
The software engineer’s guide to asserting dominance in the workplace - numo16
https://hackernoon.com/the-software-engineer-s-guide-to-asserting-office-dominance-ddea7b598df7#.961h4brcc
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ocb
I thought this was very well done and hilarious.

However, I'm not sure how I feel about the particular emphasis on mocking
people who lift and take protein supplements. It's definitely obnoxious when
people define themselves by the fact that they lift, but at the same time,
almost everyone I know who exhibits some the "alpha" behaviors described in
this article w/r/t working out (like showing up to work in gym clothes) is not
doing so in a deliberately show-offy way. They just like working out. If
anything, in my experience people who do things like that tend to have serious
confidence issues and being "swole" helps them with that.

I know it's just a joke, just seems like a stereotype that's very erroneous to
me. And for the record, I do not lift and probably never will. I've always
been a more run/bike/swim type of person, although I should probably exercise
more in general.

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Lukeas14
As a developer who lifts, it's pretty obvious the author does as well and is
only mocking us in jest as opposed to being critical or derogatory. The idea
for the article probably came from the lifting community where asserting
dominance in your gym is a popular joke/meme.

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ocb
Haha, the possibility of this occurred to me, interesting to have it
confirmed. I guess I'm reflective of the hostile culture I was pointing out,
lol

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alanwatts
>Name-drop as many of the latest software frameworks and technologies as
possible throughout your rant. Use words like big data, cloud, and
scalability. Mention test-driven development at least three to four times.

If we don't immediately adopt agile scrum kanban test-driven development
processes there is no way we can scale to harness the power of big data
analytics using our cloud-based deep machine learning artificial intelligence
neural networks for quantum computing the internet of things. Furthermore, I'm
rewriting the whole architecture in Vanilla JS on the front end, ReactJS on
the back end, and using Docker containers to achieve a more scalable
continuous integration work flow optimization process for our test-driven
development integrations in the cloud using the legacy waterfall methodology.

Any questions? No? Good, now get back to work.

~~~
ChemicalWarfare
TDD used to be cool, BDD or 'Behavior Driven Development' is way more hipster
IMO. You must be old, like over 25 or something.

Docker is also like sooooo 2015, it's all about Docker clusters now - Swarm or
Kubernetes and the like. I'd go with Kubernetes cuz it sounds way cool.

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aaronwidd
The thing that's really changed in this business is that coding went from
being about constantly solving things that had never been done before, to work
where the solutions are about doing things the "right" way.

For decades the field of technology was brand new. Nothing had been done
before. Everything was about building something from nothing. It used to take
a tremendous amount of creative brainpower and unique perspectives on problem
solving to get things done.

Now it's all about solved problems.

People who thrive doing creative, complex problem solving have to look at the
world with the eyes of an outsider. They need to see things differently to hit
on the right solutions quickly. They're outsiders - geeks, on the fringes of
society. So coding was a geek's world.

But now tech has matured. The majority of the work is about ripping out the
creative hacker madness of the previous generation and replacing it with
things that are the "right" way. The work of coding (for the web at least) is
not about solving for unknowns anymore.

You take away the creative thinking, you don't need outsiders. The work
becomes simpler and more accessible to the average Joe. People who just want a
job that pays well, who are motivated by routine and doing things the "right"
way. Who are happy to spend all day gutting a codebase to replace it with
boring well trodden solutions.

The new replacement coders aren't motivated by the creative satisfaction of
building things from nothing. Their motivations are completely different.
Things like money, like social status. These are the guys who are thriving in
the business now. For those of us who like building things and creative
problem solving, our time here is done. It's a bro's world now.

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doug1001
when i graduated from university, law was the coolest profession--there were
tv shows about them and they got paid a lot. I don't know where cs
grad/programmer was on this list but definitely not in the top 10 (maybe
around 5,630 or so). In any event, during that time, if you were a senior at a
top university with a 3.8 in Elizabethan Poetry but no definite career goal,
people would reflexively say "you should go to law school"

A decade or so later, it seemed to shift to investment bankers. (And again,
pretty sure programmer was nowhere in the top 5,000)

articles like this make me wonder whether in fact programmer is the new cool
job?

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arcticbull
Couldn't tell if joking after reading the bit about walking out when you see
they don't use git ^_^

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jwdunne
"Bro do u even use git?"

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3327
Gone is the day of the humble 90's engineer. A new era has started...

The dawn of the Brogrammer.

Software engineering culture is shifting. Nice article, sadly have seen it
fairly often.

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threesixandnine
It's time we take over the world, no?

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k__
Somehow I interact with other people that they always have the feeling they
owe me something. Sometimes this goes so far, that people even feel bad to ask
me when I owe them something. Also, my GF told me, I always seem kinda bugged
out when working.

Both is kinda funny, because I'm mostly a chill guy. But it kept many people
from bothering me at work...

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gaius
I brought my Cherry MX to work...

~~~
joelg236
Reds are usually okay. Blue or green, you're pushing it (depends on your
office environment though)

~~~
DKnoll
Reds are absolute garbage for actual typing. They're best for gaming or
specialised keyboards like at a POS.

Brown is best in my opinion, which is one I will vehemently defend by drowning
out all opposition with furious typing.

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pascalxus
Great Satire! But, I don't see too many of this exact stereotype around,
especially the weight lifting type. I mean I see little bits of these
behaviors in other people, but not all wrapped in 1 person.

