[HN Gopher] How I Arrived at Sun as Employee #8 ___________________________________________________________________ How I Arrived at Sun as Employee #8 Author : hasheddan Score : 104 points Date : 2022-05-03 14:35 UTC (8 hours ago) (HTM) web link (twitter.com) (TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com) | ledbettj wrote: | https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1521489115585421314.html | drfuchs wrote: | When we were undergrads, I remember looking over Tom's shoulder | at some Unix code he was studying, and I worked up my courage to | ask what "*cp++" meant. He said something about about "pointers" | and "post-incrementing", but I couldn't figure out what he was | talking about; he was a true wizard. Hi, Tom! | teaearlgrey_hot wrote: | A wizard never uses the base pointer or the stack pointer by | compilation: he moves the stack _precisely_ as he means to! | pugs78 wrote: | Thanks, Dave. You're no slouch yourself. | cab11150904 wrote: | Computers as a whole seem so boring nowadays. I get that we all | have supercomputers in our pockets, and it should be amazing, but | it's just dull. | fossuser wrote: | One of the things that drew me to urbit is it feels like when I | first started playing with linux. It's fun, but in a way that | tackles some real underlying issues with the modern | web/computing stack. | | The ideas are interesting and whatever happens it's definitely | not boring imo: http://moronlab.blogspot.com/2010/01/urbit- | functional-progra... | paulcole wrote: | Let me guess, computers were a lot more interesting and amazing | when you were a teenager and into your early 20s? | georgeecollins wrote: | Right, because micro computers have had decades of investment | and development, when in 1982 they were like 15 years old | (microprocessors anyway (HN correct me)). | | Now the excitement is probably something that new or newer.. | drones, recent ML, AR/VR/XR, wearable, or something that I | don't know what it is. It's gotta be something where most | people think it won't even work. | ghaff wrote: | 15 years in 1982 is casting a pretty wide net for actual | microcomputers. The Altair 8800 kit debuted on Radio- | Electronics in 1975 and the Apple II came out a couple years | later. But I was an engineering undergrad in the late 70s and | I knew no one who owned a personal computer. They didn't even | become geek things beyond a very limited number of people | until the early 80s. | walrus01 wrote: | I think there was a lot more novelty and shock/awe in amazing | new things when we didn't have youtube channels and social | media of every new thing immediately poring over ever detail of | it. | | For instance, when ID first released DOOM to the Internet and | BBSes it was something you discovered on your own and among | your local community of people who had network access and a PC | capable of running it, there weren't hundreds of youtube | channels playing full-1080p playthroughs of the entire game, | etc. | codegeek wrote: | It feels boring because for the most part, we have solved some | of the most common problems that we needed computers for. The | idea of watching movies, ordering groceries/food, talking to a | friend/family 8000 miles away in a second were all interesting | and fancy and now it is part of life. So we get bored. Today's | personal computers pretty much do everything we need in terms | of basic necessities. I was driving earlier today and realized | the power of Maps on our phones. Imagine back in the days when | you need to print mapquest (remember?) or plain old maps to | figure out how to get to the Interstate from this new place you | just visited. | | Things like VR etc so far (my opinion) have been | disappointments for the most part even though we keep trying to | innovate. Also, remember 3D TVs ? | | I guess we need things like teleportation, real robots (not the | one like Rocky IV movie) and some cooler stuff to make it | interesting again. | MikeTheRocker wrote: | I'm biased because I've been working on AR/VR at Meta/Oculus | for the last 4 years, but I'm curious what you've found | disappointing and whether you've tried the lastest VR | software and hardware. | | As far as gaming goes, Half-Life: Alyx and Resident Evil 4 | are superb AAA experiences. As for hardware, Quest 2 and | Valve Index are both great at what they promise for their | respective price points. | mhh__ wrote: | Computers are boring but system on chips are kind of | interesting again now that you need all this compute for AI. | | People have made huge mistakes waiting for workloads that have | very predictable computation, now with AI we have a need for | coprocessors again. | virtual_void wrote: | Sometimes i think this too. | | I think part of the joy (for me) used to be in the deep | understanding of the hardware and making something out of what | felt like nothing. | | If I'm doing something with a load of libraries and feel like a | plumber more than a programmer then I find that excitement hard | to come by. | | Playing with modern day microcontrollers, SoC stuff or building | software with hard real-time requirements is still a lot of fun | - i just don't get to do it so much these days. | uuyi wrote: | It's not dull really but I find it laborious and sometimes | stupid. The sense of achievement has been sucked away by deep | rabbit holes of research required to decipher even the simplest | tasks. The retention and value of knowledge has declined due to | the transient nature of everything too. Every day is a catching | up session for something which is either horrible or will be | replaced before you've finished the job. | | I reserve the label stupid specifically for templated YAML | which makes me want to strangle people fairly quickly. | grishka wrote: | Software engineering is no longer considered engineering these | days. People mash abstractions together without even trying to | understand what's beneath those abstractions. Knowing what | you're actually doing seems to be a big deal in software | development now. | hulitu wrote: | Engineering is trying to underestand things and learn from | mistakes. SW engineering is like financial engineering: | trying to get profits fast. | LordDragonfang wrote: | Anecdotally that tracks, because all of my (very good!) CS | professors in undergrad were retired engineering-engineers, | with only a single retired _software_ engineer that I can | recall (who taught the course focused on real-world SWE | /project management) | grishka wrote: | This is why I've given up on working anywhere where venture | capital is even remotely involved. I want to make the world | a better place and empower people, not make rich people | richer while they do nothing of value. | smackeyacky wrote: | Dull? | | You can hang the equivalent of an eighties micro on anything | you please and record things nobody has ever seen before, | download the data en masse to your pocket supercomputer, sync | that to an AI and make accurate predictions that can be used to | affect real world outcomes. | | You can talk to anyone on the planet with minimal charges. | | You can take infinite numbers of pictures of everything at | insane resolutions, backyard astronomy is unbelievable compared | to the Sun era. | | Computing has never been so exciting. If you think you missed | out because you weren't in silicon valley in the 1980s, the | amount of cool work being done everywhere but the valley needs | reconsidering. | | I've been doing this since the 80s and its never been better | than now. | eezurr wrote: | For me, I imagine part of the excitement is applying the art | of computer science every day at your job back then. When | things are taken care of for you, they become boring. Not | because those things are inherently boring, but they're | boring because you're no longer thinking about them. You | can't get excited about things you aren't thinking about. | Many jobs transitioned from surgeons with scalpels to | supergluing prefab parts together. Which one sounds more | exciting to you? I'd rather be a surgeon. | sedatk wrote: | I agree with you fully. It's just that tech stopped giving | the same dopamine boost as social platforms nowadays. | hulitu wrote: | And still printing a web page is real challenge. And if you | want to compile a programm you find out that it needs 30 | libraries. Some things are better. Most of the things are | worse. I have a text editor on my Android phone. It cannot do | search and replace. | aBitPlayer wrote: | To me, one exciting motivation today in computing is | rethinking and simplifying systems. | | https://youtu.be/k0uE_chSnV8 https://youtu.be/kZRE7HIO3vk | turtlebits wrote: | Printing has been solved a long time ago. Do you remember | having to search for/install printer drivers? | | Even after a few years, I'm still amazed that I can print | from my phone to a wireless printer I have at home, and how | easy it was to setup. | smackeyacky wrote: | I don't have any problems printing web pages. Rick click, | print, done. | | Non trivial programs always required a lot of libraries. At | least now you don't have to wait 3 weeks for a tape to show | up so you can continue working. | | Vim for Android is a thing [0] | | [0] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.droid | vim&h... ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-05-03 23:00 UTC)