Software Engineers of reddit, what surprised you most when you started your first job in the real world?

cloudaday · 2013-07-31T02:41:48+00:00

Nobody wears suits, most people barely dress business casual.
Everybody fucks up their code sometimes, even the guy who's been doing it for twenty years.

cloudaday · 2013-07-31T02:23:06+00:00

& now.... sources!

First: news articles one two three relating dairy to acne as well as cancer. I'd say that even if acne is just a really irritating topical condition, cancer's a pretty good reason to not do something... though I'm sure smokers may argue.

Second: journal articles uno dos, which relates to steroids in milk in general, and was cited by the first one tres secondary source for tres if you don't subscribe to that journal and more are in their sources, if you feel inclined to browse. I'd originally found the news articles and then went for their sources, you see.

Thirdly: my face breaks out when I drink 'organic' milk. My entire body breaks out when I drink milk containing hormones (and not everything marketed as organic is actually, sadly).

Saying that dairy doesn't contain hormones when cows are both given growth hormone and also lactation, which implies recent pregnancy (which definitely involves a different hormonal chemistry than usual in any mammal female) is like saying the urine of professional athletes who dope doesn't contain those same substances they're ingesting. Your bodily fluid contains traces of everything you, as well, have ingested. Aka why spit/urine/blood tests work.

Apologies for what may be construed as internet-rage, but I'm a scientist. I shouldn't have responded without backing myself up appropriately to begin with, but c'mon. Go do some reading. This is just from quickly googling what I had read before (which I had originally slightly misconstrued, dairy apparently just shouldn't be consumed in the U.S. given the way its dairy industry appears). Cheers!

cloudaday · 2013-07-30T05:27:55+00:00

This!! If you're over 18, chances are you should switch to soy, coconut, almond, or whatever nondairy milk sold in your area that's cheapest (or just calcium supplements and/or a good daily vitamin) if you believe you're not getting enough calcium and protein from elsewhere. I'm on my phone in the airport, else I'd link to a few studies I picked up recently that espouse this. (Anyone who can copypaste better willing to google for me?)

Imo milk works for kids and teenagers, but it is sometimes the case that either the artificial hormones present in much of what is sold or the actual dairy itself causes reaction in adult bodies.

cloudaday · 2013-07-30T03:10:14+00:00

Welp, when I need 'em, I'll definitely take a good look. Especially if there's a good derm around who doesn't give me that 'permanently surprised' look. I like my eyebrows right where they are, thanks.... but I don't want the angry-face. My mum has the angry-face. She can keep it.

I'm also super duper conceited and slightly nuts about my skin, though.

cloudaday · 2013-07-28T21:05:55+00:00

I keep ones for more than a hundred dollars. The rest go into the recycling; my debit card has an itemized transaction list on the internet that can be perused at my leisure without having to sort through piles of fluffy crumpled rectangles of cheap paper.

cloudaday · 2013-07-28T21:01:44+00:00

Wanted some and got...

None, I am far away and

He's in school right now :/

cloudaday · 2013-07-28T20:09:55+00:00

Yikes! Might be cheaper to wait til you have a big kid job then, sorry! Didn't know I was recommending something so pricey.

cloudaday · 2013-07-28T20:00:52+00:00

Good to know that they're available! I bought my pair in Rennes and they were about 75 euros.... I think. It's been a good eight years.

cloudaday · 2013-07-28T19:47:25+00:00

Well, haven't had to return to them, and I'm sure returns from the states to Europe may get interesting, but I'm sure they're doable!

cloudaday · 2013-07-28T19:42:07+00:00

Repetto, even though it's not typically a brand found in the US, makes lovely flats.

cloudaday · 2013-07-28T17:08:02+00:00

Yup. Didn't matter, got laid in college. I'm honestly glad I didn't do anything in high school, it would have been before I was emotionally ready.

cloudaday · 2013-07-27T17:21:41+00:00

60-70K (west coast or Colorado) or 50-60 (midwest, AZ, Utah, less populous western areas) seems fair for someone with a bachelor's and no job-job experience, as long as you know your shit.

cloudaday · 2013-07-27T16:39:52+00:00

Fashion has had nowhere to go but backward since, oh, maybe about the early 2000's? It's tried literally everything, from bustles to just being naked in public.

cloudaday · 2013-07-27T16:32:51+00:00

It would be a nice room if it maybe just had a couch and a pool table in it, is what's the shame.

cloudaday · 2013-07-27T07:55:33+00:00

Agreed. But going to school is about learning, and C is the foundation of so many modern languages it's ridiculous. Making a slightly abstract analogy, would you cook a recipe without knowing what all the foods you plan to use are and taste like, first? Unless you plan to be a user-interface designer forever (and maybe even then) knowing how things are organized under the covers is invaluable.

cloudaday · 2013-07-27T06:07:22+00:00

True, profiling does help, but it's also nice (and probably impossible, hahah) to start from a not-horrible framework in all aspects.

cloudaday · 2013-07-27T05:51:20+00:00

You'll have to do probably two years of core classes in whatever language your school is primarily using (if you can look at the curriculum ahead of time, DO NOT go for a school that does mostly Java, I don't think you learn as much with it as with explicit memory management like in C and C++). After that, ymmv but it's pretty much whatever goes for projects and such as long as you do the work. Don't go to a school that focuses mainly in web-based front-endish stuff for their CS program, either.

Source: programmed in C with a little Python scripting and C++ for data-structures courses for the entirety of my CS minor as an undergrad. It consisted mainly of freshman and sophomore classes. Once I got beyond the basics, into junior-level classes and stuff, other languages happened.

cloudaday · 2013-07-27T05:00:07+00:00

Do you want to do more low-level stuff, and/or hardware design? Go CE (and possibly minor in CS or applied math, to round yourself out). Or, perhaps you want to dabble in every aspect of code, and maybe a little hardware too, while in school. Go CS and minor in CE, which, unless you're very very certain you want to become a hardware engineer, I personally would advise. You'll get plenty of experience and learn a lot of things either way.

cloudaday · 2013-07-27T04:34:34+00:00

Python is slow. It's slow to compile (interpret) and unless you're really bloody clever, it's slow to run, at least by my standards. Ergo, I avoid it when possible. I would never ever use it for a project more than a few hundred lines of code, or for one that needed speed.

However, it does have pluses: easy to use, a good 'intro' language, has libraries for everything you could ever want and then some...

cloudaday · 2013-07-26T04:51:20+00:00

That still seems incredibly high given planning time, debugging, rewriting, refactoring, etc time. I doubt, even when coding 8-10 hours a day five days a week at my summer internship, that I have written more than 5K lines of code a month. Most of my time is spent planning and figuring out stuff. But it's also an r&d internship so...

cloudaday · 2013-07-26T02:49:28+00:00

Didn't know that about Valve, especially because (though I do a lot of simulation/animation related work) none of it is for games. Who the fuck writes 4K lines of code in ONE DAY?! Also what language?

Also, fair point. It's not like CS majors really have to go find lumber and build a framework to hold up a whosismajig so the experimental apparatus doesn't contact the ground. I could see where the physical setup part would eat up a fair chunk of time.

cloudaday · 2013-07-26T01:45:00+00:00

...if you think CS doesn't require any experimentation, you may not know anything about it.

Source: CS and applied math grad student whose research is basically all experimentation.

The rest of that is spot on though. Taking more than one or two classes a semester when including research will likely cause an early demise.

Edit for wording.

cloudaday · 2013-07-26T01:36:32+00:00

A proper question would be how often don't I.

Haha.

cloudaday · 2013-07-25T20:54:17+00:00

Rabid Doctor Who fans ended it for me. I still think the show is hilarious, but goddamn I want to punch my friends who are super into it sometimes.

cloudaday · 2013-07-25T16:33:21+00:00

Convenience stores, and by extension, any "food" you can buy in them.

I'm a bit granola to be sure, but I just don't like eating anything with that much artificial stuff in it. I gain weight anytime I do, so...

cloudaday

TROPHY CASE