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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 26th, 2023

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  • As a hiring manager, I can understand why you didn’t get the job. I agree that it’s not a “good” question, sure, but when you’re hiring for a job where the demand is high because a lot is on the line, the last thing you’re going to do is hire someone who says their skills are “6.5/10” after almost a decade of experience. They wanted to hear how confident you were in your ability to solve problems with .NET. They didn’t want to hear “aCtUaLlY, nO oNe Is PeRfEcT.” They likely hired the person who said “gee, I feel like my skills are 10/10 after all these years of experience of problem solving. So far there hasn’t been a problem I couldn’t solve with .NET!” That gives the hiring manager way more confidence than something along the lines of “6.5/10 after almost a decade, but hire me because no one is perfect.” (I am over simplifying what you said, because this is potentially how they remembered you.)

    Unfortunately, interviews for developer jobs can be a bit of a crap shoot.




  • I feel your pain. I once worked at a place that hired an “expert” as a senior dev who asked me on the first day, “what is this import on the first line of this code??? I’ve never seen this before. 🤔” They were unfamiliar with the concept of packages and importing them… Senior dev, hired specifically because they were an expert in a specific language…

    They’d call me upwards of 12 times a day for help with the most basic of tasks with anything technical, to include how to install the basic runtime to be able to run code in that language.

    (I’m speaking quasi cryptically on purpose.)









  • Think about this: Why are there so many automobiles? And why are so many new models still being made? I would think you would try to perfect what you have instead of making new ones all the time. I understand you need new automobiles sometimes, like construction equipment trucks or some treaded military tanks. But for average daily driver you would think there would be some kind of universal automobile. I drive a Corolla btw. I like automobiles. But was just wondering.

    I’m not here to mock you, just providing an analogy. You can deliver just about anything in one language that you can with another. However, like the car, you might need a different type if you want more performance. Maybe you want a fast car. High performance cars often need a lot of attention, they need that premium gas, the mechanics demand higher pay! What if you only care about getting from point A to point B, and you’re more concerned with driving a car that’s cheaper to maintain, maybe there are just more car mechanics for that type of car, and the cost to pay them is cheaper.

    A C application that is very well tuned to manage memory and threads in the name of perfect performance will require more time and computer science knowledge to create when compared to a Python script that does the same thing, but in the most basic possible way running on a single CPU, running hundreds of time slower.

    Sometimes you need the performance, and often you don’t. Sometimes you need a treaded tank, sometimes you need a NASCAR, and most days the Corolla does just fine, it’ll even let you miss a few oil changes before things get bad.

    As to why we don’t perfect what we have now instead of creating more: technology changes, easier to work with abstractions come about, some people enjoy the hobby of creating a language, or maybe a niche language comes about with very specific trade offs for a very specific purpose, no one wants to break backwards compatibility by adding new features and syntax to their language - I’m sure there’s tons more reasons to list.


  • While they do rely on COBOL and old mainframes a great deal, that isn’t the only software supporting the company and its operations. That fact doesn’t negate what I’m speculating would be the cause.

    These big banks have multiple programming teams that use different programming languages and work on different products.

    If you go to their careers page, you will find tons of Java, .NET, and Python jobs posted. I’ve never seen a COBOL posting at a big bank (which doesn’t mean it’s never happened, but I can see any of these more modern languages posted any given day).






  • Ah yes, the project that nobody asked for, and it has to be worth it because you still have your actual assigned work to hack.

    I remember that feeling of not seeing the light at the end of the tunnel while having invested multiple days into a side quest that my boss never asked for (but would ultimately make me, or the team, more productive). I remember being more junior in my career and fighting that devil on my shoulder as it’s saying, “it’s turned into spaghetti! Just abandon it and get back to your deadlines before you go too far!”