Programmer Shares What He Wishes He Knew When Younger

Terry Olaes

I Used to be the [H] News Guy
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Programmer and consultant Andrew Oliver dropped some knowledge for junior programmers in a recent column. It may seem like common sense to you now but don't forget that you didn't always have the experience you take for granted. What advice do you have to impart?

Also, take note of your peers. If you're an early 20-something, chances are you have no real power or influence, and neither do your peers. In five to 10 years, that will all be different and the person who you ignored because they were boring and couldn't help you will be the person who could have won you an important opportunity.
 
4. There is relatively little real innovation in the software side of the industry compared to popular perception. Most of us who have done this for more than five years have already watched all the vendors rename everything and sell it as new at least once. Anyone working for more than 10 years has seen it a few times. When you go into a meeting with a bunch of old people, realize that they roll their eyes at many of the things you think are new. There are some innovations, but those are usually combinations of previous technologies. While Hadoop may be hot, HDFS is a distributed filesystem and distributed filesystems have existed for decades.

Wait, you mean the cloud isn't a magical new invention?
 
I'll add another entry:

0. Many of you won't stick with it or simply will have no aptitude for software design or development. Recognize your failure now and choose another career sooner than later. *Everyone* will be better off.
 
"1. ..............Also, take note of your peers. If you're an early 20-something, chances are you have no real power or influence, and neither do your peers. In five to 10 years, that will all be different and the person who you ignored because they were boring and couldn't help you will be the person who could have won you an important opportunity.


8. For Zod's sake, learn to communicate. If you are unable to write properly in English (or the appropriate language for your community), take a writing course. If you are unable to give a talk, get over your stage fright, take a course, practice in front of a mirror, and/or attend some meetups and learn. This is probably as important as writing code."

Cannot stress #1 enough. I have seen this come back to bite people in the ass so many times. That co worker your dissed and pissed on just because. Maybe you didn't like them, maybe you didn't think much of their talent. These are the people who will come back and be your boss someday. Saw it 3 times in one business I worked at, and it came back to haunt me, but luckily it didn't bite me too hard. Never burn bridges ever, no matter the satisfaction of doing so. Think long term. When you are CEO, then you can get your enemies list out, drink a lot of cranberry juice, and piss away.
 
SPOILER

In this article, a mediocre engineer espouses mere generality while attempting to overstate importance in lightly successful career.

/SPOILER
 
SPOILER

In this article, a mediocre engineer espouses mere generality while attempting to overstate importance in lightly successful career.

/SPOILER
And yet he's probably doing better than you, so that's gotta suck (by that, I mean for you). :p

From his Infoworld profile:
Andrew C. Oliver
Andrew C. Oliver is a professional cat herder who moonlights as a software consultant. He started programming when he was 8 and cut his teeth on GW Basic, BASICA, and dBase III+. He is most known for founding the POI project, which is now hosted at Apache. He also was one of the early developers at JBoss before it merged with Red Hat. He is a former board member and current helper at the Open Source Initiative. He is president and founder of Open Software Integrators, a professional services firm with offices in Durham, N.C., and Chicago, Ill.

The article sucks, but it does contain some bits of decent advice.
 
1. ..............Also, take note of your peers. If you're an early 20-something, chances are you have no real power or influence, and neither do your peers. In five to 10 years, that will all be different and the person who you ignored because they were boring and couldn't help you will be the person who could have won you an important opportunity.

Been told this all my life, though my grandfather's exact words were:
"The toes you step on today may be connected to the asses you have to kiss tomorrow, so beware."
 
1: Make connections
2: L2ProblemSolve
3: Pick your skills based on your career goals
4: You're NOT the next Wozniak
5: Focus on a career, not small jobs
6: Work hard
7: Be efficient
8: L2Communicate

Gotcha :)
 
Where I work if your manager notices you working > 40 hrs a week regularly they will often talk to you and remind you to keep a good work life balance and not spend too much time at work.
 
Where I work if your manager notices you working > 40 hrs a week regularly they will often talk to you and remind you to keep a good work life balance and not spend too much time at work.

Milton-Office-Space.jpg
 
Where I work if your manager notices you working > 40 hrs a week regularly they will often talk to you and remind you to keep a good work life balance and not spend too much time at work.

Nothing like that, its not like there is overtime pay so why would you fire someone for working longer hours?
 
I think the effect of the pirate-food finally manifested multiple personalities ... maybe it's the excessive MSG... causing the FDA-recognized short-term MSG-symptom-complex. He'll be back to a single personality in a few hours.
 
I think the effect of the pirate-food finally manifested multiple personalities ... maybe it's the excessive MSG... causing the FDA-recognized short-term MSG-symptom-complex. He'll be back to a single personality in a few hours.

They said I could sit by the windows and listen to my music at reasonable levels while I collate papers and watch the squirrels
 
I'll add another entry:

0. Many of you won't stick with it or simply will have no aptitude for software design or development. Recognize your failure now and choose another career sooner than later. *Everyone* will be better off.

As a person who did switch careers away from IT work (oracle/SQL programming early 2000's), I would honestly say this is true. I wasn't bad at it, but I was already bored with it after a few years, but didn't have the resume I needed to move onto better projects, and I worked in a shitty over saturated market. Anyway mass layoffs around 2001/2002 ended up with me on my ass, and I definitely deserved it. I could have explored more options, gone for more training, taken little jobs to get by, but I dropped it. I had a moment of clarity, I wasn't happy, and it was making me a shitty employee. I never really considered it a failure though, it was just learning about myself. I can't be the only kid who was good at mario who figured computer programming was my natural calling, haha. Anyway I quoted you because I agree, but perhaps being a called a failure for changing careers is unfair. My opinion.

As an aside, I'm an elevator mechanic now.
 
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