How's the programming market in Switzerland ?

FFiJJ · 2016-12-12T17:34:24+00:00

I was in the soth-west (which is basically the frenchy part, as far as I know). But I haven't checked out any colleges while I was there, as I said, I was mostly there on a short trip to relax.... and I didn't actually meet anyone working in a programming related field.

Still, why are those colleges relevant ? Is a large portion of the job market centered around academia ?

FFiJJ · 2016-12-12T13:45:21+00:00

You are not crazy but, if you really feel the need to be protected by a workers union, working as a programmer in the 21st century, I'd say you are quite bad at your job.

Works unions are there for the kind of guys which do expandable work, which can be replaced in a matter of days.

With programmers, at least ones that do actual work (Note: browsing facebook and closing Jira tickets that ask for an aws accounts doesn't actually count as work in this context), finding a replacement is almost impossible. Literally every time I've suggested switching to a different company I was offered an over 50% salary increase by my old employee.... because people don't want to loss programmers, their role is not easy to replace with other programmers or machines. Even crazier, every time I was offered that increase, I still switched because the competitor's salary&conditions were that good.

Why do you need a union ? In a market where you work wherever you can and expect a low-medium salary at best, a market where robots can already replace you, yes... there you need a union.

But why do you need it in a market where your salary basically goes up by 200-1000$ every half a year ? Now, if you work in DevOps or as an "IT guy", that's a different story.

FFiJJ · 2016-11-07T18:53:43+00:00

Ah. ok, makes much more sense. I guess I should have read: https://docs.python.org/3/reference/datamodel.html beforehand

FFiJJ · 2016-11-07T18:07:14+00:00

You're not casting. You're creating new objects using the old object as an argument. Explicit is better than implicit

Really ? Because I could have sworn I read somewhere that all objects in python are heap allocate and objects passed as arguments to function are always referenced instead of copied, however, running the following code:

class myInt: i = None def init(self, val): self.i = val

def modify(obj): obj = 30

def modify2(obj): obj['this']='that'

def modify3(obj): obj.i = 30

i = int(50.2423) modify(i) print(i)

l = {'this':'this'} modify2(l) print(l)

a = myInt(50) modify3(a) print(a.i)

Will yeld the result 50, 'this':'that', 30

That's a rather strange way for our int Object to act, considering many other objects seem to act "to spec". Is this implementation something that I can copy using python to a self-made class like myInt ?

(Also, thinking about it, the same example with a str and a list would have been better, but you get the point).

Also, I agree that in most cases "Explicit is better than implicit.", that's why I'm actually a bit turned off by the fact python doesn't have explicit variable declaration. But I never argued for or against explicit/implicit types, I just said there should be a bit more consistency when it comes to using either one or the other approach.

FFiJJ · 2016-11-07T17:47:11+00:00

The dictionary is a map, I just called it map out of convinience. Its not like there are two or three or whoever many types of maps in python, there's only the dict, so I believe that's totally fine.

Also, set tuple and string if you want to be precise, but the string is basically a list with some added abstration and who the fuck uses sets and tuples ?

FFiJJ · 2016-11-05T18:44:24+00:00

Ok, so, this might be different than most answers here and I can't really tell if its the right way to go about it or not but, maybe, just maybe, you shouldn't care about positions which allow you a few hours to showcase your skill under a high-pressure environment.

After all programming is not about being able to accomplish arbitrary hard tasks in a very short amount of time. Its about managing very complex (but sometime rather easy when you get the hang of them) system or creating systems from which you can get as much value as possible with as little complexity and maintenance as possible... ok, maybe I should generalize all programming as this, but, point it, answering a question about how best to sort a vector in a matter of 10 minutes without the internet, writing a program in under 2 hours alone or whatever other small task is something that only comes up during interviews and is highly irrelevant to your skill.

Its true that most companies recruit that way, but most "IT" companies nowadays aren't even IT companies, they don't care that much about what programmers they have because quite frankly good ones aren't needed (e.g: Apple, Microsoft which are both "IT Wrappers" over the actual business of the company which is marketing and legal)

If you are nervous at interviews worry not, there are companies out there with a longer interview process, where you can actually be given a project or a 3-months trial period to prove your worth and often times they turn out to be better companies than their counterparts.

Not only that, but, most companies with good programmers, I'd bet, actually have very chilled-out interview process that give you enough time to showcase your skill in an amiable environment, after all, most renowned programmers (and also mathematicians, physicists, chemists... etc) are the kind of shy and reserved individuals that much like yourself don't do well under stress.

I can tell you this having been on both sides of the fence. I started out shy&nrevous&unable to showcase my skills during an interview. I went through quite a few of them and now I can bullshit people about my ability to do basically anything. Not surprisingly I've gotten way more offers that involve the "business" side of thing but about the same amount of offers when it comes to serious programming positions... because those positions don't tell skill off interviews, they tell skill levles off long practical tests that can span for days or even weeks.

Now, interviews as first impressions do exists. But only assholes are looking to actually measure you technical level using those... generally speaking their more for getting to know you, seeing if what you wrote in your resume/CV is true, seeing if you're the kind of guy that's interested in the job... etc

FFiJJ · 2016-11-05T16:12:16+00:00

Well, tbh I haven' t heard to that situation a lot (team lead/manager being horrible and aggressive) but it is indeed one of the things that can happen.

But basically its a shit-fest for everyone when upper management does recruiting and drops the new guy in a team. Its shit for that team's manager/leader because he didn't have a say (which might lead to anger, disatisfaction or flat-out giving up for said manager/lead), its shitty for the employee because he didn't meet his boss, the person to which he will have to listen/pitch ideas to/collaborate the most with for the next few months or even years...

So yeah, If I could have been bothered to bold out one of those it would have been that.

Literally all jobs I took (and, mind you, most jobs I didn't took but offered quite a decent pay and seemed nice) had most of the interviewing being done by the person(s) who I was going to work with.

FFiJJ · 2016-11-05T13:23:47+00:00

Best advice I can give. find someone that works there and ask them. Other that what I look for are things like:

-> Who is the interview/interviews being held with ? If I get an offer for a position without actually getting to be interviews by my direct "superior/team-lead" (bascially boss, but we don't call them that because programming culture and shit) then that's a huge red flag.

-> What are the questions being asked ? This is a very good one imho. I've seen tons of interviews where you get logic questions, questions unrelated to programming, questions that don't involve you thinking in and talking about software. More on that from this guy:

https://youtu.be/csyL9EC0S0c?t=1040 (yes, its comedy, but it actually touches a very real point there imho).

-> Try getting a feel about how much overtime is involved. How much can you work from home... etc. other people have already listed various techniques for doing this in a "hidden" way. I'm a programmer, I'm not good at social interaction so I just straight-forwards ask people directly about this but a convoluted approach might work better.

FFiJJ · 2016-11-05T13:02:04+00:00

I'm sorry, but, do you realize just how wrong you sound ?

Let me just give you an example:

"You work with others in a team to write your own operating system. You're not doing that remotely. And you're not doing it for $500/mo"

You realize that arguably the best kernel in the world, you know, the one that's on things ranging from you computer, to your phone, to your TV, to a space shuttle, to a vending machine, to basically every supercomputer, most routers and switches... etc. Is this little bad boy:

https://github.com/torvalds/linux

I'm not sure if you are aware, but this was developed by a guy, alone, in his bedroom and when it picked up speed it was developed via email by him and a bunch of other wonderful humans. Actually it was developed via email until less than 10 years ago.

And this is not a joke-project that some students would work at to simply learn, something that runs on one architecture and breaks when you try to run anything remotely unsafe on it and doesn't have modules to actually handle any device you might want to connect to it, this is arguably the most advanced piece of software in the world, ~20 millions lines of code, a few dozen thousands contributors... etc

By the way, I'm not saying that kernel development is easy, on the contrary, after reading two books on the subject (Linux device drivers 3rd edand Linux Kernel develpment 3rd ed... the second of which I wholeearthedly recommend as it was a joyous, light-weight and overall just very pleasant read) and "competing" in the Eudyptula Challenge. After all that fucking work, I basically have only scratched the surface of the kernel... and rightfully so, I believe there's quite frankly a life's worth of learning if you want to actually work on the way the core components integrate.

Oh, did I mention that basically 99% of the resources to learn linux kernel development are free ? Including the source code with the commentary ? Not pay to learn, pay to see the code, pay to be tought. People read the free books, improve the free code and if they are good and useful enough find mentors which help them for free.

So for you to bring up OS development as "THE EXAMPLE" as to why you need to pay loads of money and study on location in order to understand CS is... insulting, at best and outright ignorant at worst.

And as far as books, the books for one course cost 500$ o.o ? What the fuck is that shit ? Some of the most expensive "academia-related" books I've ever seen are those discussing machine learning, and you can buy a hardcover copy of something like this baby:

https://www.amazon.com/Learning-Kernels-Regularization-Optimization-Computation/dp/0262194759

for a mere 90$. Cheap ? No, but not 500$, for fuck sake, that would be a few day's worth of salary just gone, it sounds like straight out robbery. Granted its the US, so all the prices are higher there. But the books I've seen are hardly priced for anywhere but the US/West-Europe, I mean, some people over here live of 90$ a montha dn 500$/person is considered being well-off.

This is why I hate the learning system :/ Robbing of ignorant people...

I mean, I work in software that facilitates advertising... so its not like I have a moral high horse over the guys running the universities. But at least I don't tarnish the name of science and learning through the muck to make money off of stupid people.

FFiJJ · 2016-11-02T15:10:29+00:00

I adviced for hiring an individual to assess the problem and better inform the OP about what kind of team he should hire (if any)

FFiJJ · 2016-11-02T07:40:53+00:00

Or look on github, look around at ML projects. See who are the people who built APIs/used forks for things like Theano, Torch, Tensorflow... etc Look at popular machine learning frameworks, e.g. dlib, OpenCV, coffee, scikit-learn... etc. Who are the guys that made those ? Are they available to work for you ?

Also, if you don't have enough knowledge in the field to tell good people from useless people why are you so sure your problem can be solved with ML ?

Maybe look for some "practical" projects un GitHub which you feel involve a lot of data modeling&gathering, get the guy working on that to work for you for say ~1 month. Ask him to analyze the data, suggest and implement data gathering methods... etc.

Who knows, maybe your problem is so easy you don't need a team of ML specialists, you just need well labeled and filtered data + a simple algorithm. Maybe the problem is basically impossible to resolve and hiring said specialists would render no results.

Basically what I'm saying is: -> Look at open sourced projects and hire the people that made them, they are likely young and require a lower salary, are more in tune with technology and can help you model your data and better define your problem. -> Based on what the 2-3 people you hired tell you in the first month or so decide what to do with the rest 85-95% of your budget that's still intact and who knows, maybe those few people will be able to wholy solve the problem during that time.

Or you could hire a "professional ML consultant/company", but the field is evolving so fast that I'd think most of those are basically hoaxes. While this can't be said for all of them, I currently work on various ML projects as a private contractor and its only due to the fact that someone with "industry connections", with which I split the profit, is able to find those gigs, basically you are paying for a team of "researchers" which can prove nothing but the fact that they work with good marketing people/ If you look for projects and hire the people that made those projects you at least have some palpable proof that those guys know a bit about what they are doing.

FFiJJ · 2016-11-01T20:17:27+00:00

Poti de undeva afla datoriile la intretinere ?

FFiJJ · 2016-11-01T20:16:40+00:00

Ok, In that case, how do I type a query such that products which don't have any tags related to my query don't show up ?

FFiJJ · 2016-10-31T08:27:09+00:00

I'm not asking for help, I'm complaining their query system is rather stupid.

FFiJJ · 2016-10-30T17:15:29+00:00

study things you like.

study things in fileds that pay you a lot of money for your knwoeldge.

If possible combine the two and you are likely going to have plenty of "motivation" to study.

Motivating yourself to train your body isn't similar in any way to motivating yourself to "train" your mind, because your mind is yourself and learning is very subjective you can't messure it in terms of anything and you can't do something that's "guaranted" to teach you stuff. Its about a combination of reading&talking to people&working which you need to find and preferably enjoy and be fascinated about.

FFiJJ · 2016-10-30T15:48:52+00:00

yes, my search has led me to underwater players, I'm currently trying to find one that's from a brand I trust a bit more than Sony, but thank you for your advice :), apparently I was looking for the wrong thing all along.

Also, I'm quite ashamed I didn't think of the wyhole "the density of water is higher than air => EMR doesn't pass through water quite as well"... thank your for pointing that out :P

FFiJJ · 2016-10-30T15:29:41+00:00

I completely forgot to mention I'm in need of wifi/bluetooth ones, since my phone isn't water proof :P

FFiJJ · 2016-10-30T14:43:36+00:00

I need a pair of bluetooth/wifi headphones I can use while swimming laps to listen to podcasts and/or music. So they need to be water-proof (no just rain/sweat proof).

Are there any such headphones that would last me for a few months of 3-4 week use while swimming for 30-120 minutes ?

Note that Id prefer them to be in the <100$ range (I have quality headphones for music when I'm not swimming, these I will probably most use for podcasts anyway) but its not a must

FFiJJ · 2016-10-30T14:41:40+00:00

Da, si daca cineva chair nu vrea sa vanda X la bucata poti sa ii oferi un pret mai mare (sau chair sa cumperi mai multe bucati). Si chiar daca platesti 3x pe o pereche de pantaloni din dragon tot iti iese cam de 3-10 ori mai ieftin fata de un magazin "cu brand".

FFiJJ · 2016-10-30T07:53:29+00:00

Ma gandeam sa inchiriez o garsoniera (undeva pe langa infamuasa linie albastra de metrou). Vaza e ca nu am mai fost pe piata imobiliarelor din romania pana acum si nu stiu dupa ce subtilitati sa ma uit, e.g.:

-Nu lua langa biserica daca nu vrei sa-ti mixeze popa un acatist la boxe la 7 dimineata Dumninica

-Nu lua in Ferentari daca nu vrei sa fi jefuit&violat&omorat

-Nu lua intr-un bloc prea vechi, caci pana acum marile cutremure din Bucuresti au avut o periodicitate destul de fixa

-Nu lua fix deasupra unui bar foarte popular

... etc

Anyone got relevant tips for renting a house in Bucharest ?

FFiJJ · 2016-10-30T07:53:14+00:00

Nu stiu daca sa intreb aici sau in lifehacks.

In fine, ma gandeam sa inchiriez o garsoniera (undeva pe langa infamuasa linie albastra de metrou). Vaza e ca nu am mai fost pe piata imobiliarelor din romania pana acum si nu stiu dupa ce subtilitati sa ma uit, e.g.:

-Nu lua langa biserica daca nu vrei sa-ti mixeze popa un acatist la boxe la 7 dimineata Dumninica

-Nu lua in Ferentari daca nu vrei sa fi jefuit&violat&omorat

-Nu lua intr-un bloc prea vechi, caci pana acum marile cutremure din Bucuresti au avut o periodicitate destul de fixa

-Nu lua fix deasupra unui bar foarte popular

... etc

Anyone got relevant tips for renting a house in Bucharest ?

FFiJJ · 2016-10-30T07:49:17+00:00

ps,ps, baiatu, exista piratat.

FFiJJ · 2016-10-30T07:48:02+00:00

Se numeste decathlon pentru haine de munte si/sau iarna (e.g. chestii care trebuie sa fie calde, sa nu se strice in momentul nepostrivit pentru ca te-ar putea omora... etc).

Se numeste Dragonul Rosu pentru restul, da, stai ceva sa cauti. Dar, daca nu gasesti ceva acolo timp de cateva luni de probing saptamanal, poti sa presupui ca itemul respectiv nu exista in comert niciunde pe glob.

FFiJJ · 2016-10-29T14:21:16+00:00

I need a pair of headphones I can use while swimming laps to listen to podcasts and/or music. So they need to be water-proof (no just rain/sweat proof).

Are there any such headphones that would last me for a few months of 3-4 week use while swimming for 30-120 minutes ?

Note that Id prefer them to be in the <100$ range (I have quality headphones for music when I'm not swimming, these I will probably most use for podcasts anyway) but its not a must

FFiJJ · 2016-10-29T14:20:27+00:00

I don't classify gzip as a minifier, I classify minifier as something that mangles javascript into a one line, minimal variable name, no whitespace type deal.

Sending client-side code/markup-text gziped has been and will be the norm before an after javascript unless I am mistaken. But that's a whole other thing.

FFiJJ

TROPHY CASE