age did you start? + did you go to uni
warped crypt
Yeah a bit, although currently i'm more focused on third-party automation.
distant crow
I started around 13 or 14. I went to uni, but not for computer science. I was doing general engineering, and at the beginning of my career, I was mostly in non-programming roles
clear pond
well shit, im 16 now
distant crow
I don't think the age you learn programming is that important
clear pond
is it plausible for me to start on building an ai that can write stories on its own?
or is that a thing you just leave to big tech companies
distant crow
short answer: yes. Long answer: maybe focus on other projects first before you tackle that one
warped crypt
is it plausible for me to start on building an ai that can write stories on its own?
@clear pond What meseta said. Don't jump straight into machine learning, it's a rabbit hole. Get the basics down first
gilded valley
IT depends on what you meant by that. If you wanted to do something that generated sentences that were vaguely correct, you could learn how to do it in an afternoon. If you wanted to make something that could generate Harry Potter, you'd probably need a lifetime
distant crow
NLP has change a lot in the last 5 years, it used to be something that you really need a PhD to do; but with the release of some stellar language models (by said big companies), like BERT and GPT-3, the knowledge needed to make useful NLP tools has come down, I think now anyone can do it with just a few years experience with Python and neural networks
clear pond
IT depends on what you meant by that. If you wanted to do something that generated sentences that were vaguely correct, you could learn how to do it in an afternoon. If you wanted to make something that could generate Harry Potter, you'd probably need a lifetime
@gilded valley THIS I WANT TO DO EXACTLY THAT
that would be a fucking dream
warped crypt
Natural language processing from scratch is hard. There are plenty of libraries that can help with it now, but to actually understand what it's doing and make it perfectly coherent - you need some years under your belt. To write full articles, or even books we jsut aren't really at that stage yet.
distant crow
well hang on, I don't think anyone can generate something like an actual whole book with plot that makes sense right now
clear pond
honestly if i can make a bot to generate a sentence even if it incoherent asf
i would be proud
distant crow
there are lots of simple methods for that, even a markov chain would allow you to do that
markovify is a simple Python library you can try play around with without even understanding what a markov chain is, could be a good first step before you get into AI
clear pond
you work with ai (got that from ur twitter lol i love your tweets) how long did it take you to reach that stage approx.
distant crow
me? I'm a bit of a fraud in AI. I don't do AI work myself, but I do manage teams that do. My python background is substantially backend and robotics. I need to spend a lot of time updating my technical skills in AI
warped crypt
Honestly focus on generic algorithms for now. Don't get set into AI ways as it's moving far too quickly for someone that is learning. There's new network topology research basically every month at this point.
As for how long it will take to get into an ML/AI field, different to most software development university is almost definetly your best path through since you don't just need to know how to code. To do well you need to have atleast a basic understanding of how it all works
clear pond
Aight, thanks so much for the chat guys. I'm super excited to get fluent lol
warped crypt
And for the most part you will want to focus down a path. Image processing with ML is magnificently different from IoT datasets, or networking datasets
distant crow
definitely look at markov chains if you've never done any AI stuff before, it's the first step, and you get the satisfaction of using it to generate some stuff that looks like human language
it's also very amusing to build a markov chain from discord messages, and impersonate yourself or other people
viral ridge
meseta, are you in management?
clear pond
Can't wait lmao
distant crow
yes
viral ridge
do you also code?
distant crow
yes
viral ridge
do you think one would be more productive doing management, instead of pure software engineering, using voice recognition
I realise you might not be able to answer that, but i guess it comes down to amount of typing/mousing and how much time one actually work on a pc
distant crow
sorry, say that again? I don't understand
you're asking whether I could manage by using voice recognition?
viral ridge
well, you could
distant crow
because if you are, the irony is, yes. I already do that
warped crypt
Good use of a keyboard is always going to be faster than using voice recognition for almost anything. Much easier to fix mistakes, and you are in control rather than an algorithm. That's unlikely to change any time soon
viral ridge
@warped crypt right, thats why im trying to find out what roles in IT i could remain close to full productivity
@distant crow haha, no, I mean using voice recognition to interact and do work on PC
warped crypt
Imagine trying to navigate a spreadsheet using voice rec... management don't just have stand there telling people what to do 🙂
viral ridge
I guess, Im asking what role requires the least amount of mousing/typing (typing is ok as natural language dictation)
@warped crypt well... I dont really have an alternative so
distant crow
what role requires the least amount of typing? It's probably sales or management
viral ridge
and yes, it sucks, but you can navigate with voice
i have a background in software engineering, so sales might be a bit off
viral ridge
do you take many notes?
distant crow
no, most of the time I don't need to be in the meeting. but this is what happens when you end up in management - either you push hard to not be in meetings but open yourself up for criticism whenever something goes wrong; or you sit in meetings wishing you weren't
viral ridge
🙂
distant crow
fortunately, with everyone being remote, I can do other things while in meetings
... also you don't know for sure whether I'm in meetings right now
(maybe that's why I can afford to spend time on discord)
warped crypt
So, if you were for example having to change your working practices from typing/mousing to using voice alot due to an accident that's caused a disability you would likely be able to do most things using voice rec and good voice shortcuts. But unfortunately i don't think you would meet the same productivity using voice rec right now
I know there are some developers who purely use voice. it's taken them a long time to get to point that that's possible, but they can do it.
viral ridge
hey, that's me
fiery solar
would I be better todo a bunch of small projects and interview questions per language or one large project with a complete stack 🤔
viral ridge
but I dont enjoy it the same, hence why I want to change path if possible
warped crypt
Management would probably work in that case. You'd have to find ways to tailor your experience, but there are tools for most jobs, and you can find your own ways to be productive
viral ridge
@fiery solar I would prefer a large project, not leaving out interviewing questions
warped crypt
and most your time will be said in meetings 🙂
viral ridge
that was my thoughts too, but situation is so that I graduated 1 yr back
warped crypt
would I be better todo a bunch of small projects and interview questions per language or one large project with a complete stack 🤔
@fiery solar Depends on your aim. If you're looking at a research role, then lots of small projects. if you're looking at full stack/devops ect then a large project
distant crow
I should mention that I split management and code about 50/50, but this is not always the case, plenty of people are only managing
viral ridge
I feel it doesn't make sense for a not yet senior SE to go into management, like some people grow naturally into the role from few years at a firm
warped crypt
that was my thoughts too, but situation is so that I graduated 1 yr back
@viral ridge You could probably switch to a project management track. They will accept junior members, you will likely be able to work in some technical aspects, and you'll be better than a lot of pure project management people who have no idea of the actual technologies
distant crow
I think there's two paths to that. you can actually go from software engineer to product, to product lead, which then puts you onto a project management track
fiery solar
maybe ill try and do a few small a day then work on one large but ill have to come up with a good large project to use everything =p
distant crow
and there's line managers as well, though line managers tend to be also developers, but you can justify a full-time line manager
then you go line manager > middle management > senior/executive management
warped crypt
maybe ill try and do a few small a day then work on one large but ill have to come up with a good large project to use everything =p
@fiery solar web apps are generally a good suggestion, that way you get a backend (preferably not in node), and front end, along with databases and usually some graphics
and you can extend as much as you want to add new things in 🙂
fiery solar
Maybe ill start with my personal website than add functionality and a backend in or something
viral ridge
do you think that anyone would let a new software engineer into a product owner or low managing role without having been in the firm, or having some exp
distant crow
you'll probably need experience with the company's products, and experience. I think it might be hard to do that
however, there are roles for junior product
warped crypt
in a junior role yeah. Our teams small but our main project manager is junior, because we do lots of small projects it works fine and she's spent her time learning all of the finance backing and things.
distant crow
yep
viral ridge
I have had tremendous set back with finding jobs after starting to use voice recognition
warped crypt
You would be unlikely to get onto a big million pound project, but small teams are generally good for it. research teams as well
viral ridge
regarding small firms, I thought they would be a lot less likely to hire someone using voice rec, hence I did not apply for any startups
warped crypt
I think the hardest part really is isolation, because you will need to be speaking you're going to need your own office, which a lot of smaller companies just can't offer unfortunately.
It will likely get easier with remote working, so hopefully things will start popping up - just make sure any company is aware when you apply. And also make sure you're linkedin is up to date, and post things on their about how you make use of tools like caster/aenea/whatever you use, to do ensure you keep a high level of productivity... Blog posts in this case will probably be extremely helpful for you, and also eye opening to a lot of people
regarding small firms, I thought they would be a lot less likely to hire someone using voice rec, hence I did not apply for any startups
@viral ridge small teams, not small firms 🙂
I work in 80000 person company.. my team is 10 peopple
viral ridge
would you be annoyed if someone say nxt to you using voice rec
I had someone straight down tell me I wouldn't fit into their environment
fkers
others just circle around a can't be explained not a match, without any solid reason or feedback even if i ask, but I guess I can see why ppl would rather not have someone with a disability
distant crow
it's...complex right now. we're all remote, and we're still remote til September, and frankly it's been glorious for all things work environment related
my home desk and work setup is way better than the office, and it's all peace and quiet, I don't have to worry about taking calls at my desk, and there's never an issue with booking meeting rooms
I think the world has changed. At the very minimum, there's a change in attitude to working remotely
also... probably not a popular option, but there is this: https://talktech.com/wp-content/uploads/img_4922-e1518120045867.jpg
as weird as it looks, I've sometimes wished I could get one of these just so I can take calls from my desk instead of having to find an empty room (which there's always a shortage of)
warped crypt
Honestly I wouldn't care, we all sit with headphones in anyway so what does it matter.
distant crow
only slightly weirder if you strap it to your face
and you know what, I hope attitudes have changed to wearing masks now as well
marsh wind
I don't get, What's that device
distant crow
so the room can't hear you talk
fiery solar
when using voice do you purely use voice? im intrigued, something like voice + macros could make programming super quick. how does it handle the word semi colon vs ';' if you were purely voice?
distant crow
it's designed for use by court stenographers, where they have to take notes in a courtroom. But it could also be a solution to the modern trend of open-plan offices
warped crypt
when using voice do you purely use voice? im intrigued, something like voice + macros could make programming super quick. how does it handle the word semi colon vs ';' if you were purely voice?
@fiery solar you use different words for different things. generally acronyms, shortened words, things you wouldn't generally be typing so that you can still type actual words. so to write semi colon you would say semi colon. to write a ; you would say seco or something like that
fiery solar
ah very cool
warped crypt
it's basically a mix between natural language processing and basic voice processing
I wrote something a few years ago to do something like it for in-game commands(basically you could say certain commands to trigger certain key commands, set by game. but if you were just speaking naturally in discord or something it wouldn't do anything, unless you had previously opened a chat box), rather than for coding, but I can see how it would transfer over fairly easily.
just looked... that was 6 years ago apparantly, and we still haven't really got that much better with voice processing 😦
warped crypt
Talk to your phone lately?
@shadow moss natural language processing has improved some, but actually using voice to run non-trivial commands hasn't really
shadow moss
Local Voice Programming hasn't improved but I've used Microsoft live caption in teams, and if your input is pretty clean, it's darn accurate
warped crypt
Hmm, but try to chain together complex commands with alexa/siri/whatever google calls there's these days/bixby and you can get maybe 3 chained commands before it's lost. Now translate that to using a computer almost entirely through Voice. : Open Applicaiton Y -> Type blah blah blah -> Insert Table -> BlahT1 -> BlahT2 -> Change font of blah blah blah ... things that are simple to do via keyboard alone become extremely complex and difficult to do purely via voice
it gets a bit easier if you add in things like eye/head tracking, but then you're adding costs on that aren't viable for most individuals
I'm not saying it hasn't improved, but compared to the speed of innovation of other areas in computing, you'd think it would have got a bit further considering we have all of the tools available for it, just needs some investment.
Even eye tracking can technically be done using a standard webcam
viral ridge
I wouldn't feel that great wearing mask, and the one fixed to table i think will give neck straining. Probably jsut going to request a side buddy who uses ear plugs lol
It's rather odd both pictures the persons has hands on keyboard (+mouse) ....
@warped crypt eye-tracking is atm best accomplished with the tobii I think, also considering an affordable price
warped crypt
@warped crypt eye-tracking is atm best accomplished with the tobii I think, also considering an affordable price
@viral ridge it is yeah. There is some on-going research to using standard webcams, and it's getting on. But still not great - considering adding it to our research backlog
viral ridge
bought one, never really put it to real use since I got too annoyed integrating ti
it
the eye jitters when u have our gaze fixed on an object
makes it difficult to perfect accuracy
warped crypt
I have heard they take some getting used to... Would you be able to work with something like a VR desktop with a virtual keyboard, so you're not putting physical pressure on your hands?
shadow moss
That mask mouth is problem self created by offices being cheap
viral ridge
and then i tried to use my head also, fogged up my neck quickly
shadow moss
virtual keyboards in VR do not work well
viral ridge
^*head for small changes
warped crypt
virtual keyboards in VR do not work well
@shadow moss No, but that's a research problem - goes back to my thing of innovation in this sort of area just hasn't been there. If it was possible to put together a solid argument for it there are plenty of companies with the capabilities to put research into the field
Like light-field keyboards are starting to become a thing, and they work suprisingly well, but the lack of tactile response makes it a bit confusing
shadow moss
VR desktop can also be eye straining because resolution isn't 100% there
viral ridge
I found a jr product owner role, it does sound far off what I have done as an SE, but perhaps I can try to apply
warped crypt
Always worth a try
VR desktop can also be eye straining because resolution isn't 100% there
@shadow moss This is true, but it is getting better with every iteration
agile nest
I started another discord channel for professionals to connect and discuss careers
is it appropriate to post it here?
warped crypt
I don't think you can link to other channels
gilded valley
DMing @severe widget is probably the way to find out if the staff will let you post it or not
if yes, one of them will post the link for oyu
gilded valley
yes, but they might decide it is appropriate
depending on the community and its goals
if it's just you and 2 other people - it is unlikely. If it's big enough, they might say yes
unapproved advertising,
The unapproved bit is kinda key there
warped crypt
The other option, if it is small but it's something you think would be a good idea would be to ask if they can add a new text group in this server that provides more than a single careers channel, maybe splitting up from just careers to careers in games, careers in research, careers in AI ect
vapid jay
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
inner wrenBOT
:incoming_envelope: :ok_hand: applied mute to @vapid jay until 2020-07-24 18:16 (9 minutes and 59 seconds) (reason: duplicates rule: sent 4 duplicated messages in 10s).
quartz anchor
More something else!
I have just started to learn programming...
can someone help me with giving me information about the job market
is that possible to find a remote or freelance job in another country ?
reef arch
I'm an unemployed data engineer with 5 years of experience. I can't get a job because I don't have big data experience. I'm thinking about taking a bootcamp to pivot into backend (also I'm starting to think backend is more interesting than data engineering to begin with, and would hope to pivot in my next role anyways). Would this be worth the time and effort?
gilded valley
with 5 years experience, I'd be very surprised if you weren't able to present that experience in a way that made you seem like a good fit for jobs already. If you want to do the bootcamp to actually learn the stuff, that makes some sense, but you could learn it by yourself. This also probably depends on things like your country, your actual experience, your ability, and your willingness to move
reef arch
@gilded valley I suppose I would need personal projects to demonstrate competence the areas I have not touched professionally, such as designing an API, right?
gilded valley
I mean - if you want to do jobs that require that skill, then you'd probably want to make one to demonstrate that you can. But you can probably frame your current experience in a way that hints that you might be able to do that already (without explicitly saying you can/have done it)
marsh wind
🤷♂️ Maybe but depending on what exactly you did oj previous jobs it might not be a must
Yeah what Charlie said basically
gilded valley
This all depends heavily on where you're based though. I think what I'm saying holds true for the EU/US - but it might be completely different in India, or East Asia or something
woeful spruce
what do people consider 'big data' experience? millions of records?
reef arch
I'm in NYC, it seems like the market is still generally OK here for other types of engineers. My entire office was laid off a few months ago, I was the only data engineer and am one of the few who hasn't been rehired yet.
Spark, really
woeful spruce
not sure how it is defined really. I thought it was more of a buzzword.
gilded valley
big data where Im at means anything too big to fit on RAM
woeful spruce
sorry to hear that jame
warped crypt
usually streaming data rather than static data.
woeful spruce
NY was hit hard
reef arch
Thanks Jason, appreciate it 🙂
woeful spruce
well what kind of data did you deal with before?
warped crypt
big data is mostly synonymous with continuous data in 100s MB/s to GB/s or more
warped crypt
GB/s
gilded valley
There's 3 aspects to big data, volume, velocity, and variety
woeful spruce
I haven't dealt with continuous data like that
reef arch
Yea I was writing ETL that would filter about 80 GB of JSON records stored in flat files
warped crypt
but yeah what charlie said
woeful spruce
it usually isn't updated that rapidly
so many data jobs out there, surprising they all expect big data experience. My job requires building decision trees based off the data. It is a lot of data but not 'big data'.
warped crypt
It's because pretty much everything is 'big data' these days in the eyes of companies
woeful spruce
I figured
gilded valley
IMO 80gb of json sounds to me like big data
enough to say so on a CV anyway
even if in practice it wasn't
woeful spruce
ETL experience is always good. I think you will have good fortune finding another position.
reef arch
A lot of my interviews processes have ended when they ask if I've used Spark in production
woeful spruce
and yea 80GB, yikes
warped crypt
yeah you could get away with 80GB json being classed as big data easily
reef arch
Thanks 🙂 appreciate hearing that too
Ok cool cool, I can edit that on my resume, thanks everyone 🙂
warped crypt
basically if you're going to struggle to load it into memory its big data, or if you have to work on it extremely quickly its big data
shadow moss
Big data is meaningless term alot
shadow moss
we deal with "Big data" it's 2TB delivered every 6 months
gilded valley
with 5 years of experience, it's probably worth you reaching out to a recruitment agency
shadow moss
we keep about 6 sets of data so about 10TB total and job when it's not being loaded is slicing and dicing
warped crypt
yeah, i work mostly with streaming data now, but i used to work with flightpaths, which was TBs of raster datasets
slicing and dicing all the way so it's manageable
gilded valley
hm - i'm curious, why raster? I'd have thought it would be lat/lng points+timestamps
woeful spruce
I also always hear about mongodb and big data
warped crypt
it was hyperspectral imagery mostly + some lidar and thermal
woeful spruce
never used it though
gilded valley
Only real big data tool i've used is Redshift on AWS - and I hate it
shadow moss
We use MSSQL for our data
shadow moss
it's got 1.5TB of RAM and big old backend SAN
gilded valley
pandas has interfaces into big data stuff
woeful spruce
or can it handle big data, I guess
gilded valley
databricks+pyspark is one way
iirc
or koalas i think it's called
I dunno about the details, but pandas can be used for it
woeful spruce
I need to look into those
warped crypt
I use mongo a lot for its simplicity more than anything
woeful spruce
....add it to my never ending list of libraries to 'enhance' my resume
marsh wind
For python it's dask
gilded valley
iirc Koalas is just Pandas except it works nicely on Spark/PySpark
warped crypt
last project was minio for object store(thermal imagery) and mongo for meta data. That was only doing about 30GB/hr though
gilded valley
apparently R is much nicer for data wrangling than Pandas/Python - and I can see it. Pandas is a bit of a mess
R+Tidyverse
uneven trout
What's the entry point into "Big Data™"? I was doing backend ERP integrations before, I'm having a hard time figuring out where that pipes into the overall data world.
The roles and scopes seem vague and all over the place, looking at job postings
shadow moss
Sitting at work then someone asking you "Hey Einhander, can you write a SQL query?"
warped crypt
The roles and scopes seem vague and all over the place, looking at job postings
@uneven trout Honestly... that's because they are
uneven trout
Well that's encouraging in a way
warped crypt
can you parse data in a way that would work if it were to change in size from extremely huge, to just huge, without using more resources than nessacery
define huge however you like, bandwidth, static size, both
and make that data usable
that bits important
uneven trout
I see. That's valuable insight, thanks
Right now I'd say I'm "okay" at python, and "pretty good" at SQL. I know old school SQL turns into a resource hog when the sizes get "big", so what's the next tool to stick in my belt? NoSQL?
gilded valley
You can just play around with the big data tools on some platform or other
S3 buckets, Redshift, other random AWS resources
those are all pretty practical
warped crypt
everyone has different preferences, i personally jump to mongo whenever i get the chance. but that's because i hate SQL. There are hundreds of different tools available though so
minio if you want S3 capability but open source
that's for object store more than metadata though
still very useful in the big data world
uneven trout
Right on. I'll look into all of that, thanks
crude crown
wait @viral ridge, you're using speech recognition in order to work?
warped crypt
god, that was hours ago xD
crude crown
For me, "big" data is an amount that can't be stored by a regular workstation available in a job, say 1 TB or so.
uneven trout
That's a definition I've seen a lot. If it needs some kind of distributed processing or storage, it's "big"
crude crown
And sorry for checking stuff hours ago, was busy with other stuff (namely my day job).
warped crypt
haha, no it just amused me
crude crown
and I found it curious because I'm actually working with speech technologies nowadays and once in awhile I find some stuff about using speech tech. for tasks like programming.
warped crypt
the basic definition is really that you can't process it all at once. That's the easiest way to look at it
crude crown
you could think of it that way as well.
warped crypt
there's just no solid definition on what the minijmum spec for that is xD
crude crown
meh, I kinda stopped caring about that years ago.
and I don't really hear people using the term "Big Data" nowadays to be honest
warped crypt
yeah pretty much. But it's just pointing out that it's difficult to give an answer as to what big data is, because there was never really a solid definition
it's only really used by salesmen now and people coming into the field(because they see job adverts using the term)
uneven trout
What terms are they using? Inquiring (and job seeking) minds want to know
crude crown
well, in job posting you'll always see "Big Data" to be honest.
but usually when you're in, people don't go around saying big data this big data that
unless you're in marketing/sales or product, where you need to pitch crap to non-technical stakeholders
uneven trout
I guess a better question would be: "Big Data" referred to something. I'm assuming that something still exists, so what do we call it now?
Or was it always just a buzzword?
crude crown
It refers to Data Engineering
uneven trout
👉 Solid gold right there
crude crown
and it's mostly a buzzword, but there are some legitimate uses for it...
warped crypt
basically, for CV/interviews throw in things like "cloud-ready" and "scalable", and as long as you can explain yourself to the actual tech people (or atleast make them laugh), you should be golden for a world of "big data"
distant crow
you could tell people that your core competencies are empowering holistic synergies that leverage bleeding edge cloud-ready scalable big data
lavish geyser
LinkedIn feed is that way ->
keen rose
Hey, as a high school student, is there any way to take some sort of python class or programming class In general that would “count” for the future? As in I get some sort of diploma or proof that I took the class and am at least competent? Or should I just be looking to learn at this point and not worry about that kinda stuff?
vapid jay
i feel personal projects carry more weight than classes cuz u have a solid product to show that u can do sth
distant crow
you're probably better off getting practical experience than pieces of paper
yep, exactly - practical experience on projects
keen rose
Projects as in just making whatever comes to mind for experience? Or something else
Sorry if I don’t make sense
vapid jay
i guess make sth that can do sth
keen rose
Alright thanks. I should probably still follow some sort of class because if I’m just learning to learn I will have no idea what to do... need some sort of structure
keen rose
Hmm?
willow sable
looking for a partner to start studying with for interviews!
iron mica
Hello
willow sable
yooo
iron mica
I am 13 and what should i do to become a good devloper
willow sable
practice data structures and algorithms!
iron mica
oh
vapid jay
lol
iron mica
practice data structures and algorithms!
@willow sable what is the efficent and effective way of doing that
willow sable
start with the absolute basics and work your way up!
blazing dew
@willow sable Please don't ask the same thing in multiple different channels.
willow sable
why u so mean
blazing dew
We don't want to incentivise spam.
iron mica
hmm is it fine to learn things like ML and Data Science i think i know basics
blazing dew
I can't give advice on either of those things because I don't have experience in those fields.
All I know is that ML and Data Science both require large amounts of math
willow sable
i am a professional data scientist
iron mica
I am in 7th class and i don't know that much maths
willow sable
dont get ahead of yourself naman
in order to become a stong data scientist you must first become a strong software engineer
learn the basics
take as much math as you can in high school
take udemy courses while you wait for college
vapid jay
or u can read ahead
iron mica
ok
vapid jay
never hurts
willow sable
still looking for someone to study interview questions with
neat grove
@lofty timber as said we don't allow recruiting here
viral ridge
@crude crown Well, yes, but it's not very enjoyable. What work are you doing exactly?
@willow sable imo a data scientist is not necessarily a strong SE
gilded valley
Data science is 3 parts: The data side, stats and understanding the underlying algorithms; the domain knowledge side, the ability to understand what data means within a given context; and the SE side, the ability to actually make the data do something useful, to build on top of it
marsh wind
imo a data scientist is not necessarily a strong SE
@viral ridge yeah I agree with that
One of my colleagues is amazing data scientist but his codes make people wanna cry
willow sable
@viral ridge wtf? Based on what?
You’ve obviously not worked in the field if that’s what you think
Charlie is right but domain expertise you can generally learn the third requirement I would say is a deep understanding of statistics
marsh wind
well also it depends on what you mean when you say "strong SE"
gilded valley
I've spoken to a tonne of different data scientists over the last few weeks - and the skillsets definitely vary. But you can absolutely get away with being bad at writing code. The main code that is necesary to be useful is just basic procedural stuff; the kind of stuff you can mostly do in Jupyter notebooks
marsh wind
More over this guy admits he won't be able to work as SE
And he finds pure SE job too hard
vapid jay
I want to talk to someone who is good at programming languages because I want to start leaning a new course from today if anyone want to help me please message me on discord 🙂
distant crow
I agree with Charlie. backend developers for example and data scientists are two different skillsets, they're not interchangeable. I wouldn't hire a backend software engineer into a data scientist role; and I wouldn't hire a data scientist into a backend software role (unless they had the experience of course)
and you know what, we have exactly that problem right now because a team of data scientists and AI experts wrote some code that now we must have a software engineer help optimize and instrument because right now the performance is shocking, the logging and monitoring is awful which makes debugging hard, and deployment steps aren't good either
so the software engineers helps chunk up the algorithm into reasonable steps, parallelizes the parts that should be parallelized; optimizes some of the parts that need optimizing; adds queues and retry logic for parts that need them; adds loading and caching of external data; automates some remaining manual steps of juggling data in pipelines; adds logging and monitoring; packages everything into docker images; writes the necessary kubernetes or helm charts to deploy and scale it
can a data scientist do these things as well? yes, if they are also a strong SE
but a data scientist who cannot do these things as well can still be a very good data scientist who is extremely valuable to the team
marsh wind
@distant crow 100%we don't have a test suite for our apps, and even though I am a data scientist jf bugs me out that we have to manual test so many times
And covering a written app that is in prod with test would be quite more cumbersome than if it would be done from scratch
distant crow
yep, lots of skillsets are needed in the real world, so we have lots of types of python developer....and some other people who do other languages I guess
crude crown
well, I'm currently kind of a "one man band" in the sense that I currently do both DS work and backend development stuff
marsh wind
Similar
crude crown
not both at the same time mind you, on certain months I'm heads down in DS stuff, others I'm heads down in backend development.
but my scenario is not a common one IMO
mortal wedge
Smaller company?
crude crown
well, my company has around 1000 people
marsh wind
Mine is under 30
marsh wind
Yeah. Well we have dedicated android or web devs
But data scientist are bit of jack of all trades. Python, sometimes Scala and at least some basic API design. Data models, DBs... Etc etc
crude crown
yes, it's more typical in smaller companies... and I'm kinda in a particular situation on my team (where the only full-time IC is me)
if you're worried about obsolescence of your know how in frameworks... BE is a somewhat better in that regard but that also happens there.
I feel you. But that's an unfortunate reality of working in "tech" where there's no running away if you're like the typical person that job hops every 2 to 3 years. I've had to learn by myself quite a lot of crap for other jobs which I'm not using in my current one.
distant crow
that list looks good
crude crown
yeah, it also looks good to me.
distant crow
you might want to add new APIs like Graphql in there as well
there's also a lot of crossover into devops with backend, you can decide whether you want to get into that as well. If so, it adds continerization, CI/CD, kubernetes, service meshes, public cloud providers, and infrastructure-as-code
you say that, but then you try and find any good documentation for Jenkins plugins...
sure, though that's more of an umbrella term for what stuff we do already with CI and kubernetes and whatever
and "everything-as-code" basically
yes, there's a lot of moving pieces in that though. If CI/CD sounds easy as an end-user, then you have benefited from the hard work of whomever set it up
if CI/CD is hard as an end user though, then you'll have discovered that it wasn't such an easy thing after all. Though I will agree, Jenkins compared to other packages today is unnecessarily complex
right, that action you'e just described: "ssh into my server and build then redeploy the docker container" that's exactly the kind of thing that can and should be automated with CD
it's a repetitive task right?
ok exactly. that's the kind of stuff devops is setting up. I think a lot of BE devs blend into that these days, and so I'm suggesting that it may be worthwhile getting into those things
github (or your provider of choice) has webhooks for this reason - so you don't need to check for tags every x minutes
whether CI software sshing into a machine is an attack vector is also an interesting topic. I'd challenge you on that and say that it's not as clear-cut a picture
plus, building containers on the host is also problematic for at least two reasons:
- building often has higher RAM requirements than running, and also you're using system resources of a server that may also be at the same time serving from a previous version of the image. this is no good for things that need to be high-availability
- you still want to store the built images somewhere for any forensic debugging. If your images are built on the host, you're depriving yourself of an extremely useful part of what containerization can offer: the fact that you can test and deploy on the same image and eliminate most of the weird issues where your build environment is different
if you do build on the host, you still need/want to save that image for later in case you have to debug that specific built version, in which case you're still pushing to a container repo, which opens up the question of why you're building on the host to begin with?
furthermore, building containers also involves usually downloading things from other sources - pip repo, upstream container repo, etc. etc. If you want to consider security and reducing attack vectors, then having each and every host you use have to build their own images, those are also attack vectors. Your centralized builder can be much more easily outfitted with local (or network) container repo and local pip repo if you want to really lock things down. It's not as clear-cut a picture as you suggest
finally, SSH-ing into a host from the CD host, there are lots of options to secure this aside from your basic key access. The easiest option being restricting SSH to the VPC/VPN between the CD and your server. You don't need SSH to be available to the public internet. Besides, if your application is of any non-trivial complexity, you'll have backend services that need to talk to each other anyway, and so likely you will want or already have a VPC/VPN
I don't use docker's build services because a lot of our builds require a few more steps to happen before build begins - not just environment stuff, but also preparing dependencies that the docker build can't or shouldn't do inside the docker build
but would I recommend it? If your build is simple enough, sure
there are plenty of other options as well though; cloud providers usually also provide their own builds - Google has both a build service and a container repsoitory, which can be quite convenient if you restrict your access using GCP's IAM
I'm sure AWS has as well, I'm not familiar with it though
I use Jenkins. I'm not happy with it, and I think it's more complex and documentation notoriously fragmented and difficult to find. But I'm stuck with it for...reasons
I highly suspect Gitlab is a better option than Jenkins
you should rebuild containers
I'm aware, gitlab is excellent, but it works best using gitlab itself as the git repo. Github Actions is very stripped down, I use github actions a lot of very basic things like build and deploy to firebase
you should rebuild containers for again, at least two reasons:
- having to deploy both container and code defeats a lot of the purpose of having containers - now you have to make sure your container matches up with your code version, this seems like an unnecessary complexity. And again, for the same reason as above, if you have to debug something relating to a specific environment-code interaction, you have a single container with everything that you can test with.
- if you start deploying on kubernetes, mounting code in is a nightmare, and really there is no goo reason to do it this way
it sounds to me that you've used containers for some small projects. The things you've described are acceptable/passable for small project that work with one or two containers at a time running on a single host. But these do not scale. I think it's ok to stay working like this - the one benefit, which I'm sure you're aware, is that mounting code into containers makes it easy to test things as you can edit the code on the host. This is acceptable in dev, but for the above reasons is not the best choice in production
to provide an easy (on the developer) solution without mounting code into containers, your CI/CD should be capable of doing dev builds and deploying to a dev environment. This way, end-to-end/integration/manual testing should be as simple as tagging a dev build, and waiting a minute or two for the dev environment to become available
mortal wedge
Man, I'm so spoiled that I am in full control of my development cycle atm
mortal wedge
I'm just proud that I learned how to Push updates to Github and make releases 🙂
crude crown
cool 👍
mortal dove
I remember when i first started using github, i created repo with readme file and then wondered why i am not able to connect local repo and push changes
vapid jay
i want to be cs grad lol
compE : )
is anyone in here looking into blockchain?
https://academy.ivanontech.com/a/28555/8iuQMawF looks pretty interesting
hardy briar
guys, how does an freelance negotiation runs?
i mean, if the client/solicitant asks for a webscraper code that writes in an excel sheet (example).
do i have to deploy it anywhere? or just to transfer the code?
i've seen some jobs i could have take but idk how to proceed
and about payment, what is usually the method adopted? paypal?
crypto?
hardy briar
@vapid jay how long have you freelancing?
mortal wedge
They transfer money directly to my bank
Idk if that’s typical but it’s what I’ve used so far. PayPal and Venmo exist as well ofc
open patio
@delicate basalt we don't allow recruitment here, sorry
mortal wedge
I still have to invoice them though
Apparently it’s a real problem, contractors getting stiffed
US president has dozens of lawsuits against him for stuffing contractors for example
Stiffing
distant crow
if it help to know, I usually pay contractors in the US via Transferwise from the UK. The big benefit of this is that the transfer rates are really low (some of the lowest around), and also I don't need to collect bank details, I just need their email address, and Transferwise will send them an email for them to enter their bank details into
mortal wedge
Oh nice
distant crow
this saves me a lot of effort, and worry about entering details wrong, or them not wanting to send their bank details to me
mortal wedge
I’ve had to give my bank info
orchid breach
Anyone wanna hire me or put me in a project?
Need exp
Im looking for somme sort of a active project that at the same time mentors people
safe trout
are there any software engineers/cs grads in here?
@vapid jay master in CS, much left to learn. though the paper does open up entry to many companies
vapid jay
does writing a honors thesis as undergrad help with grad school apps?
safe trout
does writing a honors thesis as undergrad help with grad school apps?
@vapid jay I believe it does, especially for 'prestigious' unis, usually they look at your average GPA as there's a minimum they expect. Doing honors degrees is usually preferable for those seeking to get into academia, or MBB companies whom specifically look for high-marks.
nocturne snow
Hi all, I'm looking to create a fun project where I showcase my ability to work with semi-large scale ML projects, specifically an NLP project. I was looking into ways to do so, and am currently thinking about using Amazon Sagemaker, but it seems that I need a lot of specific knowledge for this. Just for the aim of a project to showcase on my portfolio website, do you guys think another route might be more straightforward?
stable cipher
NLTK and SpaCy are pretty good libraries in python for NLP, but also check the pinned messages in #data-science-and-ml and ask around there for some more help
nocturne snow
ty
upbeat elm
@orchid breach pick a popular open source python project, familiarize yourself with it and start contributing, if you show you really want to contribute, people will probably comment your pull requests
tawny skiff
Hey @nocturne snow, like @stable cipher said, for highly scalable NLP/ML I'd recommend https://spacy.io/ their API is really well documented and has loads of great examples, also a lovely UI from the web. NLTK is great for grass-roots, especially for someone learning NLP and following the book https://www.nltk.org/book/ but I'd say if you know what you are doing with Python, use SpaCy 100%. Another great library is gensim https://radimrehurek.com/gensim/ they had a nice interface for word2vec when I was doing some cosine similarity testing, also a great library to checkout.
delicate portal
Hi all, has anyone recently started a temporarily-remote software dev role?
Do you think the onboarding experience was worse than if you'd been able to start in person, or was it not a problem?
robust chasm
Hi @delicate portal , a friend just start in a company last month and he said exactly that. I think that being physically (especially at the beginning) makes easier interact with your new team mates. You cant see people reaction throught a chat 😦
delicate portal
Yeah, that's what I was afraid of. I put my job search on hold back in March because of the pandemic, now I'm wondering if I should just go for it anyway.
marsh wind
yeah I started it April
orchid breach
Guys
marsh wind
and onboarding, especially when it's first industry job was not exactly easy @delicate portal. All went well but I bet in-person would be much smoother
orchid breach
Anyone here working on a project?
marsh wind
everyone is working on some project here
orchid breach
Im looking for a property management project
raw lark
Hi, I'm new to code and just have started working on a school web application. I'm looking for an mentor who can guide me through this
and If you have some work for me or even a piece of advice I'll appreciate it.
orchid marten
@raw lark i'm a few months into learning code seriously, can't be a mentor but maybe we can be frustratred together? 😆
Feel free to hit me up
Guys, I just got paid for my first piece of code, yay!
It's just a light script, but it really felt like I was giving away a lot more
I spent 8 hours on it, got paid $20, which is fine for my start...
I was just wondering, when people buy coding service, do they get all my code
As well as custom libraries and applications I use to make it work
It seems like i'm giving away a lot
The time those custom applications took to research and build alone...
vapid jay
Do people normally have logos?
vivid dock
@orchid marten Depends on the agreement you guys make.
Some agree that your solutions is yours, but you're responsible for hosting it. If it's a webservice for instance. Or you can agree to sell the whole solution to them and let them handle it. There are other options with compiled code, like C# etc where you can sell the compiled version without sourcecode
At least from my understandings, I haven't actually done it myself
orchid breach
@orchid marten i wanna join jn too
I wanna code like a part and also earn at the same time
hushed sphinx
vivid dock
Please don't spam, @hushed sphinx ..
orchid marten
Some agree that your solutions is yours, but you're responsible for hosting it. If it's a webservice for instance. Or you can agree to sell the whole solution to them and let them handle it. There are other options with compiled code, like C# etc where you can sell the compiled version without sourcecode
@vivid dock
Thanks for the info man, it makes much more sense to sell the compiled verson,
And I could host the solution and all that
The dude I was working for asked for the source code, and it immediately felt unfair
I gave it to him because i'm a noob but now I know better lol
I wanna code like a part and also earn at the same time
@orchid breach
What do you mean?
Do people normally have logos?
@vapid jay
For what?
vivid dock
@orchid marten It takes time to understand others source code, esp if it's a larger system. You might just get calls later with requests to update it if they never got anyone to understand it all
warped crypt
@orchid marten It depends, if there is no contract then it depends on how much was requested in writing. If in writing they have said "I will pay you £20 for the source code and an application", then they will likely win a civil case to get access to the source code. if however it instead says "I will pay you £20 for an application", then you will likely win a civil case to rights for that source code.
Contracts make it much more explicit and I would advise you almost always have one in place when doing any freelance work - for both your peace of mind and the purchasers.
Always explicitly mention the rights of the source code in the contract - generally if they want full rights to the application and source code it will cost them more, as they are in essense purchasing your IP at that point. Make sure all parties involved know who has rights to the source code, and possibly discuss future licensing of the code (If you want to make something open source, the purchaser may want a 1 year grace period where they have exclusive paid rights before you release).
If you do supply source code, but in the contract it has been decided it is your IP ALWAYS ensure you have a license packaged with the code, and keep your own copy of the archive that was sent, DO NOT MODIFY this archive, the date needs to match the date sent (yes this can be altered, but it's best to just not modify it just in case). This way if in the future they start to distribute your source code, you can prove the original license that the code was distributed with and whether the third party is at fault, without this you could well lose a civil case again.
@orchid marten it's all about risk aversion really, small £20 pieces of code aren't too bad, but when you start getting into hundreds of hours and thousands of lines you will want to be making sure you've got everything you need if anything needs to go to a court
warped crypt
@orchid marten also with python code, if you are wanting full rights to the source code with no distribution you can use pyarmor or similar to obfuscate the code. You could also technically just supply .pyc files, but these aren't guaranteed to run on every system.
orchid marten
@orchid marten also with python code, if you are wanting full rights to the source code with no distribution you can use pyarmor or similar to obfuscate the code. You could also technically just supply .pyc files, but these aren't guaranteed to run on every system.
@warped crypt
Thank you for the mountain of info man, well appreciated. This is the first i'm hearing of pyarmor, will definitely be using that in distribution. The client wants to build out a full application, this is just a small feature, so this is perfect info for moving forward. I appreciate the effort you put into replying to me man 👍🏾
lavish geyser
Obfuscation is a minor hurdle at best
If you don’t want to expose source code it needs to be server side
Obfuscation also can lead to degraded performance and some very odd bugs from time to time
warped crypt
@warped crypt
Thank you for the mountain of info man, well appreciated. This is the first i'm hearing of pyarmor, will definitely be using that in distribution. The client wants to build out a full application, this is just a small feature, so this is perfect info for moving forward. I appreciate the effort you put into replying to me man 👍🏾
@orchid marten Pyarmor is only a start, it can be bypassed by someone who knows what they are doing... but honestly you don't have a whole lot of choice with python if you aren't hosting
If you don’t want to expose source code it needs to be server side
@lavish geyser I don't disagree, but that's not always an option, I do agree that if you do obfuscate you should re-test everything to make sure it's still all working as expected
lavish geyser
The plain fact of the matter is if you distribute your source code there’s not a TON that can be done to protect
For the vast majority of cases simply creating an exe is more then enough to prevent people from copying it
orchid breach
@warped crypt does obfuscate source code also work with flask related app?
Or is it just those strict python files
lavish geyser
Why would you obfuscate a flask app?
orchid breach
Same reason
I dont want anyine distributing my source
Or am i misunderstanding something
warped crypt
@warped crypt does obfuscate source code also work with flask related app?
@orchid breach you shouldn't need to really as if it's flask it will be hosted (maybe not by you, but in that case maybe suggest a container distribution rather than source code). Technically you could obfuscate it, but flask apps tend to have a lot of dependencies, and if you use things like eventlet you have the monkeypatch, and i expect you're going to run in to issues.
For server stuff there are much better options
(Containers being the most common these days in my experience)
warped crypt
yeah
Honestly I think I oversold the obfuscation, it's not a silver bullet, it's just an extra tool - and one you shouldn't need that often. Licenses and contracts are always your best option
orchid breach
Is there a way to know if a company had sold your codes to other?
warped crypt
Not really no. It's mostly a case of if you see another company using something similar to what you designed(or identical), then you can raise a concern with them or your client to work out whether it is your code. If no-one is cooperative then you can open a civil case(this will cost, so you need to be sure), and hope that you have enough evidence to prove that it's your code. It is possible to take it to criminal courts, but I don't know how common this is with small developers. I expect not very.
I'm not an expert in law so I'd suggest if you were ever in that situation you consult a lawyer before taking anything forward - probably even before discussing with your client/the other company.
orchid breach
Damn feelsbadman
Or can python work with licenses?
I mean integrate a license
To prevent installing on other machine
warped crypt
PyArmor Can do licensing, along with a few other things. It's an option - but generally easy to circumvent
warped crypt
Honestly, I think if you are writing something that is in desperate need of being locked down, with very limited possibility of distribution, your best bet is to choose a compiled language. Most of what you write as an early career freelancer, will be writable by someone else, so I wouldn't worry too much. If you write something that is spectacular and you really want to keep it as your IP then re-write it in a compiled language.
I wouldn't worry about it when you are still learning. The vast majority of developers never have to worry about it as they work for companies that handle the vast majority of that. So i'd mostly just forget about any obfuscation and code-hiding at this point :), just use containers if you're desperate to hide it easily
lavish geyser
Ehh kinda
At the end of the day protecting source code through obfuscation is just a minor hurdle to anyone wanting to actually look at your source
And tbqh i highly doubt you’ve written code that companies would care enough to go through the trouble of decompiling
So many people i see asking these sorts of questions when it was never even a problem in the first place
warped crypt
Most of what you write as an early career freelancer, will be writable by someone else, so I wouldn't worry too much.
That's the important part - you likely won't need to try to hide your source code in any way in your early career. Maybe in 10 years time. But right now, i wouldn't worry.
distant crow
you could host the flask app yourself and demonstrate that it's working until they pay right?
seems like a long way to go to make something run by the client but can't be stolen. personally if there's so little trust (even with paperwork) between myself and a client, or myself as the client and the freelancer, I'd stay well away from the relationship, or to start small with projects I'd be ok with losing and build up trust with those
In my work as a freelancer, I've never obfuscated any code. If a client screws me over, that's annoying, but I don't work with them again, and as far as I'm concerned the contract is null and void and I'm probably going to re-use bits of the work for other stuff, or just put the entire thing up open source
in my work as a client, nobody's ever sent me obfuscated code, and if they did, I'd probably think there's a severe trust issue, and the amount of effort I'm going to have to spend dealing with it is going to put me off, and I'd seek to switch to a different freelancer as soon as I could
if they're sending obfuscated code, what are their limits? putting in a time bomb they don't tell me about until the thing stops working at a certain date? or a phone home script that remotely lets them disable it?
if they don't trust me (and note this would be within the context of a binding contractor's agreement that lays out the work and payment terms), I'd find it hard to trust them
I'm assuming you negotiate getting paid regularly, or having the project split into finer deliverables. I personally pay out to contractors every two weeks. I do this because it's also easier for me to keep track of costs - I've been burned before by a freelancer who decided to go do something entirely unrelated that I wouldn't have agreed to, and then proceed to bill me for all of it
terse bane
Is python with sqlite enough to get a job ?
warped crypt
"as far as I'm concerned the contract is null and void and I'm probably going to re-use bits of the work for other stuff, or just put the entire thing up open source"
I'd be careful with that bit unless they have actually broke the contract.
But yeah, again I don't disagree, there are times where I have obfuscated, but it's always been part of the contract first and agreed up front. I've never obfuscated the full application being delivered - just parts that I don't want shared. Basically the only reason they are obfuscated are to highlight that these things shouldn't be shared in a more obvious manner (If they share them, it's obvious that they have put effort into doing so and it hasn't just been done by accident).
And yeah, i was going to mention the reason for not obfuscating is phone home scripts become a risk.
The most important thing is contracts - always have contracts
terse bane
Is python with sqlite enough to get a job ?
distant crow
yep agreed
warped crypt
Is python with sqlite enough to get a job ?
@terse bane Don't spam, but it depends on the context - If a job is asking for python and sqlite - then yeah. It shows you have some knowledge of databases, and they can question you on algorithms . Those are the building blocks of your career.
Database design is also important though. Just because you can create a database using sqlite, doesn't mean that database is good
terse bane
Thanks
woeful knot
how is python careers at india
stiff wadi
Anyone experience jobs in germany?
Without any degree or training its Quiz Hard i think here, really annoying
opal perch
unfortuantely that's the case anywhere
dark jay
I'm in Norway. No proffesional experience and... I have almost no response for my application.
shadow moss
also, with COVID 19 crisis (country depending) alot of hiring has slowed
hoary ledge
virus
fathom pecan
Hello! So a friend of mine who is a developer at a fairly large company was wondering: is it a regular thing for developers to also double as technical support for customers?
covert scaffold
depends on the company really
mostly i'd say no
but at a startup i worked as a dev, and we shipped features
and sometimes we'd have direct contact with contractees for suggestions/ideas/complaints
but im gueesing your friend is geting used to do as much as he can by the company 🤷♂️
fathom pecan
I guess? I mean he really likes his company and all though, the only weird thing is that part of his job
He doesn't have to do it frequently though, thankfully
woeful spruce
isn't it difficult to land Full Time Employment for white collar jobs in Norway @dark jay ?
dark jay
It is diffucult
but depends on your experience
I'm self thaught so I'm still in a looknig process with no luck yet
woeful spruce
do they have staffing agencies there?
my best bet when I had no experience was through temp/contract gigs and I would just prove my competency there. Employer's like to try out new blood before committing, from my experience.
warped crypt
@fathom pecan depends what line. 3rd line is usually reserved for specialists - ie. those who know the program, so will quite often be developers taking some time here and there to solve those issues. If he's being used as 1st line that's uncommon
woeful spruce
Norway is probably a lot like what I dealt with in Canada, employers afraid to commit because once an employee is hired on, it is expensive to terminate them
once you get in though, you will feel golden
if you are like the other programmers I see on here, you just need to catch an opportunity to showcase your skills
fathom pecan
@warped crypt Hmm, I guess he'd fit into that category maybe -- afaik, without divulging too much detail, there's a rotation on his team as to who's on call for customer support for a period of time
warped crypt
Yeah, he's probably 3rd line then, it's fairly common
dark jay
@woeful spruce yes indeed I think is the same as Canada 🙂 hight cost of termination and yes I know I have to wait for my lucky shot 🙂
woeful spruce
during COVID it is very difficult as well
lots of hiring freezes, I know my employer did that
dark jay
but here in Norway is quite wired for me that they also focusing on your degree. It's higly hard for them understand that someone learn by himself
I have two or three talks where they couldn't understand how I could lern it by myself withouth sc study
fathom pecan
Actually it might not be the case for him, now that I think about it
I remember a few instances where he described some pretty tier 1 support sort of things
warped crypt
@dark jay a degree is a security thing. You get far less bad graduates than you do self-taughts. So in tough times the degree/certifications are a way to guarantee a hire isn't going to need to be terminated quickly, hiring is expensive, if you're at the risk of a recession you don't want to have 20% bad hire rate.
So you now have the people who don't understand that things can be self-learned, and on top of that companies that are being risk-averse, so you will find a higher percentage of companies not wanting fresh self-learned employees with very little professional experience
It's tough, but unfortunately that's how it's going to be working at the moment.
dark jay
Oh nice explanation 🙂
woeful spruce
I feel like the Nordic countries are big on education
I think it is an old school mentality at times
dark jay
probably
woeful spruce
lots of company go by rules of thumb...and a post-secondary educated applicant is looked at more favorably than one who is not. Not saying it is fair, but HR doesn't take risks like that.
warped crypt
@woeful spruce It is a bit of that, but a year ago in the UK you'd see quite a few jobs that would accept a portfolio over a degree, I don't think i've seen any in the last 6 months
woeful spruce
yea that is COVID deep recession at work
my company was desperate for a programmer a few years ago
they had to just take anyone they could out of school
warped crypt
It's just risk aversion - I'd still apply for roles even if they ask for a degree, just make sure you have a strong portfolio to back you up
woeful spruce
I was actually jealous because the economy wasn't as good when I graduated 😁
these grads just walked into jobs
dark jay
For me it's more likely just information. I'm 38 years old man who once said fuck it do what you love to do 🙂
woeful spruce
not the case now obviously
kudos, bart
I feel the best situation is to find a company who desperately needs to fill a hole and as a result would take a chance on you
but finding the desperate company is the tough part
dark jay
and honestly I'm not desperate now. I know that it takes time. I'm very patient 🙂 but still I'm in that place of my knowledge that it's stupid to stop now and turn around
warped crypt
LinkedIn + github portfolio and if you can afford it something hosted, will get you quite far just got to keep looking and get past the CV scanners
dark jay
I just want to share and talk about situation to be updated
yes yes
i got my webpage portfolio, github, linkedin
warped crypt
does your webpage look good? 😛 I know it's a silly question, but a bad web page can be detrimental as well.. And a lot of abandoned github projects can be detrimental to
dark jay
even once when my frustration about coding blew up i have started my own blog but without huge plan to do it
would you like to see it?
I don't know if I can post it here but I could send you a link so if you would like to take a look i would more than happy
warped crypt
happy to take a look if you'd like
woeful spruce
oh wow, you have a webpage?
sounds like you are taking this seriously
sometimes I wonder how I got hired when people on here seem to put in way more effort in their profiles
dark jay
woeful spruce
seems fine to me
some grammatical english errors....but I can't imagine they care that much in Norway
short crow
inb4 we are all mining bitcoin for bart by visiting his blog :troll:
dark jay
ahhhh, grammatical error will disapear tommorow 🙂 i had some issue with digital ocean where i serve it
short crow
@dark jay btw, have you tried any freelance work? That really helped me to develop my skills and portfolio; especially devops stuff
warped crypt
yup, seems okay to me, it's clean enough (bootstrapped I assume?), and you've got a few different things on your github.
I did virustotal it before - no viruses atleast.. and i don't think we are bitcoin mining xd.. my gpu hasn't spun up 😉
and i'd know.. i get coilwhine
dark jay
and my way to jump to IT it's probably a bit longer than regular one because my aproach is more likely as full stack so when I make an app or think about it I can't just think about backend 🙂 My mindset is morelikely to look at everything as a complex
@warped crypt no bootstrap 🙂 pure CSS and HTML because I wanted do it with deep undestanding how it works
short crow
Yeah, I was kidding 😛 The page is vanilla to the bone, not even fonts are imported.. Really nice, and this type of stuff will score points with a certain crowd.
warped crypt
huh fair enough, it's quite smooth for pure css and html. I don't have the patience for it xD
dark jay
@short crow no I have not tried any freelance work yet as I think I'm not ready to do that
warped crypt
there are some sites where people post small jobs they need doing that they are willing to pay for - not quite the same level as proper freelancing(which it's good that you realise you aren't ready for that), but generally it's people wanting like a small personal web page or something
can't link them, but just search for software developer request a job, and there's a few sites that will come up
dark jay
small pages are made in wordpress and I'm really impresed by that framework but I don't want to spent time to do that and in nowadays you can even make nocode solustion to make a website
short crow
most freelance platforms have listings for very rudimentary IT tasks; you should lurk the offers just to see when you are getting close
dark jay
but I was wonder maybe about some scraping projects
short crow
I started with doing HTML cut-jobs from JPEGS back in web 1.0
and design
@dark jay like, scraping for a personal project, or to start developing scraping software?
dark jay
now I've realized about mining bitcoin on my webpage. I'm honored 😄
like scraping for someone else
it's a lot small businesses which checking houndreds times something in internet
short crow
True.. but hardest things about scraping are not the software engineering issues (i.e: making the code that scrapes)
dark jay
i'm listening ...
short crow
Scraping comes with some legal implications nowadays, with the GDPR, and also, most platforms will try to prevent scraping of their content (legally and technically)
short crow
this, combined with the moral dilema of outright "taking peoples jobs™️", makes for hard work to get into for profit on your own
dark jay
yes, that moral dilema but in that scenario small businesses are save. They going to be automated last one 🙂
big companies can save a lot of money so they want to automate the most. When you have small business and you can save 30% by switching procedure and fire some people to automate smth and be depending on software which you don't really understand... you think twice 🙂
warped crypt
like 70% of what i do at work at the moment is automating things that were never made to be automated (third party apps)...
woeful spruce
Firestorm don't automate my job just yet....
short crow
How money is made by the engineer of a scraper in this scenario is not by offering to do scraping for the big company; but by selling the software (or more accurately the service [SAAS]) that will provide data from the scraping, that the company is getting manually now
white karma
Don’t scrape the butter from his bread
dark jay
@warped crypt could give one example of things you are automating ?
of course If you want and it's not any secret issue
warped crypt
not allowed unfortunately - they aren't things that most companies are going to be all that interested in though
short crow
lol, developer NDAs, pfft 😄
warped crypt
atleast not for a few years, i'm in research so it's 5-10 year stuff
white karma
Spicy
short crow
im confused, yet, intrigued
dark jay
sounds really interesting @warped crypt but yes NDAs... 🙂