• IrateAnteater@sh.itjust.works
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    20 hours ago

    Yes, but this may be a symptom of an issue I’ve been seeing with younger programmers; they’ve siloed themselves so specifically into whatever programming they “specialize” in, that they become absolutely useless at dealing with absolutely anything else related to their job. And exasperating this issue is the fact that they’ve grown up with systems that “just work”. Windows, iOS, and android are all at the point where fucking around with hardware issues is very uncommon for the average person.

    Asking this guy to solve a hardware problem is like asking hime to tune a carburetor. He likely has not the slightest clue how to start.

    • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      19 hours ago

      In my experience, a lot of software dev degree paths basically don’t even have relevant classes on hardware at all. Classes on hardware are all in IT Helpdesk and Network Admin degree paths whereas the software dev students are dumped straight into Visual Studio right off the bat with no relevant understanding of the underlying hardware or OS.

      • atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works
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        18 hours ago

        My experience does not reflect yours. Computer Architecture, Discrete Math (logic gate math), and Operating System Concepts were all required classes in my CS degree from just a few years ago.

      • bleistift2@sopuli.xyz
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        19 hours ago

        You don’t teach a farmer how an internal combustion engine works. Computers are tools to software engineers. What they need to know is how to operate them, not how to maintain them.

        • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          8 hours ago

          the only reason farmers are afloat financially is BECAUSE they can rebuild an engine if needed.

          Just look at the john deere right to repair shit. It’s literally a huge problem.

        • hayalci@fstab.sh
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          19 hours ago

          No, not really. Programming requires understanding of the underlying hardware, at least to a certain extent. Otherwise performance issues will look like dark magic and optimizing anything would be impossible.

          Where do you start debugging if something goes wrong with the software and your information level is this low/ do you look at network stats? CPU utilization, paging/swapping? Is the hard disk bandwidth the bottleneck? Without at least some passable understanding of a computer architecture people like this just throw up their hands, or throw whatever tricks they know at the wall and see what sticks.

        • chickenf622@sh.itjust.works
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          18 hours ago

          A lot of farmers are learning how they work cause the companies that sell them the equipment keep fucking them over. I would argue that farmers nowadays needs to know how that works along with basic programming to get past the anti-consumer bullshit companies put in to make it nigh impossible to fix things yourself.

          • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            8 hours ago

            doesnt matter if you know how to program, john deere is just going to put some autistic encryption and ID locking on their shit, what needs to happen is for john deere to stop fucking doing this.

            Most tractors are walking computers anyway, farmers are genuinely the most multi talented people you will ever meet in your life.

        • bane_killgrind@slrpnk.net
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          18 hours ago

          What the fuck

          How is he going to fix his tractor? Wait days for John Deere to send somebody? Let the crop rot on the vine?

        • sepi@piefed.social
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          18 hours ago

          CS departments were doing poorly, but now they’re putting out farmers? No wonder all these new graduates can’t find a job.

    • bleistift2@sopuli.xyz
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      19 hours ago

      That’s the price of specialization. Don’t ask a software engineer to troubleshoot hardware. Don’t ask a backend dev to write a frontend. Don’t ask a proctologist to look at your cough.

      You simply cannot be proficient at every sub-sub-specialty. That’s why we collaborate and hand the ‘my computer gets hot’ problems to the hardware people. The alternative would be only moderately useful generalist.

      • IrateAnteater@sh.itjust.works
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        19 hours ago

        I’m not asking everyone to be able to become a hardware specialist, but if you can’t even figure out “my computer gets hot” I’m not going to be able to trust anything you do. Identifying a heat issue does not take a rocket surgeon.