Software engineer (video games). Likes dogs, DJing + EDM, running, electronics and loud bangs in Reservoir.
The “complicated” Fediverse signup process is actually the perfect filter. If someone isn’t willing to learn such a trivial process to gain access to an open decentralized discussion platform, then they really only have themselves to blame when they keep ending up in enshittified algorithmically-manipulated echo chambers.
The official Python tutorial is very well written and is suitable for total beginners:
C/C++ still has a huge place in firmware, microcontrollers, operating systems, drivers, application development, video games, real-time systems and so on. It’s a totally different space of programming to webdev, which might explain the surprise.
Clearly we’re going to need regulations around personal vehicle size limits on the road. If you legitimately need a big truck for your business, get a licence for it.
I’d recommend setting up a GitHub profile and developing some personal projects on there, and try to get some experience contributing to other projects (even if they’re just simple first PRs). Make sure you include this on your resume, it’s a great talking point for juniors to show you’re passionate and have concrete examples of your code in the wild.
Also set up a LinkedIn profile (fleshed out as best you can) and start adding people at companies you’re interested in. DM them asking for advice, most people are lovely and want to help. While LinkedIn is horrible and needs to die, it’s still used heavily by the tech industry and you’ll find every tech company and recruiters on there.
You know it’s bad when we’re having to invent new words like ‘polycrisis’ to succinctly describe what’s happening.
… or worked in a large team with juniors and members coming and going over a long period of time.
To take up a career in programming is to be professionally confused on a day-to-day basis. It’s normal to feel overwhelmed at times, but this is the advice I give younger engineers: accept that confusion, and try to channel it into curiosity instead of letting it fester into stress and anxiety.
I’d rather drink a verification can every 30 minutes.
Smells like something IDF unit 8200 might have been involved with.
It’s the same for people who don’t understand basic electronics or mechanics. Any problem just becomes “it’s broken” and the only solution is to take it to an expert and pay for their time, or toss it and buy a new one. It’s expensive to be ignorant.
I see this at my local supermarket chains after they received pressure to reduce plastic usage. The exact same plastic bags are in use, except now they have printed on them “REUSABLE PLASTIC BAG”. Such a predictable outcome.
… until you finally track down who wrote this mess, and it was you 5 years ago.
Everyone loves the free market until it works against them.
The accompanying photo is on brand.
Ok I’ll admit, the first thought that went through my head:
100 tonnes of gold! That must weigh a lot!
A new deal is being forged with 4chan instead.
And imagine being the guy who’s got to clean out the train car afterwards of all the tiny pieces. Nightmare fuel.
Stop the boats (please)
Never say never! I worked on the original Dead Space (2008). There’s a minigame in chapter 4 where you have to defend the ship’s hull from incoming asteroids by shooting them with a cannon. On completion of the challenge, there’s some explanation as to why the cannon’s auto-targetting system is back online and you can leave the minigame and the cannon automatically continues shooting asteroids as you wander off. While I was rummaging around the code for this, I stumbled across a quadratic formula implementation. On closer inspection I discovered that some smart cookie had actually implemented the cannon’s auto-targetting system for real! It actually tracked each asteroid’s velocity and speed and aimed ahead of the target to hit it with its slow-moving projectiles. I just assumed the whole thing would be playing a canned animation faking the cannon shooting at the asteroids. My hat goes off to the programmer that decided to solve that problem - it’s one of the very few times I’ve ever seen the quadratic formula used in gamedev!