Either the code is short, or it isn't.
Either the chair supports your weight, or it breaks.
I think I enjoy these pursuits as an antidote to the kind of software I have to deal with on a daily basis - it's the kind that is so complex there are "no obvious deficiencies", so being able to retreat to domains where there are "obviously no deficiencies" is a treat.
I'm an ok-ish web developer, and would love to fine some niches to specialize in like you mentioned.
* Compilers/DSLs/language runtimes/static analysis
* Distributed systems (on my list of things to learn, know basically nothing)
* More generically: high-performance code, doesn't have to be fintech-fast, but designing and maintaining code that makes excellent use of hardware resources
Switching to "dumb" jobs made my life a lot happier. While it's easier, the demand exceeds the supply. Easier career growth, and better colleagues (no egos, etc).
So, my one example disputes your claim. :)
Because of this statement, I feel like I finally understand the aversion in the woodworking community to pocketholes and CNCs.
Its not an aversion to the technique per se, its an aversion to the kind of person who uses them for everything.
Well, it's very easy to make a chair that works a couple times. Whether it holds up for a week or a century is another matter.
At any rate, being from a "low trust society" can also motivate someone to go in the other direction because they have seen the injustice that is a consequence of cheating and dishonesty.
If he stayed, he wouldn't have been as successful as he is now.
Personally, my parents are such people - they left Poland in the 1970’s and excelled in America. One of the best things that our country has done since is that we have climbed into a higher-trust category in the 90’s. This has gradually limited that brain drain mechanic. While things aren’t perfect, there are far fewer such people leaving our economy and it has done wonders.
However, everywhere in the world this is a continuous battle that will always have to be fought and won over and over again. The lying and the cheating always creeps back into every system.
Man, you crushed it here, so true.
Everyone seems to have come out of the pandemic convinced that they need to tighten whatever screws they have to get theirs. And that triggers other people to do the same thing. Cheating enters the realm of possibility because people (correctly and incorrectly) believe others are doing the same thing.
It's gross and feeds on itself. I'm not sure what will help it get better.
I'm not sure why anyone would expect "the average Joe" to maintain some semblance of integrity when very few successful individuals do the same. The overall message is pretty clear - if you want to succeed, you will need to cheat.
Many humans seem to be incredibly short sighted
I want to believe this, but I'm not sure it's always true. Timing of opportunities matters a lot. Someone who is not as skilled in programming probably cheated their way into a FAANG job during the height of the pandemic and made absolute bank, perhaps being able to sock away $200k-$300k since then. That money could then be invested and start compounding, leading to a materially different outcome from someone else who played it by the rules and was better.
The long-term for the cheater might be to simply find a less demanding job and continue riding the prestige hike they got when they snuck into the FAANG job.
When did this wonderful meritocracy exist? Where?
I think back to Jobs and Woz, and how he got him to hack a project to win a contest, and then didn't tell Woz and kept the money. It's been here since day 1.
Less adult time per child means a generation with far less formation.
It has to collapse before it gets better, but it will take centuries to get back to Rome levels of violence and back stabbing.
Also child sexual and physical abuse has reduced during this same time frame. "According to David Finkelhor who tracked Child Maltreatment Report (NCANDS) data from 1990 to 2010, sexual abuse had declined 62% from 1992 to 2009 and the long-term trend for physical abuse was also down by 56% since 1992." from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_abuse
We have a lot of problems, but your understand of the issues are poor.
No fault divorce makes it vastly easier to divorce for a lot of reasons and making it unnecessarily hard to leave can foster situations where it becomes abusive because they don't get along that well and can't just up and leave because they want to.
Abuse isn't always reported, and abusers often manipulate or lie.
Twice as many children are raised by single mothers today compared to 50 years ago. Maybe that’s the more relevant statistic? (Yes there are hero stories where one could argue this doesn’t matter…)
I've gotten negative performance review feedback from management that was word for word from the 'things I think I can improve'. I've gotten passed over for jobs and promotions because I don't do a good enough job of 'selling' my experience.
Basically, the most successful software engineers I've met also have the ability to bullshit with the best used car salesmen, and it's hard to argue my unwillingness to do so hasn't held me back.
Is this a lack of confidence?
> I've gotten passed over for jobs and promotions because I don't do a good enough job of 'selling' my experience.
Selling your experience IS an important skill. Other factors may have played a part too.
> successful software engineers I've met also have the ability to bullshit
Is it their bullshit that gets them to be successful? Or is it that they're more friendly, tactful, and and positive?
To be clear, I don't doubt that you're telling it as you see it. I'm just wondering if your perceptions match the reality.
If someone is always talking about how bad they are at something, then I'll interpret that as the person being negative, lacking confidence, and pessimistic. That's not the kind of person I'd want to be around in general, let alone hire.
I was always raised that you don't brag about yourself, you don't take credit for things you didn't really do, and you don't over promise and under deliver.
As I've gained experience, I've learned that people can take self deprecating things as gospel and as a worker it's your job to talk up your abilities and invitations to identify 'things you can improve' have to be spun in a positive way. As much as I hate to admit it, salesmanship, presentation, and ones ability to 'smooth talk' seems to get you further than raw technical ability. I don't hold it against devs that are able to do that, it's just been an adjustment for me.
There are those who constantly put in overtime to put out fires that they created. To management, these seem like hard-working, dedicated folks. Meanwhile those who design things well, don't have fires to put out, and leave on-time every day seem lazy. All too often the first group is given praise instead of the second group.
This is a point of unfairness that is rampant in the industry. I don't know of any way to solve it, besides each person being their own promoter, hype man, sales man.
If you disagree, tell me which of the two groups you are in?
Scarface just said "can't generalize to everyone" which is true and not the original point made.
Usually I try including at least a few links, but in this case I think anybody who has read these threads right here on HN should remember those numerous posts and discussions? I remember comments from educators who wanted to do something but the higher-ups prevented it, for example, or reversed the decision. Unfortunately I don't know what to search for to find these kinds of comments again.
EDIT: Found one very quickly after just a little cross-reading of one cheating related thread, the reply to this linked comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32533086
Quote:
> The amount of cheating was insane. He started academic dishonesty proceedings against many of the students but the department pressured him to "work it out."
It's not just the students either: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ryancraig/2019/06/21/americas-l...
fwiw - I think Americans value integrity a lot more than most other places, and academic cheating is not nearly as common.
Of course, but the commenter I replied to made a specific statement, first sentence, making it sound to my reading - and I don't think I'm reading something into it that isn't meant to be there? - as if it's a lot less in the US. But even a little bit of searching, and every single time the topic comes up here, which usually is for higher education so I'm not making any statement about anything below, ends up with a lot of comments, and no opposition to them, saying there is a lot of cheating there.
Examples:
https://academicintegrity.org/resources/facts-and-statistics
> McCabe’s original research and subsequent follow-up studies show that more than 60 percent of university students freely admit to cheating in some form.
https://proctoredu.com/blog/tpost/5dk67zrns1-academic-dishon...
> The level of cheating in high school according to statistics is extremely high. One of the most thorough studies, carried out by Dr. Donald McCabe, reveals that about 95% of polled students (both undergraduates and graduates) admitted to having cheated in some form.
https://www.npr.org/2021/08/27/1031255390/reports-of-cheatin...
Therefore, it surprised my that the original commenter made such a strong statement.
The worse penalty possible for cheating (IF you get caught and IF the teacher/professor even cares, which was not by any means universal) is getting a grade of 1 (out of 10) on that specific item (exam, project etc. ).
This is even true for the national country-wide exams you take in 8th and 12th grades: if you are caught cheating, you get a 1/10 on that specific exam, but can still take all the rest, and will be forced to re-take the one you cheated on in the next session.
The only thing treated more seriously were bachelor's/master's/PhD theses, where you could face plagiarism charges. But even this is mostly theoretical, especially for the bachelor's, since only some cursory verification was ever performed, at least at my university (one of the biggest ones in the capital).
My impression from reading HN, where the topic came up numerous times over the years, was that that is not so. See the link I presented as example, I saw a lot such stories, right here in the discussions, but also in some articles. Not just the US, I also remember similar anecdotes about management preventing punishment from Canada even when a professor initially tried to do something.
If it is not representative I apologize, I go by what I read mostly here, and it was a lot over the years.
There certainly seems to be an official stance against cheating, e.g. https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=201609211...
It's just that I saw so many stories from or about educators who tried and it went like in that link I included, especially when many students were caught.
"Why Professors Don’t Do More to Stop Students Who Cheat" - https://www.chronicle.com/article/why-professors-dont-do-mor...
> Some who have tried say that administrators, fearful of lawsuits, don’t back them up
> “In the majority of cases of trivial cheating, I think most professors turn a blind eye,” says Donald L. McCabe, the associate provost for campus development at Rutgers University at Newark, who has studied the issue. “The number who do nothing is very small, but the number who do very little is very large.”
It’s a xenophobic lie, like if Americans don’t celebrate lying on positive euphemisms like “fake it till you make it” or “being a good salesman”
For what it's worth, "fake it till you make it" is far from being universally seen as positive, and (car) salesmen are seen as one of the most untrustworthy and least liked professions (just above telemarketers and members of congress). [1]
1: https://thehill.com/business/3812900-here-are-the-most-and-l...
I mean, the whole reason why people also lie in other areas. Which also explains why people of “low trust” societies might lie more rather than “it’s in the culture of those dirty foreigners”.
Most Americans that I know don't consider those phrases to reflect positive values at all. They're used disparagingly against people who really think like that.
I assure you that “the good old days” weren’t so good for my still living parents growing up in the segregated south.
As far as “not everything being related to race”, tell that to my parents who grew up in the 60s and 70s when everything was related to their race.
They literally weren’t “trusted” to drink out of the same water fountain, go to the same schools or swim in the same pool.
The only people who long for “the good old days” when “trust” was high are those who benefited themselves or whose parents benefited from systematic and de jure discrimination.
The good old days when you could live off of one income came about because Europe was recovering from a war and we dropped two nuclear bombs on Japan.
The Old Testament also offers an approach to dealing with rampant cheating in society: trust in God to provide you with what you need. It's not an exact match for classmates cheating, but David had to deal with a literal existential crisis by a king who believed falsehoods about him, and dealt with it by trusting God and refusing to kill the king (that is, using the king's methods to secure himself). Many of the psalms appear to record the emotional process he went through.
https://www.bible.com/bible/1359/1SA.15.3-23.ICB
Even with David, when David sent one of his soldiers to die on the front line so he could have the soldier’s wife, God let David’s baby die.
The Old Testament God wasn’t exactly the loving and forgive your neighbor type.
If that correlation exists, it may point to an alternative hypothesis to the GP claim that the issue is rooted in those coming from "low trust" societies and due to an internal mechanism.
By definition, being forced to drink out of separate water fountains is putting people on the opposite side - ie opposite poles.
The example of inter tribal slavery doesn't actually apply to what I'm talking about. Slavery, and highly destructive, unprovoked raids which sometimes concluded with massacres of women and children were normal in the Americas. Is enslaving a member of another band or tribe a violation of trust? Is engaging in unprovoked war raids a violation of trust? These practices would not come as a surprise to anyone living within raiding territory of a warlike people. Trust can only come into play when a party to an agreement, whether tacit or explicit, has an opportunity to violate what was agreed upon.
Saying "Every nation ever has always tried win zero-sum interactions with other nations" conceals that there were actually vast differences in the way colonialist powers conducted themselves in relations with Native American tribes. The (at the time British) Canadian government honored treaties much more often and in better faith than US authorities.
My point is that in-group relations is not the same as out-group relations. High trust is about how you treat members of your in-group. Enslaving foreign people is most certainly a "low trust" move (how can I possibly enter an agreement with you when I know you might just show up one day and enslave me?) but it's fully possible and consistent for the perpetrator to belong to a high trust society.
Your example of the Maori is perfectly analogous to what happened in Canada/ But regardless of how things turned out, why did the British honor treaties when they had no incentive to do so? How do you account for this difference in a world dominated by purely rational decision making when interacting with those outside of your culture?
That said, I don't really want American culture to continue down this "if the ends justify the means" trend that we've been on. We're not cut out for it! We'll get our lunch eaten.
The perfect storm of incompetence created the system we inherited from our forefathers. It benefits Americans, but maybe the wealth is also killing us due to massive obesity and sedentary lifestyles on top of a greedy litigious society.
No system is perfect.
That's usually why the first port of call when some corruption is detected is Finding What's Weird and the second is Not Like The Rest Of Us.
San Francisco's city government is hopelessly corrupt and visibly so for someone who has lived under other obviously corrupt governments. But that is not even apparent to faraway Republicans who are the only ones who will say it is.
But those people are similarly ignorant of the massive corruption of their own local government.
It has taught me a new path of success for corruption: that of hiding in plain sight among those of your identity.
The reality (speaking from experience) may be that international students are a lucrative market and getting a reputation as being hard on cheating will make them choose to go elsewhere.
I'm calling for schools to just create a "international student focused" campus where they can collect all the rich international students, let them party and cheat for 4 years, collect the outrageous tuition, and shield the indigenous students from their bullshit.
Fortunately, most of your comments have been fine so this should be easy to fix.
If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
There's no reason to not-cheat unless you absolutely don't have to and what's the maxim about good programmers, they're so lazy they'll figure out a work-around to save themselves some time? Even if it's stuff they know already? Once you're into the system there are mutual shared interests and political efforts that can support such a career.
It's a shame that being a decent person is not sufficient reason.
Sadly, the time horizon is far too long, and the individual short term benefit far too high for this to be (currently) working out as hoped..
This is why it's important for in politics and media for them to police their own behavior, because without it there are too many mistakes for a trusting society.
One thing that isn't shown though in the games sandbox mode is for the players to be able to change the rules and reward structures, which is more akin to our society. This would create a much more hard to predict dynamic.
I strongly disagree with that professor. Dishonesty does not have to be, and absolutely should not be, respected. Even if it is a "cultural difference" [citation required].
Taking issue with the 'absolute' part: The cultural context does impact what gets respected, though. For example, having an organization that avoids nepotism is generally respected in the U.S. There are other countries/cultures that do not, at least to the same degree. From their perspective, the more respectable act is to help out those in your tribe/family when you are in a position to do so.
My point being, in the U.S. there is an agreement (implicit or explicit, depending on the context) that hiring will be fair, above board, and based on meritocratic principles. Nepotism undermines this and is, in the distinction I was trying to draw, dishonest from the standpoint that an organization will say one thing ("We hire based on merit") and do another ("We hire based on connections"). Other cultures do not necessarily play this game and make it quite well known that you will be hired based on your network above most else.
Edit: I should also add that I realize by low-trust OP meant the academic term for kinship-based society but my worry is that tying low-trust with cheating students from a country that gets its image tarnished because of various other reasons like low-wage labour and tech scams might paint a different picture to those who don’t know about the term or OPs intent
It doesn't mean that individuals from that society are less trustworthy.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index
> The Index only measures public sector corruption, ignoring the private sector.
I say all that to say, that I stand by the truth of my observations, but I do not intend for those observations to in any way imply that it would be acceptable to discriminate against people from India, or anywhere else, on the basis of their origin or ethnicity. I do not discriminate in this manner, as it is just as ethically reprehensible, incorrect, and dishonorable as the behavior I was pointing out in my original comment. I have worked with many Indian colleagues throughout my career that were excellent engineers, managers, and otherwise decent people.
Just to clearly state it, I do not in any way think that any individual person I meet from India is any more likely to cheat or otherwise be dishonest than any individual person I meet from anywhere else. India is far from the only low-trust society in the world, and in general most of the countries in the world qualify as low-trust societies. These are academic terms, and it is entirely expected that there is a higher variance in behavior for individuals in low-trust societies versus high-trust societies, so if anything honestly referring to India as a low-trust society implies within it that there is a higher variance of individual behavior and it's even less accurate to generalize about the behavior of Indian people.
I would be happy to work with anyone who loves computer science and embraces the cool things that we can do with technology to reshape the world and improve the human condition, no matter where they originate from.
It doesn't invalidate the easily observable phenomenon of widespread cheating in low trust society like India. This is also a huge problem for universities around that accept students of wealthy parents from these countries which cause grade inflation. Multiple articles have been written around this in mainstream publications.
Agreed. I am very carefully saying that I stand by my own observations as well. The point is that, while these behaviors may be commonplace in a particular society, it does not mean any given individual person from that society engages in these behaviors. We should always be careful of the heuristics we apply to people and work to treat every individual as an individual.
Not being careful here can actually create a form of category error. It's similar to the expectations of visitors to the US that everyone is walking around openly carrying guns and shooting each other constantly due to what's in the news or the statistical probability of a shooting occurring compared to other countries in the world. If you have a 4x higher chance of being involved in a shooting per capita in the US vs a random Western European country, both numbers could be minuscule chances (and are). Just because this type of dishonest behavior is more commonplace in low trust societies, and in this case in India in particular, the population is so large that it still represents a small fraction of the total number of people and you have to be careful not to indict everyone within the society on the basis of the behavior of a few. 15% of the Indian population would be the same as half or more of the US population, but there's a very big difference in categorization between something that is the behavior of a minority of a population vs half or more of the population.
That's all I'm saying. Treat individuals as individuals.
Except we're not talking about individuals here, but social phenomenons.
I looked up where Indians feel about trust here: https://ourworldindata.org/trust
Indians self-rank at 17% - the US at 40%, Canadians at 50%.
India has been a low-trust society for a long long time and remains so. Every Indian I know would admit this in private. Back in 90's there was an Indian grocery store in Fremont, CA owned by a Gujarati gentleman. He had a poster on the wall that offended many of his countrymen. It said, "100 mein sey 90 beyimaan, fir bhi mera Bharat Mahan!". Roughly translated it says 90 of 100 Indians cheat but still my India the great.
Sounds a lot like academia, to be honest.
But you're fighting an uphill battle to expect people not to possess prejudices based on what is statistically likely. People will believe the evidence of their eyes.
The most you can hope is that people not act on their prejudices before getting to know you. And, as unfair as it is that you can't change it, you'll have to find ways to live with the reality that there are people who will act on their prejudices before they get to know you and know that you're really different.
This is covered by the HN guidelines, which ask: "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."
I could imagine a criticism of btilly's post on the basis that it didn't really meet the GP's experience, didn't show empathy (though I think he was trying to be helpful, not mean), and didn't contribute anything positive, just "you'll have to find ways to deal with it". A better comment might have been more constructive and less coldly generic. But those aren't the criticisms you've offered.
Instead, you crossed into personal attack and snark with your last two sentences. Those things are definitely against the rules here, so please don't do them. It's always possible to make your substantive points without that, and you're of course welcome to do that instead.
No matter how low in the barrel HN is or you feel it is, there's always room to sink lower! That's why we have guidelines—to try to stave off further sinking. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and posting in the intended spirit, we'd appreciate it.
Please do not mistake differing opinions for ignorance.
My father grew up in a time and place where they were persecuted by the KKK for being Irish. I have a half-brother on that side who lives on a native reservation. My half-sisters on the other side were half-Chinese at a time when public opinion absolutely condemned interracial marriage. I have close friends from many different cultures, who have arrived in a wide variety of difference circumstances. Including my wife, who was a refugee from the Soviet Union.
All this has taught me that the more real the problems that you face, the MORE important it becomes to focus on that which remains within your control, while trying to shrug off that which isn't. You'd absolutely be in the right to go around being upset at the world for being unfair to you. But your justified outrage amplifies your problems, and makes your life worse.
The positions that you put down as "suck it up" are therefore the best advice that I know of to improve things. To the extent that individuals and groups do that, they make their lives better. Both in the short term, and the long term. I have seen the truth of this, both for my family and for my friends.
I hold this position based on experience, not ignorance.
If it still sounds crazy, I highly recommend reading https://www.amazon.com/Subtle-Art-Not-Giving-Counterintuitiv.... In particular for its "backwards law". Which says that trying to hold on to a good thing is a bad experience, and accepting a bad thing is a good one. Nobody wants the bad thing to be true. But if the bad thing is true, the act of consciously recognizing and accepting it is far better than the alternative. (The rest of the book is full of other good advice that flies in the face of common preconceptions.)
I was shocked when I went back and started to work alongside many of the students in group projects. About 3/4 of the class were from India or Nepal. When I would meet up for group projects on Comp Sci security labs, I was shocked that everyone's instinct when we would start was to immediately google or use Chegg to find the lab done by other students and essentially copy it. I got frustrated because many of the times, my group would resort to cheating before even understanding what the lab wanted us to do, it was instinctual.
I didn't see this in the few groups I had with other American-born citizens. I feel guilty to even suggest a difference like this and I am conscious of cultural bias, but it was impossible to ignore the dichotomy between these groups.
Up to this point i have chalked the difference to an age gap. Many of my classmates are young and have zero work experience yet. They want their degree as a piece of paper to get a job. By contrast I already have a high-ranking and high-paying position and extensive resume. I am not looking to use my Masters as a rite of passage, but I truly want to go back to school to deepen my knowledge academically at some scientific concepts that you won't find in YouTube videos or through personal study. I am there to learn, not just pass a class. So when given these labs, I see them as opportunities to learn something to apply in my current career and my teammates just want to get it done so they can get a job. But this doesn't explain why the American-born teammates who were also young were willing to learn and not resort instantly to cheating, so it likely is deeply cultural.
The explanation provided by the professor assuaged your concerns, but their salary was funded in part from the tuitions paid by the cheaters.
The 'grift' is a collaboration between the academic institutions that tolerate cheating and award degrees and GPA scores, and the cheating students that game the process.
What he meant to say was "they pay sticker price"
Pull the bandaid off and just admit it -- we're just becoming one of those "low trust societies". And it has nothing to do with who we're doing business with, and it is due to our own culture.
Disagree from my experience.
When I was a TA in grad school, I had a PhD student who clearly had access to the instructor's solution manual. His answers were copied verbatim. If the solution's manual had an error, so did his answer. If the professor assigned a problem not from the book, he wouldn't answer it. I debated reporting him to the professor, but didn't want the drama and figured what your professor did: He'll do poorly on the exams (I was right), and poorly in the work place.
He got his PhD, got a fairly senior position, and quickly rose to be the director of a well known company's research division.
He probably was smart - he did get the PhD from a top ranked university. But I strongly suspect he gamed the system at his company just as he gamed the system there.
In grad school, I had a close friend. Clearly a very bright, skilled guy. Was kicked out of the PhD program when it was discovered he had been fabricating data (Nature was right about to publish his paper when he got discovered).
He went off to another top ranked university and got his PhD in the same area. I don't know how/why he had the balls to do it, as surely his former advisor would be in close proximity (conferences, etc) - and at least within my university his advisor was quite open about my friend's malfeasance.
He then got a research position at the top company in his field. Got promotions, and then quit and founded a startup that is doing well, and is known to some in this crowd here. If all goes to plan, he'll have his exit and be quite rich.
Now I don't know if he cheated in his second PhD or on the job, and I'm still in touch with him. But ... no - cheaters often continue to do well after graduating.
It’s the same philosophy of “it’s not bribing it’s lobbying.”
I mean I'm sympathetic to your experience, the treatment you're describing is unfair, but... that also sounds pretty racist.
My basic take is that low trust societies encourage cheating and dishonesty and think if you're honest and honorable that you're a naive rube asking to be taken advantage of. For my part, I've never cheated in any interview, in anything at school, and never lied on my resume, yet being in tech which is dominated by people who originate in low trust societies, I see how it becomes something insidious that creates extremely negative behavioral norms in corporate politics, where it's now acceptable for people to bald-face lie about project status, receipt of information, or the severity of an issue if it gets them ahead or makes someone else look bad and deflects the blame.
Luckily, my professor was right though, despite exposure to a lot of negative behaviors I don't like, don't respect, and don't endorse, I did excel and I continue to excel above my peers, especially those who cheated. Cheating ultimately cheats oneself, but it's very galling that it's now becoming accepted as okay behavior in American society due to cultural shifts aligned to low trust societies we do business with. The Blind app demographics make it unsurprising to see this there or that it's essentially universally supported in the comments there. I am honestly unsurprised that most of the comments on HN support it. There's absolutely an attitude of "lie now, and figure out how to make it not a lie before investors or customers notice" in the startup world as well. Frankly, it disappoints me deeply that so much our society has become one big grift, especially as someone who entered the tech industry when it was still dominated by honest nerds doing cool stuff.