Current Software Engineers have no Deep Knowledge (Jonathan Blow)

[Alabtrosmyster]

This is an extract from an interview with Jonathan Blow (indie game developer). As someone who works with many programmers (and programmed myself) I can attest to what he is saying.

This level of understanding of actual computer technology and the quality of the current crop of programmers (many many of them anyway), their refusal to engage with in depth understanding makes them often useless.

This state of affair explains a lot of the tech industry cuts right now and my personal suspicion is that for many software firms keeping only their top employees will make them better in the long run (that part may not be completely relevant to gaming).

Obviously this is a generalization, if every programmer was essentially a script kiddie we would be in big trouble.

 

[Snes nes]

There's too much overhead on what to learn and tech jobs are in a bad state atm. Lot of software has gotten far too complex to work with.

 

[Old Gamer]

There's too much overhead on what to learn and tech jobs are in a bad state atm. Lot of software has gotten far too complex to work with.

The real problem is that too much software became needlessly complex. And by this, I mean, over engineered. The rise of OOP and "high level" programming languages that force it onto everything like Java or C# is a large contributor.

 

[Satoru]

The real problem is that too much software became needlessly complex. And by this, I mean, over engineered. The rise of OOP and "high level" programming languages that force it onto everything like Java or C# is a large contributor.

Also about what is expected of Software Engineers.

Company expectations before: You have to be really good at C++
Company expectations nowadays: You have to be a full stack developer, fully versed in Python, Ruby, SQL, Angular, React, as well as being capable of coding while hitting your dick on the spacebar.

Stans that think they are superior: Developers nowadays don't take time to understand computer science.

No shit sherlock.

 

[Evilnemesis8]

Also about what is expected of Software Engineers.

Company expectations before: You have to be really good at C++
Company expectations nowadays: You have to be a full stack developer, fully versed in Python, Ruby, SQL, Angular, React, as well as being capable of coding while hitting your dick on the spacebar.

Don't forget, they expect you to pay you as a Junior because you're young, but also aren't you supposed to have 10 years of experience already starting from the womb or something?

It's a crazy world out there.

 

[rofif]

Of course not.
Many devs are just unreal engine and unity editors users.

 

[Satoru]

Don't forget, they expect you to pay you as a Junior because you're young, but also aren't you supposed to have 10 years of experience already starting from the womb or something?

It's a crazy world out there.

 

[Nhomnhom]

Makes sense to me, but I'm not a game dev just a regular dev.

It always bothered me how much focus is put into knowing specific tools instead of just being able to produce high quality code.

I now work for the government so I have much more stable employment than people working for private companies here. I saw this coming a long way and I never liked the vibes of working for private sector companies in tech.

 

[Alabtrosmyster]

Yup, as noted in the video a lot of the blame for the current state of the tech jobs (developers particularly, but I know it's true for sys admins as well)... The people doing the hiring are just completely lost.

This is why some people recommend trying to bypass the cute HR lady to try to get to someone who has a clue.

 

[Evilnemesis8]

Okay this is legit funny, clearly this is a copy and paste.
Whoever made that hiring AD was like: What do I think is the "appropriate" level of experience that is usual for this level.

But yeah, really shows you the disconnect in the process as a whole within the industry.

 

[Nhomnhom]

The fuck up on the recent FFVII Rebirth demo is a good example of how we got used to low quality software. How could a entire studio not realize that something was messed up and that performance mode was unjustifiably blurry? It's just a demo so far but I wouldn't be surprised if the issues makes it all the way to the released game.

Okay this is legit funny, clearly this is a copy and paste.
Whoever made that hiring AD was like: What do I think is the "appropriate" level of experience that is usual for this level.

But yeah, really shows you the disconnect in the process as a whole within the industry.

When I was finishing college I used to be baffled by the job postings until I figured out it was all for show and they would hire people anyway (usually people that would be willing to oversell or lie). What they required was never compatible with what they were paying. But it's supposed to be much better in the US I guess, maybe not so much anymore.

 

[Yurinka]

Yes. Most programmers nowadays only (or mostly) make scripts to be run by often third prty game engines like UE or Unity, plus usge of third party libraries and stuff. And they almost don't optimize because nowadays consoles and PC are really powerful and allow huge games, while in the past they had to optimize lot because they were highly constrained by HW specs and maximum game sizes being tiny.

Then there's the game engine programmers, who like the old school gamedevs they do low level stuff, who require a way more technical an deep knowledge.

And well, there's the server programmers too. They are somewhere in the middle: they often optimize to reduce server costs allowing the maximum amount of players per server, but these optimizations aren't hardcore ones like old school devs had to make.

 

[Satoru]

Yup, as noted in the video a lot of the blame for the current state of the tech jobs (developers particularly, but I know it's true for sys admins as well)... The people doing the hiring are just completely lost.

This is why some people recommend trying to bypass the cute HR lady to try to get to someone who has a clue.

Are they though? HR is not usually responsible for the requirements posted in a job offer. Or rather, HR is responsible for working with department heads on the job architecture for each role. Usually the hiring manager will use that job architecture plus requirements for the existing role and pass them to recruitment.

On the above I can actually talk extensively since I have plenty of experience with it. The blame for job offers having unrealistic or stupid expectations falls entirely within department heads which more often than not are engineers themselves.

The fuck up on the recent FFVII Rebirth demo is a good example of how we got used to low quality software. How could a entire studio not realize that something was messed up and that performance mode was unjustifiably blurry? It's just a demo so far but I wouldn't be surprised if the issues makes it all the way to the released game.

It's called lack of QA, which Ironically are some of the departments being consistently hit by layoffs and called "lazy". I know a few people in the gaming industry, from console to mobile, and a consistent trend is that QA departments are very understaffed, underresourced, and underpaid. They are also expected to work ungodly hours near releases, what we call crunch. Of course stans will say crunch is to be expected.

 

[Nhomnhom]

It's called lack of QA, which Ironically are some of the departments being consistently hit by layoffs and called "lazy". I know a few people in the gaming industry, from console to mobile, and a consistent trend is that QA departments are very understaffed, underresourced, and underpaid. They are also expected to work ungodly hours near releases, what we call crunch. Of course stans will say crunch is to be expected.

But shouldn't any employee that booted this game have been able to notice the obvious blur? It was instantly noticeable to me and gives a really bad impression for the game.

Stuff like this keeps happening, so many games with pop in, stutter, bad frame rate, etc. What is sad is that stuff like bad framerate frequently is something a PC user would be able to fix on a few seconds but console player get stuck with bad choices the devs made.

 

[historia]

Man computer tech field used to really like to talking shit about civil and mechanical engineer back in the day.

Guess every bubbles eventually have to brusted, AI is next, hopefully.

 

[Satoru]

But shouldn't any employee that booted this game have been able to notice the obvious blur? It was instantly noticeable to me and gives a really bad impression for the game.

Mate, this was probably some management decision that decided that having some glitches in the demo would take precedence over everything else. And since roles are becoming more and more "compact", people either fix issues or work on the rest. Can't do both.

 

[Nhomnhom]

Mate, this was probably some management decision that decided that having some glitches in the demo would take precedence over everything else. And since roles are becoming more and more "compact", people either fix issues or work on the rest. Can't do both.

Really bad decision to have this issue on a demo.

 

[Alabtrosmyster]

Okay this is legit funny, clearly this is a copy and paste.
Whoever made that hiring AD was like: What do I think is the "appropriate" level of experience that is usual for this level.

But yeah, really shows you the disconnect in the process as a whole within the industry.

I have seen similar things for Java programmers positions back in the days .

 

[Satoru]

Really bad decision to have this issue on a demo.

Of course. But nowadays this is the state of the union in any industry dealing with software, from gaming to SaaS. Every day you see completely disastrous decisions, like GA a product that has been underbaked forever and doesn't meet standards, to pushing subpar "intermediary" fixes just to mop up shit under the rug.

And it's only going to get worse.

 

[Old Gamer]

On the above I can actually talk extensively since I have plenty of experience with it. The blame for job offers having unrealistic or stupid expectations falls entirely within department heads which more often than not are engineers themselves.

At one point, I worked for a company that was founded and had a long successful history with a Java based product. One day, they decided to start developing an equivalent product in C++. Some customers wanted that, I guess.
So, they started hiring C++ developers with the most generic "write a parser" and "what is this design pattern" interviews I can think of.

The thing is, they hired C++ developers to keep their team under "experienced Java-minded" scrum masters, architects and managers.

You can imagine what ensued. Toxic work environment, product with horrible verbose API and shit performance, unhappy frustrated employees, etc.