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by adingus 990 days ago
Even as someone who has been a dev for 5 years I only know him as that gross guy who likes free software. Note that 'gross guy' is the main point here. He has failed to communicate any nuance to his message. Another person might have 80% the same opinion as him but be able to reach 200% of the people as him by way of not having such a bad reputation. If the free software 'movement' wants to move anyone they need to get out of their own way.
2 comments
neuromanser 990 days ago
> that gross guy who likes free software

He founded the idea of Free software. Him being "gross" is completely orthogonal. "I would have agreed with the guy who fought against slavery if he didn't pick his nose in public."

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tekla 990 days ago
Always good to know that the modern generation of devs are ok with discounting someones ideas because they are "gross".

These "gross" people are the ones who made overpaid dev positions possible.

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Workaccount2 990 days ago
It's crazy to think how back in the day, software devs were basically hard science engineers, needing to be proficient in hardware and the nitty gritty of CPU architecture to be effective programmers. All so they could be paid $60-80k/yr in today's dollars for 50-60 hour work weeks.

Whereas nowadays you can do a few weeks of a javascript crash course and land a $100k job organizing text windows on a webpage for a few hours a week from your bedroom.

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johnnyanmac 990 days ago
As a devil's advocate: while you had to know the nitty gritty it was legitimately possible to have the entire machine's architecture in your head. Maybe a few heads shared at worst. Microsoft' humble beginnings started with a dozen people who would make what most people type on daily.

No one person knows the entire modern x86 architecture. And ofc those who know a lions share are paid top dollar. Maybe still underpaid for the value they bring to the entire world, but very comfortable.

Don't have much to say about the web dev stuff. Just note that CoL is still kinda crazy in the places with most demand. I'm not gonna say "100k is so hard to live on" like some spoiled CS students but it does cut a lot more into your spending power than you'd expect.

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eecc 990 days ago
Well, that’s because demand for sales-y engage-y web pages is furious while demand for exquisitely refined self-balancing distributed power grids (for example) is at the “call me back when the tech has become a 0.02 commodity” level
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