Programmers in 2024 have no Deep Knowledge

Jonathan Blow has a point, but deep knowledge isn't required much these days. Which makes programming boring imo.
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[@Frostmenn]

I mean nowadays they expect even interns to know alot.Stuff like (CI/CD),cloud,containers, frameworks,software delopement lifecycles,etc.. so i understand why people are speedrunning knowledge.The game as of right now is to speedrun concepts and when you get the job , then you can deeply learn them.

[@andiuptown1711]

🎯

[@absent72]

Yea that's exactly what I'm going through. I don't know how people expect juniors to have this wide breadth of knowledge as is, but now we have to deeply learn all of it before getting a job as well? That's a fairy tale world

[@SandraWantsCoke]

It does not take much to learn the fundamentals. Yes, it takes maybe more than half a year, but this time is well spent and will be with you forever

[@IvanArdillo]

Agree. The problem is the "then" part, when in the end you don't spend time deepening knowledge because you have to go on with the new problem coming. "Later" becomes "Never"

[@officialasim6772]

@@absent72I changed my major recently, I couldn’t take it anymore I’m looking towards nursing now

[@alexthornton4450]

At least from my experience, I feel like a big contributor to software devs only having shallow knowledge is because they’re expected to know a ton of different things and are never given the opportunity to become highly knowledgeable and proficient in a single thing. Deep knowledge is never prioritized and does not often garner praise/raise.

[@AIRRAZOR44]

Very valid comment

[@paulywalnutz5855]

100%. Ut takes 1000 hours to learn one thing well yet junior development need to know 10 different technologies

[@DonaldFranciszekTusk]

@@paulywalnutz5855 It's a sad problem, juniors have tough decisions to make - depth vs. breadth, depth vs. breadth... DFS vs. BFS ;)

[@phitc4242]

if you want to know something, you'll learn it *on your own*. "you're never given opportunity" because you're a below average programmer / LITERALLY have no time (wrong job?) / are a LITERAL, first time coder. no one will give you "an opportunity", you have to create that opportunity yourself... no words.

[@square-deal2375]

This is the comment I was waiting for. Most times many people are forced to have a knowledge of a dozen or so technologies and aren't allowed to specialize, especially in web dev and javascript. There's been many times I wanted to try to specialize but couldn't because I have to constantly context switch

[@steco5441]

Thats why I started by mining aluminum and copper to make my own PC, hopefully by next year I will be able to start coding in machine language

[@mijnusernameweetjuh]

I hope you also made your own tools or otherwise it's not deep enough 🫃

[@cyrilgeorge7818]

😂

[@kgCode658]

start from learning assembly level language😊

[@kgCode658]

@@0x2B you r spoiled kid😐

[@HarryBallsOnYa345]

Tbh though you would learn a lot

[@conor9816]

I think a lot of the old school gatekeepers, and I mean that with the greatest respect(I’m old in age but new to the industry), had a chance to naturally grow with new technologies. Similar to the first resident of a small town that became a city. They know their way around and know everyone who lives there. While the new resident gets dumped into a huge metropolis and must figure out his own way to get what he needs and get around. If you stop and ask 10 different old school residents for directions to somewhere, chances are you will get 10 different answers. Nobody knows for certain the best way to learn fundamentals like in other professions. So how is a new engineer supposed to know (especially if there’s a job on the line) ? Learn by doing and hope the pieces start to come together over time ?

[@willd0047]

I like this analogy

[@HotepSaoirse]

This comment is criminally underrated

[@AverageCppEnjoyer]

I was convinced by their talk at first. But i think your point is way better

[@user-io4sr7vg1v]

This is a fact. The education cirriculum is inept. Data structures and algorithms should be taught through the context of writing a compiler.

[@MePatrick73]

Jonathan Blow has discussed this issue extensively in his talks, acknowledging the complexity of finding a definitive solution. Personally, I tackle this challenge by delving deep into my learning process. I immerse myself in the historical context of technological advancements, striving to comprehend the evolution of current systems. This involves studying influential papers that shaped developers' decisions, analyzing source code, and striving for a thorough understanding. In today's landscape, the level of abstraction is such that delving deep is imperative, unlike the past eras where necessity drove individuals to grasp every aspect, from circuitry to operating systems. It prompts the question of whether modern computer science education should be restructured to emphasize deep learning and essential insights. However, there's a concern that we might be expecting too much from educators who themselves lack these crucial insights, potentially failing to transmit them to the next generation. While contemporary computer science curricula excel in teaching mathematical principles and algorithms, they often fall short in applying this knowledge practically. Many new students express dissatisfaction, noting the perceived lack of value in theoretical courses and the insufficient emphasis on practical, marketable skills like web frameworks. This discrepancy underscores a flaw in computer science education. Spending even a single day delving into the source code of commonly used tools-operating systems, web browsers, search engines, text editors-reveals the foundational significance of these concepts and their pervasive application across various domains.

[@EE12345]

Yeah I feel that. I'm a crap "full stack" engineer with only shallow knowledge of a dozen different things, mainly because I had to learn 5+ languages and frameworks on the job with little to no mentorship. You end up learning just enough to deliver on tickets and never have explicit time to dig deeper or learn best practices. I'm left having to find time outside of project work and regular work hours to do deeper learning, but companies also expect me to have 6+ months worth of practice in Leetcode to pass interviews, so I'm spending my spare time on that instead of becoming a better engineer.

[@marioprawirosudiro7301]

For what it's worth, Leetcode does help familiarize you with algos, so it's not 100% wasted time. That being said, I do think 6+ months is overkill. Better to dive deeper on the languages you use instead - after all, it's the tool of your trade. Or learn another paradigm.

[@toogoodforthisshit]

I feel that, and empathize with you on that a lot.

[@AntonioDoesMetal]

I spent my first 4 or so years in data engineering just getting by with the bare minimum of what I needed to know. Lots of Python, Bash, and whatever database I needed to know at the time. I've spent the past 4 years in my free time diving deep into "deep knowledge" of things like the low level implementation details of operating systems, programming languages, how CPU's and memory works, data structures and algorithms etc. and honestly now looking back at it I can't believe how I got away without knowing so much of this stuff. I was able to turn "I need to learn this" into "I want to learn this because I love it" and it really made this deep dive effortless. Not recommending others spend thousands of hours and dollars in their free time learning, however for me it's been absolutely invaluable in my career

[@mrmatrix407]

exactly same thing happened to me its just like having a new perspective

[@adamrauckhorst6592]

Do you have any favorite resources that you've come across?

[@deadlock7946]

Yes. I would also like some recommendations to learn

[@s_k_47]

My question is whats the outcome of this? asking for genaral info spending lots of hours gaining deep knowledge and only fraction of companies or lets say project team of people with Deep K, Big tech are also got polluted now. do you still work at same place / level compared to if you had not gained deep knowledge and stayed shallow and got promoted over time ? I have seen people being shallow and got promoted and working with very good knowledgeable people. People with DK do all the heavy lifting and other just get their slices out of result.

[@BiancaAguglia]

Are there any resources (e.g. books, websites, courses, people to study and learn from, etc) you think are particularly useful when it comes to getting deep knowledge?

[@darkwoodmovies]

NGL, I don't completely know everything about the frameworks or libraries I use. But I also feel like to an extent, this is a supply-and-demand issue. Companies don't care about your deep knowledge unless it directly applies to your role, so you only learn what you need to. But having a CS degree gives you enough deep knowledge to understand what the machine is doing and why, and IMO that's sufficient for almost all jobs.

[@evancombs5159]

I am a strong believer in just in time learning. If you try to learn everything in depth before you have a use case for it you will likely waste a lot of your time and not retain much. It can be an inefficient way of learning. Instead, you should get a high level understanding of what is possible, then dig deeper once you have a use for it.

[@asdakuhi8h]

Yup. I'd rather just build products that the business or client wants than slog through minute details to circle-jerk how good niche knowledge is. At some point, you may have to go into the deep knowledge and you can dive in when necessary.

[@cowCuddler]

You can't have deep knowledge with all the products you need to learn

[@br0ken_107]

@@evancombs5159 I don't think that is the point of the video, I completely agree with you. But people learn the tool rather than how to use the tool to solve the actual problem, this is the point.

[@headlights-go-up]

@@evancombs5159 💯💯💯💯💯💯

[@arturfil]

We have to admit that this is the industry's fault too. I have ds and algos knowledge, systems design knowledge, db theory knowledge AND STILL, "yeah I see you have projects in Java but we specifically need professional experience in Spring Boot ...". So it's not only people learning but employeers don't care for people who have deep knowledge in general. I still advocate that you will be better off, learning ds and algos, systems design and computer theory but you can't ignore the "shallow" knowledge you will be asked to have, when applying to jobs.

[@coreydunkin]

I was a "framework dev" for a long time, basically just working in the most popular framework of the time and getting by, recently i've been diving deep and your channel/site has been monumental for me and my growth.

[@dustinscroggins6256]

Literally same I used the frameworks to get employed and then I really just started going crazy on fundamentals and still do I feel like they matter more as you become more senior

[@victorekea]

He has a point and I do agree to some extent but you have to admit some of these issues are due to the way the industry is wired in general. Technologies are easily replaced and knowledge gained become obsolete. Trying to have a deep understanding of every underlying concept or technology is a noble goal but not sustainable in the long run. Especially for junior programmers

[@Symmetryful]

I somewhat agree but I would distinguish between concepts and technologies. Having deep knowledge of concepts is viable and important. Having deep knowledge of all technologies (which are layers of abstraction over concepts) is not practical and less important.

[@InforSpirit]

Deepening the fundamental, that is the point. Frameworks are like company policies and people skills are fundamentals. Fundamentals can be always tranfer to different enviroment. If you are not manager, you won't go deep in how your company works. Same with frameworks, most people should not deepdive into every framework. Computers fundamentals hasn't change that much in past 20 year, everything is still linear calculation (branches are only to different linear pipe). Fundamentals make you understant that one instruction that broduce 100 cells, is a loop regardless level of abstraction. You won't make TypeA inside of TypeA object structures, because that is recursive memory threat that can invade whole memory exponentally. Road to hell is one bug away. (And all that wasted calculation that is needed just to avoid memory recursion to happend)

[@MuffFlux]

100% It isn't the devs fault if the companies hiring process is so bad that you end up working with a bunch of devs without the required skills/knowledge. The dev accepted a job that was OFFERED to them. It is the management and organizations job to only offer jobs to individuals who fit the criteria of the role.

[@derekdipietro2588]

I agree with him in a sense, but most people are hired to a do a certain job. My job is to be a C# unity developer, I've expanded my knowledge into data structures and algorithms, worrying about performance and what not. But at the end of the day I write code in C#. Could I learn to write code in any language and figure out how to debug what I need? Sure, but at the moment I don't have the time for that. I think he's been working on his own for so long, and is so driven by his own success that he has no idea what it's like to be a normal person anymore who's just trying to survive.

[@miharin]

idk if this idea is pertaining to this discussion but, it did pop in my mind that I think there are now two types of developers, one who is more into the fundamentals of code - like competitive programming, the math and logic behind stuff and, the other type to build apps to deal with specific problems - like automating something or building a shortcut of lengthy procedures! I feel like as long as the developer enjoys what they are doing, be it CP or projects, and are not in for the money, the domain would continue to flourish maybe.

[@locinolacolino1302]

The difference is the math developer can do the app developer's job, but not vice versa: and we're stuck with a whole lot of the latter.

[@JuvStudios]

It is a spectrum - the lower the level you are programming in, the deeper the knowledge about the hardware you get. Competitive programming is a distinct thing; knowing to simply implement lots of algorithms does not correlate with hardware knowledge.

[@catchwest.combypuneetgrover]

This is not what I think but I know with 100% surety i.e. - Actually there are programmers in 2024 who have all the knowledge required to create a program but they don't have a deserving job and income for their knowledge which irritates them from new programming auditors of 2024 first time introduced in India, whoever this man is, from whatever era, doesn't appears as he have any knowledge of programming, he appears more like a sarcastic joker, but still for the baby guidance in programming, before having a deep knowledge, a programmer need to be aware of aspects which needs depth and aspects which don't... that's why it's said kids shouldn't enter into programming before being matured.

[@EE12345]

@@locinolacolino1302 not necessarily, people are always complaining about hiring leetcoders and competitive programmers that can't develop apps. although personally I do find junior-level web development easier than leetcode.

[@masterTigress96]

I think you need to compare this to: - keyboard/code monkeys pumping out duct taped garbage/spaghetti code (because of time/money constraints) - specialists who know nothing outside of their extremely small bubble of e.g. only assembly/C programming There seems to be little in between. You have a billion different job offers for companies looking for (webdev) code monkeys who are proficient in some variation of a shitstack comprised of "popular" frameworks/languages. No time to master any of the languages in the stack, just copy-paste your way until this whatever app/website is done and the boss can collect his paycheck from the customer. Pretty brain dead and soul crushing if done for long periods of time. You literally waste tons of precious time on learning languages and stacks which are as disposable as the websites and apps you build with them. At the end of your career, you will have no memory of your first app/website and what you used to build it with, as you will have worked with hundreds of languages/stacks and no time to master them or learn anything useful. No clue what you did all these years, but whatever, it brought in a paycheck. Not really a path for someone that loves software dev in their heart and soul. You might as well go out and get a bunch of random jobs to earn a living. And then you have the real hardcore low level, embedded/CS stuff for e.g. defense contractors with equally hardcore, tried and true, precision work with assembly, C, C++, whatever. Maybe here and there I might see some jobs looking for Java devs but that has pretty much dried up as far as I can see (and for the better in my opinion).

[@davien001]

Ive been learning for over a year and went really deep for web development, even into the V8 Engine to see how it all works, to me, regardless of how deep you want to go there's always more to learn. Thing is there will always be someone with half assed knowledge or even someone with knowledge that can't build anything.

[@juanandresnunez658]

This hit too damn close. I do not feel "impostor syndrome" because I am straight up an impostor, so it kind of makes sense that I haven't been able to get my first Jr role. I've been studying so hard and tried to practice so much but I still feel miles and miles behind people writing Rust/C++ and being masters of leetcode (not implying those things are mutual). But oh well, what can I do.

[@insvil8783]

I felt this too hard as well, you're not alone.

[@ahmedanwer6899]

gotta have the right balance of learning on the go and knowing the prerequisite stuff

[@Salantor]

When started the latest webdev project I was explicitly asked about which libraries we gonna use. For everything, from DOM manipulation, to forms handling, even without knowing exactly what parts will be complicated and which one will be not. I ended up cutting some of the list after realizing, that some of said libraries are not only unnecessary, but will slow the development process down. In the same project I see libraries being used in such a minuscule fashion - like comparing two dates and picking the later one - that I have to wonder if people are really able to write JS by hand anymore.

[@frank13621]

The JS standard library on everything (especially dates) is such garbage that if you need to do anything more it makes sense to use a library. Is there any standard functionality that isn’t much, much worse than some basic 20kb package dedicated to it?

[@random_bit]

the problem being outline is just the corporate structure and how they hire. No one wants to hire someone and train them to be very deeply knowledgeable in something

[@s_k_47]

AFTER Reading through all 92 comments currently present, What I realize what JB is saying is actual truth. Most people are defending being shallow and calling have deep knowledge / fundamentals is not required in current environment, there points includes... * Current market is evolving very rapidly, you cant catch up having deep knowledge. * Companies just want to build and ship, no one wants to spend money for letting their people get deep knowledge. * Having deep knowledge in first layer of abstraction is better than having knowledge of core. * You dont need to know fundamentals to get the job done. IMO, these are those people which JB is referring here in 3:13, Out of 100 people only 10 wants to know fundamental and they are the ones who create packages, which is well created and maintained and have all those abstraction and performance improvements, So the left over 90 people can just install packages and get their job done. And both of them are fine, I am not saying first is best and later ones are worst. This point what JB is saying is currently becoz barrier of entry is/was very low the trend is more shifting on 90% side to 95% and 10% are now only 5% and JB wants to say is we need more people on building side than on consumption side.

[@NeilMartin98]

100%. I think generally most developers I've bumped into have always had a good grip on the fundamentals but I can see people jumping into frameworks like React, Flutter or something similar without learning software fundamentals and it just being magic and no practice or exposure to the underlying language. We have to understand that the scope for a software engineer has grown fundamentally too. Back in the 90s, you wrote to just interface with a machine and this has now grown to deploying to cloud, pipelines, and potentially other microservices too. I think if someone just watched the video and didn't analyse it you'd assume Jonathan is the old guy shouting at the clouds but he's just saying it's moving a bit too fast for people to be able to actively get into the fundamentals first.

[@yashizuko]

"well created and maintained and have all those abstraction and performance improvements" this made me remember i saw also the other extreme where so much over enginnered shit in the years just for the sake of "doing it well" that the code becomes a damn impossible task to understand creating.... vendor locking to the team that created the code from the start

[@kav04]

you just saying nonsense

[@Kyle-rf5mb]

I've just got the SICP book to work through because i have a high level programming understanding (junior no cs degree) so i'm now going to try learn the lower stuff see how much it helps me.

[@forfreee2222]

All these people saying deep knowledge isn’t important in software are ridiculous. Having shallow vs deep knowledge of even your terminal and text editor will teach you so much and you’ll be able to see similarities and pull from them in your own software and other tools. It’s crazy to think that having shallow knowledge on sumn that you work on a daily basis will have you comparable to somebody w in depth knowledge… literally compare a Junior vs senior dev

[@cowCuddler]

You can't have deep knowledge because you have to learn an entire stack and devops. It's impossible to know everything

[@asagiai4965]

Well the argument for that is what do you mean by shallow and deep knowledge? Technically all knowledge that are beneficial should be learned.

[@DavidT_510]

It's breadth of knowledge vs depth of knowledge. I have 10 years of experience at FAANG and would argue that having a breadth of knowledge of commonly used technology is much better than having a depth of knowledge in stuff like the terminal or a text editor. We all have limited time and energy. Any time you spend learning things like deep knowledge of the terminal or text editor means less time spent learning the basics of other useful tools. I'd rather be good at a bunch of things that just great at a few.

[@aakashs1806]

I copy paste everytime, my senior devs made me do so. I asked questions, they gave weird looks, they asked why are you asking this question. I stopped asking questions afterwards. Work is not measured by knowledge, but by delivering features to customer, whether that feature is critical to customer based on that you get payscale.

[@Ludo045]

@@aakashs1806 pretty much this. I do the work, the compagny is happy, the collegues are happy, i take the money so im happy, and i go back home. And im a mediocre devs.

[@p.o.d9410]

I've been coding for 6 months now, when I started I tried to go for a bootcamp where they encourage this sort of behavior. I said to one of the facilitators "I wonder why my code is able to do x" and he simply said to me,"you don't need to know how an engine works to drive a car" so I left that camp and went on to learn python and js on my own, now that I am decent at the two, I am learn c/c++ because screw that guy and his lame approach to life. The way I see it you go all in or stay out.

[@Ludo045]

yet he's right... You dont need to know how your car work to drive it very well...

[@dustinscroggins6256]

It’s funny because as somebody from a non traditional background, the “why” behind programming has always been my favorite . I hate just using tools without exploring how they work it feels like I’m guessing lol

[@br0ken_107]

People basically focus on tools and learn tools then focus on the actual problem, instead of focusing on the problem and learning the necessary tools required to solve it. People usually go about it in exact opposite order than they should. Many people ask should I learn Java or Python in comments rather than looking at what they are trying to get out of it or build out of it. This approach is fine if you want a mediocre pay software job at a garbage company but not if you want to be a software engineer, a mechanic learns how to repair and maintain machinery using a screwdriver, he/she does not focus on screwdriver.

[@dacosta2024]

So what roadmap do you think is best for an enthusiast?

[@SaHaRaSquad]

Learning frameworks instead of just JS also makes it very difficult to learn other frameworks and libraries because if you don't know the common denominator - JS. You have trouble identifying what part of a code example is framework code vs plain JS, and this gets even more confusing by JS itself accumulating more features and syntactic sugar over time. It is really important to understand the basics, the problem is you often only notice this after you already learned them.

[@alok.01]

I learnt React first then now kind of know NextJS. I don't know the vanilla JS but I do know its importance. I do know the basics but not enough, now I am trying to learn JS and after learning it maybe I will go into some Data Structure or something like that. I really want to build a foundation

[@headlights-go-up]

Some great advice I’ve heard for noobs is to go one step deeper than where you’re working, just one. It’s a good way to gain a deeper understanding without being overwhelmed early on.

[@theultimatereductionist7592]

I have no idea of 99% of the lingo jargon you use. I do and have always done programming ONLY for myself, for my math research. And, after 43 years of coding, I honestly can say I have no idea how to code in ANY language. I know less now than I did in Summer 1981 when I took my first and only Fortran course at community college. I am 60 now. I desperately need help with Mathematica. But it is not even worth trying any more.

[@shitinsideyou]

Amen! Another great video, thank you!

[@the_derpler]

I feel this way. I never went out of my way to be a front end dev, but just kind of fell into React as part of my job. However, I think that maybe I make up for the lack of deep DOM knowledge via my EE background and literally writing ASM and C?

[@joga9665]

I work with a lot of older guys that only ever did C# or Java (only a few tried both). I think it is not a new issue.

[@evancombs5159]

There is nothing wrong with that. Those are very widely used and good languages. There will always be job opportunities with those languages, and it gives you the ability to really dig deep into how those languages work to use them more efficiently.

[@user-sl5lm7xp8u]

i think that as students we don't have that much of a time to actually do our exams, do our projects, learn the foundational things of programming and get ready for the hiring process. (And i omitted the part where we have also a personal life because a this point is an optional 😂)

[@Gooseinator]

My employer at one point pushed a course on learning React. It's a pretty popular one and just assumes you know Javascript, which I definitely didn't. It was a waste to start there.

[@yashsolanki069]

The problem is expecting 5 years of experience from a fresher. Deep knowledge requires handling deep problems. It takes time for a developer to get deep knowledge. I would say for devs starting their journey, your curiosity and problem solving mentality is gonna help you get there what discussed in the interview. Thanks

[@arvee-4699]

Atleast watch full video , deep knowledge here means , if you are coming to me and saying you do not even know what nlog(n) time complexity means why is space complexity important what is stack and what is heap you dont know and how is memory allocated you dont know --- you are shallow dev .. most of these things are taught in grad school these are basic foundations which many lack

[@yashsolanki069]

@@arvee-4699 you have a point but in the case where i know how things are working under the hood but at the same time that's not the concern because ee nee the feature out in production is how sometimes as a jr. Dev i experience so like just build shit and ship it. Unless I'm given the task to look closely into such stuff. The Deep tech knowledge even i know wouldn't make any difference here. Thanks for putting your thoughts buddy .

[@carolineroy8009]

@arvee-4699 You tend to forget that a lot of people don't come from an IT cursus. From experience none of the points you mentioned were introduced to me nor useful for my day to day tasks. What I noticed though is how pedantic can senior be regarding this but they aren't even able to explain them. Internet resources, senior, online courses... whatever they are never ever consider those aspects and even if you're willing to learn and deepen that knowledge, you're lost. There is a ton shit of stuff to know nowadays and an overload of bad resources that even just sorting that and find what's relevant to learn is hell. No one agrees, everyone has opinions and in the end juniors are just running after a high speed train. I'm there today and have no fucking clue of a decent learning roadmap for my goals. Some junior dev might just be lured by money and don't even care but to me the problem is also companies, industries and how people are willing to teach. I was hoping to get that from some seniors in my previous team and in the end they just were as clueless as me.

[@yasin-ali]

Absolutely correct state of affairs in the dev space.

[@HarryBallsOnYa345]

"Nobody knows why they are using a Framework anymore they just use it" Bru reminds me of trying to tell people why i build a lot of stuff from scratch, yea it took me longer but i learned a lot of the "lower level" stuff they helps me debug the frameworks i use.

[@GoTSkillZ]

well, its the problem with the industry, companies have adopted the aglie method of doing thigns and they want 6 months of work to be done in 1 week, hence API/Frameworks came into being, companies don't allow the developers to learn and dive deep and deliver a good end-product.

[@user-wr4yl7tx3w]

your insights are really informative

[@manavhirani]

this one of the most normal comment i've seen on here

[@mashab9129]

very true, have seen this in most all companies i have worked in, developers are just surviving from stand up to stand up by saying a bunch of BS to justify why their ticket is not done, recent i have heard: "css is just not playing nice", "3rd party lib does not support this", etc - POs and scrum master have no other option but to trust them. Now if you can code, but you are a not talker and just do your stories on time , give a one min update, that makes you not as noticeable and as if you are not working on such 'hard' features as the above ones - when i am interviewing , i am trying to sift through those 'talkers' who cannot solve an easy leetcode problem - sad.

[@jossani6712]

how do i know if i am too shallow and superficial?

[@aashiqaziz5556]

I can understand what the root of this discussion is. And yes, you are right creating good code is hard since it needs to be utilized for a variety of purposes and built upon in a way that works throughout. And that is hard because essentially you are asking the guy to have foresight. And foresight needs knowledge of so many things and factors. Guess you gotta be a computer sage for that to happen.

[@flobba123]

ive done a course in programming and passed the exam and the teacher said alot of people just had no idea about anything, Beacuse they just copy pasted from chat gpt without learning anything.

[@fairbanj]

Been doing this more than 30 years and I'm a hiring manager for a software company... he is SO correct with what we see with nearly all of the younger candidates.

[@moreikan]

This is an interesting opinion. Although, I ask myself, is it really that easy to become a SWE in America or internationally? I'd love to hear a few answers because I'm from Germany and here it's quite challenging to get into these jobs. If you didn't study in a related field where you have to learn all the basics you won't be accepted in 95 % of the tech jobs (e.g. Embedded Systems, FPGA Design, Application Development, Machine Learning, you name it). On the other hand, as soon as you have your degree, you almost certainly end up getting a job within a few months.

[@JrTech-rw6wj]

Guys trust me when i started learning i skipped all these and when i started learning all these i came to know how it works and the underlying concepts of it . if you are a beginner learn the basics its gonna help you alot And dont learn programming if you want moneyyy learn it if you are really passionate about or you wont grow and its a complete waste of time you will loose interest after a while

[@chrisnieves3881]

Which platform do you go live on?

[@humanname6534]

As a senior comp sci student, I think understanding low level and systems concepts, as well as the mathematical background is extremely important to creating quality software

[@ttrev007]

part of the problem with newbies getting into open source is that KZbinrs are suggesting they do. I am a noob and i watched a video were this guy thought that the best way to learn was contributing to an open source project. I thought it was stupid but i am sure that at least some people have taken it to heart.

[@Liberal_pan]

Its hard to have deep knowledge when you need to know so much. Applying for internships where you need to know OS, DSA, containerization, testing, etc as a junior is a lot of info.

[@debasishraychawdhuri]

Even the framework developers have changed their documentation style. In the old times, the documentation used to talk about how the framework works.

[@user-wv4kt6cf3v]

People back in the day spent so much of their efforts in abstraction of low level programming to make it easy for future developers. Relearning them would be just reinventing the wheel. I do enjoy learning the computer science but making developers believe that you're not enough bc you don't know this and that is just gonna make everyone unhappy

[@ssgojekblue]

Hey neet can you share your workspace setup ❤ chair and monitor links

[@PyckledNyk]

I have the opposite problem: I know a decent amount about how C++ interacts with the computer architecture, but I never learned any frameworks because I didn’t know I had to, and now I feel lost

[@blazinglyfaster9935]

should we learn to make a fire with sticks and stones before using a lighter? Most of us actually have shallow understanding about tools we use to live our lives, but we can still effectively use them and continue to develop further with those tools.

[@beatboy6690]

I don't think anyone is suggesting that we regress back and use archaic tooling, I think instead we are asking "should you use a lighter before you even know how fire works?" or "should you use tools without first understanding what it is abstracting away from you?". What if your lighter runs out of fluid? What if your lighter becomes deprecated and you need to switch. Someone who has foundational knowledge about what it takes to make a fire, who knows it needs heat, fuel and oxygen will be able to quickly adapt to any tool that they're forced to use (the mark of a truly great software engineer). Someone who only knows how to make fires with their lighter WILL be left behind.

[@Trizzi2931]

When you become a senior level engineer and have to worry about performance then it will definitely affect how good you know your tools. You can not write efficient code if you don’t know what the underlying code is and how it works. At some point, you will have to write that underlying code yourself or else you get stuck in dependency hell.

[@blazinglyfaster9935]

@@Trizzi2931 Why not figure out how to deal with performance when you get to that part? Do you think that approach to problem solving is less effective than going deep dive into the root of the technologies that are already solved? I honestly don't believe so.

[@iamjvfs]

2:04 This is true, When I started it out, I made probably 3 Javascript projects and jumped right away into React, now the outcome is that I'm kinda bad at DOM manipulation, now I need to pursue something I should have known. Please, if you are a beginner, don't jump into React, learn JavaScript first

[@CodingResoures]

More books should be written on this so that we all can learn the mechanism beyond the abstractions

[@IvanArdillo]

I think that this is due to the complexity of the software production world. In order to be productive nowadays and be paid to resolve some kind of problem for some company/client you rely 90% of the time on web or similar development, where most of the complexity have been abstracted away, you don't have to reinvent the wheel. In the past where everything was more low level you had to deep dive and so to grasp the complexity of the algorithms and data structures, so by now the only way you have to deep dive into the fundamentals of programming is either working on niches of software development (like low level/embedded/os) or work on specific features of products, where performance and reliability is a necessity. But that's the very small part of the programming world, otherwise you have to go by yourself with side projects, where always I find myself not having the drive to do something useful, because it seems always to be a "dumb" useless software project

[@JuvStudios]

> complexity have been abstracted away The abstractions have often added more unnecessary complexity.

[@s8x.]

yup i don’t even know why i use react. what does it solve? what even is the javascript api?

[@ELLUHD]

I think the most important ability to have as a dev nowadays is to be able to learn quickly rather then learn deep, atleast at first.

[@sadBoiDev]

I actually agree with this guy 100%. I’ve been a swift dev for about 5 years and did not take the time to learn the basics, I feel so behind :( Started reading up on patterns and other languages and feel much stronger now 💪

[@Full-Stack-Fernando]

I’m trying to learn to walk before I can run but JavaScript is hard and no jobs are willing to hire if you only know html css and vanilla JavaScript and it takes way too long to fully fundamentally learn JavaScript even tho I do run into a lot of problems I wouldn’t if i fundamentally knew JavaScript fully I wanna put it away until I get a job using react or whatever else places hiring want

[@eclypze_]

It is evident that the field of programming is currently experiencing a decline rather than reaching its zenith. This observation is rooted in the belief that the industry is grappling with a substantial presence of subpar programmers.

[@swojnowski453]

You can't have deep knowledge if you are required to know 1300 libraries, programming languages, techniques, algorithms and others. Building and app can be compared to building a house. But to build a house you need an electrician ,a plumber, a builder, a develeloper. For apps, if you are a dev you are responsible for everything and supposed to know everything deep ;). Go learn to be a nurse, you will have a skill for life, go learn to be a programmer and you are out of date before you have started looking for your first job, even if you have a deep knowledge. You are a hamster on a spinning wheel that is spinning faster than a robot can run ... good luck chasing the dream and thinking in the era of bots you can keep up with them ;)

[@sarjannarwan6896]

I think the problem is when you have too much abstraction. The obvious example is is-even/is-odd. Some abstraction is needed but I think we've gone a bit too far.

[@sebastiankrali2547]

The great thing with deep knowledge is that it can be applied to every other similar technology once you understand how they work. You still need to know many different types of tools like web frameworks or languages, but you don‘t need to learn everything again when you use something new, because they all behave similarly

[@abhishek_k7]

theres also another aspect to this that some may not agree with. tech has advanced so much that there are just way too many things that one is required to know and if you have to go deep unwrapping every layer of abstraction that was added to everything to make it simpler over these years/decades, it is going to take a considerably large amount of time and effort. I dont know how else to say this and I apologize in advance but that older generation had a distinct advantage as they built and learnt things from the ground up as they needed/were made available. they saw and made tech prosper from 0. they are pioneers and a part of that history. everything new from there was incremental knowledge to them which was easy to grasp and build on top of their already rock solid foundations. the newer generations on the other hand have to learn the essence and fundamentals of that ~50 years of tech history and then whatever the current tech stack that is in demand (and 1-2 libraries/frameworks) to get a job. there are just way too many levels of abstractions to unravel here unless one decides to stick to and master a specific niche. the evolution of technology has led to a deeper and broader pool of knowledge required for those entering the field depending on where they want to work/contribute. Im terrible with analogies but thats kinda like developing low level core tech like say assembly, HAL, OS interfaces, etc. then urging others to stop re-inventing the core tech and instead build things on top of them to make everyones lives easier and drive the tech forward. then coming back later to mock them for not understanding the core tech for some inefficiencies in their higher level implementations.

[@naranyala_dev]

yeah NeetCode, more videoss!!!

[@Jeremiahking101]

My full time job requires me to write vanilla JS. I love vanilla JS for its simplicity. My side projects at home are all on React JS and 90% written using GPT lol.

[@SzaboB33]

Can you please set up the mic it doesn't record the low volume sounds?

[@bladekiller2766]

I don't agree that if you don't have deep knowledge, that it will catch up with you in the long run, I've seen Principal software developers who don't know how to solve LC easy problems, or have not heard of Time Complexity and all that theory, but they know how to Design Systems, they know how to Manage Big Teams, they know the necessary Frontend Framework that is used by the company from end to end. Often there is a debate who is better programmer, the ones who focus on the CS fundamentals vs those that Experiment with new Technologies, and often the answer is that both can be successful depending on the job.

[@LiveType]

I think this is the correct answer. The only thing that matters especially with any web facing roll is the ability to ship a complete app these days. There are enough levels of abstraction that you don't really have to deal with said DSA type fundamentals. It's amazing just how quick you can spin up a website these days using literally zero code. You strictly speaking don't NEED to know the fundamentals to ship said app. Now when we get into the embedded world, I find that fundamentals knowledge spikes considerably simply because you NEED to know it there to be truly effective.

[@sebastiankrali2547]

Deep knowledge != fundamentals, when you know for example how React works under the hood you have deep knowledge about a framework that can probably be applied to every other frontend framework. It doesn‘t matter if you know about every abstraction layer down to the cpu instructions, but that you know more than just the syntax of and when to use some technology

[@bladekiller2766]

@sebastiankrali2547 Deep knowledge is when you know some concept to the fundamentals. If you know React under hood, it will serve you no benefit for other frameworks at all. Since all of them have different architectural methodologies. Also, I meant about programmers who focus on the CS fundamentals side rather than technology speficic deep knowledge. I don't think the topic is about deep knowledge here, because I acknowledge that both types can have deep knowledge about different things. I mean, you might learn how React creates elements, but would that serve when you design some form or when you are coding a logic for some button with hooks? I know quite a lot of high level engineers that don't bother themselves wiyh learning "React under the hood" but they know the general frontend patterns and they can adapt to new frameworks like Angular becsuse there mightvbe reuse of some of them, even tough I would say this rarely happens for the high level patterns since the frameworks have 2 different approaches for the frontend.

[@RogerCh888]

So I get that it's very complicated and programming is handled as a very generalized craft that can go into many different industries that all may have different laws/regulations, so I understand that maybe this is why someone can't give a very specific roadmap, but what would be moving in the right direction?

[@CheezePie]

1:40 true.. I also started learning react because of this hype train without having a proper knowledge of js fundamentals and I regretted my decision... After a month, I switched to learning js in depth.. I experimented with the language, I did some Advent of Code problems with JS, I implemented some data structures and then when I switched to react after learning all those concepts, I was like "Huh.. React is this easy?" Lesson learnt: always strive to dive deep and strengthen your base

[@sohelshaikh1171]

Can you blame the developers tho, majority of them do this as a job and as you said me knowing how to code a http server from scratch won't really help me when I just want to create a api for my service, pair that with the increasing demands of companies and we get people with a bunch of frameworks in their resumes and no knowledge of how or why that framework was created. Also the knowledge of why the framework was developed can't really be obtained while developing personal projects but I agree you should deep dive enough to make sense what you are doing.

[@nathanielblairofkew1082]

The prototypical approach to programming is full of profundity. Web apis are a good example of apis - they unlock data for the developer. WebGL is a another great example of a good system that opens up options safely for the developer. Game Dev related Graphics APIs, however, are notoriously horrendous, to the point where they not only lock the developer out of the fundamentals of the apps they are writing, but even the coding tools are non existent, webgl has actual proper tools for graphics programming, whilst traditional tools for graphics programming sometimes even lack basic syntax highlighting

[@nathanielblairofkew1082]

By profundity, I am naturally referring to the one shot nature of prototypical languages - unlike OOP, they allow single small programs to work without overly specific declarations, and popular web frameworks are always quick to prototype with and relatively lightweight. In other words, the precise reason J Blow sees not the profundity, is because he underestimates the nuance and meaning available in a small piece of JavaScript frontend code

[@OswaldVon]

Took time to learn stuff at a deep level. By the time I was like 15-20% getting to understand things my friends were already making money with that "shallow" knowledge. Let's ne real, it isn't just worth it nowadays to concentrate on that. You eventually reach that level one day or the other. Or never. But that doesn't feed you. You'll eventually get patterns and write correct code if you really try but taking time doing it while studying is a waste of opportunity

[@its_abdu4925]

What concepts or patterns that are considered as deep knowledge? Because it's so interesting to me, that patterns are around us and in every detail of our life , and to see that in coding is really fascinating.

[@hottroddinn]

I can understand JB's frustration. Most programmers who do not understand fundamentals do not have a grasp of how to use resources efficiently. This is specifically needed anything to do with hardware and that's the reason behind his rant. Oh! BTW, if people who think that only direct hardware related code would need good basic understanding, do you use Chrome yet?

[@iSaac-kp5lk]

Heres the thing... the part of your brain that solves leet code and comes up with all the crazy algorithms is veery different from the one that designs systems and full stack apps in general. Ive worked with really smart people who can solve some pretty serious algorithmic problems but somewhat have an issue with putting together a fullstack app. So verdict? Well... never stop learning. You need leetcode for the interviews (and to design efficient algorithms), but you also need to know the systems and technologies involved to making an software work. THAT is what deep knowledge is about. Always start from the bottom. And this is coming from someone who started with React without knowing js well😅 (but i had to later learn about it).

[@iSaac-kp5lk]

Also, if you're in this because of the money alone then you're screwed😂... I'm sorry

[@Djellowman]

1:07 "everybody hates algorithms & data structures" whaaat? That's legitimately the only programming i enjoy...

[@electrolyteorb]

I agree word for word with JB

[@youtubesuresuckscock]

How embarrassing.

[@hellothere5963]

I suck at Python, but whenever i see an actual good Python dev its always like using some libraries i never even heard of. So in order for a dev to be good he needs to just grind and memorise stuff like that? Thats unreal, i feel like the age of that is over, and its about learning how to find things instead of memorising it

[@alok.01]

Well that's true, really smart people built foundation and others build on top of that foundation

[@borisbaer]

Don’t be a clickbait youtuber.

[@AANation360]

Well civil engineering is a bad example because it needs to be correct. Software most of the time can be incorrect and be updated later. No one's life is on the line unless you're coding some medical software or something

[@p0tat0627]

This is true for not Big Giants like MAANG

[@jasonhoman6525]

Or NASA lol

[@binayakthakur5122]

The banking sector will fudge you up if you think like this , you need to be correct

[@niggacockball7995]

and kids thats why your data keeps getting breached online

[@Ari-pq4db]

Where is he doing these live streams , I cant find them , can someone please help me !!??? ❤

[@HossainAhmedSiam-ot5jr]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/l6DKf4Nolpd5j8Usi=32Ik55TscsXzMRUq

[@mohd-arz]

As an Indian , I can confirm that we are really into herd rather than what we actually like. If someone made OSS and got a good job yikes we all going to do that and get placed and someone did DSA and get FAANG we will also going to get their. But the problem is as myself we most of case don't care about under the hood stuffs and we really into some race... And if some 20 year guy get good salary that's might have his luck and also he might have some privileges towards this field and i promise his knowledge towards low level might be shallow.. And I'm also followed that same but after i left Indian youtubers and get into international youtubers ie primeagon theo low level learning neet and some more. I realised programming is not and shouldn't be an end goal rathee it's an art like learning musical instruments. It'll take their own time to get truly good at it rather than being shallow good.. And please take this as my experience and perception... Thankyou 😊

[@SandraWantsCoke]

His name is ... Indian--aegen!

[@youtubesuresuckscock]

It's because d i r t b a g s like you only do things for money.

[@Prasadavajjhala]

I am an aspiring self taught(as in non-degree) software developer with an 20 year career in Finance/accounting (MBA). Would Harvard's CS50 be a good starting place for deep knowledge

[@owenwu7995]

well it's not gonna change unless we stop hiring developers over a piece of paper that says they know how to do math and over knowing legacy languages like java.

[@evancombs5159]

How else are you going to hire people?

[@Aleaths]

Funniest thing is that Jblow has spent 20 million USD so far on developing his upcoming sokoban puzzle game. Could have probably been made using Unity/Unreal for 1/4 of the cost.

[@Ryan-hl1bt]

He's not just developing a sokoban game. He's making his own programming language and game engine, the game is just a testbed to prove that the language works for large projects.

[@youtubesuresuckscock]

@@Ryan-hl1btNeither of which anyone besides him will ever use seriously. Previous commenter is right to snicker.

[@Aleaths]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/op2uZqehZc-chJo

[@kameraderz]

I think this kind of opinion is the reason why tech or STEM people in general needs to at least try to learn social issues. Maybe a little bit philosophy, like critical realism. Because the way this opinion structured is ignoring the structure/mechanism/tendency behind the empirical event (softdev can't handle deep stuff). It almost likes they blame it on an individual, while the labour market is a part of free market, so when we talk about it we should take politics and economic issues into account. Because by doing that we would realize that this isn't entirely an individual issues, but systemic issues. This isn't skill mismatch issue, this is the demand-side issue. There's job scarcity issue, and they blame it on an individual skill? That's irrational. If a country is a labour surplus economy with scarcity of jobs & plenty of unemployment, building up its labour force to fulfill some jobs' technical or knowledge requirements is the least of its worries. Its main problem is generating the jobs to absorb them in the first place. So the demand for deep skill may not reflect actual need of skilled labour or particular composition of labour by the economy. Instead it might reflect more of the business cycle & labour market bargaining power between employers & workers. Moreover the skill mismatch discourse was part of "neoliberalisation" which dismantle the full employment agenda in developed countries & the developmental state in developing countries, among others, that made it more difficult to sustain job growth. Conclusion, this discourse on the needs of deeper knowledge ignores structural economic factors such as underdevelopment, scarcity of productive capacities, lack of jobs. The labour market simply reflects this.

[@pyplacca]

I had a senior dev once tell a beginner to just go learn a CSS framework when that junior dev had no knowledge of what CSS is. I was like that’s just the worst advice you could give a beginner.

[@seinfan9]

The solution is actually fostering a culture of apprenticeship. This applies to all subsets of engineering. Don't want people to form bad habits with mediocre skillsets and make the assumption that they should be getting paid like a doctor? Teach them what it takes to be successful.

[@ironyman7015]

How do I get deep knowledge? I never really learned deep about vanilla JS because i didnt have to, React was necessary for what I wanted to work on. But I want to be a good software engineer. So what should I do? Start from learning javascript thoroughly?

[@sebastiankrali2547]

Just ask yourself questions about the technologies that you use and then try to find answers, and if you don’t understand the answers you dive deeper and deeper until you understand atleast something. The tricky part is that you need to be motivated enough to keep on digging, what helps here is personal faszination and if that doesn‘t work there are still thousands of online sources that teach everything and could offer a good starting point Also it will feel overwhelming at first, but don‘t give up, there will come a point where you already know the answers to some questions just from your own knowledge

[@anthonygayflor]

I find it amazing people say deep knowledge isn't important yet their tools that their using wouldn't be possible without it.

[@lucaspayne2546]

This is why I am just learning number theory because I know more easily whether I am stupid

[@travistrue2008]

I agree: build deep knowledge about things. Don't memorize "things about stuff"; understand how it actually works. I keep hearing how Chat-GPT is going to take software engineer jobs, and it's true because we have so many devs just copying and pasting others' code (that probably wasn't very intuitive to begin with). These copy-pasta "developers" have no idea what they plagiarized because they never took the time to understand what they copy-pasted. If all you do is copy others' work, then Chat-GPT is already more valuable because it can at least generate boilerplate code based off of some specs. So, if you want to be more valuable than an AI, then you need to take the time to understand various concepts. It sounds difficult, but it's easier than you think. Just gotta put the time in...

[@carguy-xv2cl]

Although I kind of know React I only focus on backend skills as id rather be a proficient backend developer than a mediocre full stack dev.

[@AmonAsgaroth]

be careful. The job market doesn't (nor did it ever) share JB's opinion. From financial stability POV it might be better to be a mediocre full stack. Especially if you plan to have a life outside of work (family etc.).

[@arjundureja]

These days you'll need to be proficient at both

[@carguy-xv2cl]

Well at smaller companies yeah but larger companies tend to hire specialized frontend and backend. Especially with the rise of microservices its easier to find specialized backend if you know a bit of cloud.

[@locinolacolino1302]

Good on ya, I hope you can convince all your colleagues to follow in a similar path.

[@lastspoil5547]

What .. there are really developers who use React without knowing JS?

[@sanjayakoju4851]

So true.

[@XerosXIII]

yea, not all plumbers going to care about deep knowledge of plumbing system as long it fixes a leak and earn a living. also dont sweat it, just gets better at what you do, dont stop learning

[@crisuar1989]

That situation is real, but it's a problem just only for a few highly sophisticated companies/projects to whom a bad code architecture/structure could mean bankruptcy. We all know high-tier companies that coped with horrible bugs, though they spent tons of money looking for high-end programmers. Imagine what can expect to the rest of the world. So my point is, bad code will exist until an almighty AGI comes to solve our lives... meanwhile we can live with that. We do indeed. Except for those few that need a staff of many god-like devs... they're doomed hahaha

[@anthonyleong4238]

I actually like the algorithms and data structures. I’m just not a good software engineer, though

[@Moch117]

Same. Those who hate it prolly suck at it 😂

[@arjundureja]

You get better with experience. It's very hard to get good at software engineering if you're not already working in a team of engineers + PMs.

[@hottroddinn]

@@arjundureja - *good engineers and good PMs.

[@anthonyleong4238]

@@arjundureja fair enough, I was hoping class and personal projects would help.

[@Kytreeswerving]

We don’t have time to develop deep knowledge. Frameworks changing too fast and they expect newbies to have more badges than a Pokémon master. It’s impossible to have deep knowledge and all the certs.

[@jameswo4794]

In general I’ll say taking on a purist programmer stance is very easy and appealable. Of course having deep knowledge is important. Ideally, an engineer should know the theory (like dsa concepts) and the high level patterns that theory introduces that so many large scale applications and tools leverage today. On the other side, it’d also be great if they understood concrete software and programming language principles and how the tooling works at their company etc. ideally you should have both dimensions of depth to work effectively as a swe (to put it succinctly, you should always understand HOW and WHY something the way it is). But if you’re a junior engineer fresh off doing 500 LC and you join big tech where there’s massive infrastructure and tooling that have solved problems you didnt even know existed, then realistically, do you need the deep knowledge? It’s easy to devolve into a copy and paste API interface engineer bc most of the times that works and that’s all that’s needed of you to get the work done.

[@kklowd]

You could have typed nothing and it would have been the same

[@Boxing_Gamer]

But they have knowledge of a myriad of frameworks, containers, automatic deployment etc etc. All combined that is a whole lot of knowledge.

[@intoTheEther1]

These problems got Johnathon Blowing real heavy. Damn son!