This indictment of angular and 'enterprise' frameworks is pretty one-sided and self-righteous. I hate the bureaucratic and restrictive nature of some frameworks too, but you can't dismiss the entirety of them and the problems some of them solve because of it.
It's very easy to criticise without suggesting or showing any better alternative. For example... if you are a software manager with the 'power' to choose an entire stack for a new product, what would be your choice and how would you justify it on criteria such as: availability of documentation, developer skillset, testing, security, performance, platform compatibility, time to market etc?
Unfortunately all this type of 'boring' shit that enterprises deal with, they have to deal with for a reason. If you don't like that then you have a problem with the structure of the economy, larger businesses, and their politics as well as the technology.
Hi, I haven't had much of a close look at the site. I quite like the initial design, but one thing I think it would really benefit from is a simple search interface on the home page.
Its interesting to hear from someone who's more of a hobbyist programmer. You don't meet so many, mainly I think because once you become half-decent at programming you have access to a range of well paid jobs. Of course as you say, those jobs come with certain conditions that aren't for everybody.
I've often thought of quitting professional programming and it to become a hobby instead. I think sometimes great things come from playing around and working on projects you want to and enjoy working on as opposed to the 'drudgery' of implementing someone else's vision. In my experience although the job has its perks, very few 'real' programmers actually care much about the products they work on. Sometimes they do when they start but it doesn't take long for the pressure of getting something done vs. getting something done you have real pride in generally breaks you eventually.
At the end of the day I think if you can write some code, you are a programmer, whether you are a hobbyist or not. Some of the best developers hack on open source projects and live off very little and they're pretty happy with their lifestyle. A lot of paid-up programmers are in fact more like 'impostors' than these guys.
I have worked as a maintenance programmer for a large bank. Fucking boring. Crap stack (VB6). Stressful. No care about code quality, just have it working by Friday. Better pay options, and career potential than where I currently am - programming the database and web interface for a sequencing centre. I choose the stack, I get to design it. I see that when I make good design decisions it often pays off.
Another hobbyist here. Back when I was a late teenager I might have contemplated doing it professionally but nowadays it would not my choice. Due to discovering other domains I am interested in along the years - like animation or game design - I chose to stay as a generalist instead of dedicating myself to one these 3 domains. Consequently I am at best average in all of them, programming included. The thing is, I may not be tackling very difficult problem like optimizing an emulator or a 3D engine but I still feel some satisfaction when fixing an issue in my code and more importantly, learning from it. In fact whatever your level is there are always new things to learn, be it in your field or another one.
On a side note programming as a hobbyist gives me sufficient technical knowledge to be able to communicate with developers using their own language, which can be very useful when doing the interface between a customer and a development team for example.
The job title gets thrown around as "data scientist" sort of evolved out of a mix of "Professional Programmer/Amateur Statistician" and "Professional Statistician/Amateur Programmer" types.
Anyway, for me, programming has always been something I do, not something I am... I think this might lead to the exclusionary nature of our field a bit - I know I've looked around and seeing people who identify as programmers, not really doing the same, and wondering if I belong...
> programming has always been something I do, not something I am
I think this is important, it's the kind of thing that I read and think "Yes, how obvious, of course!" but in practice I wouldn't think of it myself. A very healthy way of seeing things.
funny, I've no problem with being a paid-up programmer. Programming is something I can do for a living without being too much of a hassle, but I seldom work on side/open-source projects.
On the contrary, I like to play at gigs and could be a professional musician, but I can't bear the working conditions.
I think it is nonsense to say that what doesn't work for one person won't work for another. The whole thing is completely context dependent. Here in Europe most people feel cubicles are so isolating that you might as well be working remotely because of the lack of interaction with your co-workers.
Don't get me wrong I think its really important to be able to 'plug in and get on' without distraction as a programmer, but I'm just making the point not everyone works well this way if they do it all the time.
I fully agree with most of what you're saying, but I'm not sure where the degree of capitalism involved comes in. I think it has much more to do with the lack of creativity in government that you mention. Ultimately it does feel like younger generations are the fuel for the engines that drive the UK economy.
It is perhaps more accurate to say the prevention of allowing a free market to operate in housing is the problem. Government meddling. What the UK desperately needs is for these artificial props to be removed from the housing market and for the market to operate. This will lead to a correction which at this point actually benefits more people than it harms.
Selling piles of bricks to one another for ever increasing prices is plainly unsustainable and yet it has become the basis for the UK economy.
We need that money to go into entrepreneurial activity the likes of which a startup hub is well placed to encourage.
This story of property investment trumping entrepreneurial activity is a microcosm of the story of the UK economy as a whole since the housing bubble started 10+ years ago.
The UK desperately needs a free market oriented government. Traditionally the conservatives were that party but it appears no longer. They have just continued to damage the UK as the party before them.
I think one of the first things we need to look at is the poor quality of a lot of new housing developments and the number of unoccupied / 'brown-field' that could be renovated and provide much more affordable housing than the over inflated prices of new properties. I still fail to see why the ideology of a more unrestricted free market economy would be of any benefit to the property market. In fact I think fewer restrictions would worsen the situation with many buying new houses that could become effectively worthless where for example they have been built in high flood risk areas.
I agree the economy should be less reliant on the housing bubble, but I'm not convinced that technology / start-ups are the only way to achieve this. The 'start-up' hubs you mention are just as likely to become another black-hole which the government throws money at with no real strategy in place.
The lack of a combination of affordable property and decent jobs in areas within a reasonable distance is definitely causing increasing problems in this country, and only worsening social inequality. Remote working is one solution that I think very slowly will become more mainstream. I mean really why do start-ups have to grow in a 'technology hub'? Most small/start-up companies in these areas I know of rarely collaborate or seem to benefit from proximity with each other.
Acorn machines were great.... ah happy days. The A3010s with their stylish green function keys!
On a serious note, I dispute that government can't have a positive impact in stimulating the technology industry in the UK. In fact if we held on to more manufacturing businesses (through state-ownership, tax cuts etc.) we'd have a more diverse and robust economy. But the current government's so called schemes to foster business and innovation are typical of this administration - there's little substance to them at all. And successive British governments have failed to truly work with businesses and really listen to their needs rather than launching grand initiatives without prior consultation to real business owners.
Honestly - nothing... I think having a template (beyond perhaps styling and branding which most companies have already defined) for a presentation of any kind seems wrong. Any presentation, whether it is a pitch or a technical seminar, should reflect the person giving the presentation. Their vision, personality and expertise should be projected and to do that you need the presentation to be truly unique. A good presentation isn't defined by a bunch of slides or a specific format. Sorry to be so negative, but I am the sort of person that would happily pay a few dollars for some things I felt had good value and saved me some time, but a presentation slide deck isn't one of them.
A personal presentation / slide critique and suggestions for improvements I would maybe pay for if I felt it was a really important presentation, but I don't know if that is a viable business either.
Thanks for you input ses. It is a little harsh but this is what we wanted - real opinions from real people. I agree with you that a presentation should reflect the person giving the presentation but in terms of content & story to be told, the design itself can be tricky and time consuming.
No worries, I am just one person who doesn't fall into the target market for your product - there may well be many valid scenarios where a having template, particularly with a good design could be useful. There are all kinds of different presentations requiring slide decks so maybe you just need to find the right niche?
I think improving on relevance ranking configuration would be a big boost to this product as well as offering some ability to cross-search multiple indexes. Both are quite difficult problems to solve well in search, but if a simple API service was available that might be attractive for larger commercial customers.
The icing on the cake would be to have some support for relational (at least partially relational) data and multimedia / files. Good luck!
Unfortunately all this type of 'boring' shit that enterprises deal with, they have to deal with for a reason. If you don't like that then you have a problem with the structure of the economy, larger businesses, and their politics as well as the technology.