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  • The system has a lot of problems for sure, but IME as a senior software engineer, people without degrees are often lacking in core CS skills and are much less comfortable with the more conceptual aspects of the field like graph theory, systems design, DSLs, etc. Usually database skills aren't quite as strong either due to not having studied relational algebra and other database concepts.

    None of this is to say that someone without a degree can't be a valuable part of the team, but at the higher levels of seniority, you do want people who have really strong foundations so you can ensure that you actually are building strong foundations. A degree doesn't guarantee these qualities, but it certainly makes a person much more likely to have them. Not saying someone without a degree can't possibly achieve this on their own, but it's quite rare and requires much more self study than most actually do.

  • First off, videos on tiktok aren't really worth taking seriously. There's just too much fake garbage on there.

    But anyway, the cost of education is absolutely a huge problem. It should be free or very low cost.

    That being said, it's simply demonstrably false to claim that a degree is useless or doesn't help you get a job. There are many fields where a degree is an absolutely a requirement, like medicine, law, engineering, etc. The specific degree does matter a lot, though, and there are other important job hunting skills that you need to develop in order to actually get a job.

    Speaking from personal experience, every job I've had thus far (as a software engineer) has listed a 4 year degree as either a hard requirement or strongly preferred. I do not believe recruiters would have given me the time of day were it not for my degree, because they are looking to match as many requirements as possible and are filtering people out. And when applying for jobs, ATS programs routinely filter out job applications with resumes that don't list a degree.

    Job seeking is an extremely gameified system and you have to learn the game in order to beat it. It sucks big time and I loathe doing it, but it's what you have to do if you want to get high-paying jobs. That, or know someone at a company that can get you a job.

  • There are many other FOSS CMS systems, and WordPress has always been trash from a technical perspective. It just was one of the first options in the early internet and consequently developed an ecosystem early. Would be great if it would go away so it stops sucking all of the air out of the room and alternatives can pick up steam.

  • File-based navigation is often inefficient anyway (symbolic navigation is much better when you can), but if you do need it, that's what fuzzy finders are for. Blows any mouse-based navigation out of the water.

    The only time a visual structure is useful is when you are actually just interested in learning how things are structured for whatever reason, but for that task, tree works just fine anyway.

  • Generally the Rust Book, even in comparison to most languages, is considered to be very good and it is the expected way to learn the language. It won't teach you everything, but it does give you a very solid foundation. The Rust community has put considerable effort into their learning materials.

  • I don't think you've paid enough attention. Back when ChatGPT first launched, they were treated as saints.

    The negative opinions have corresponded with public sentiment souring towards them in general (this did happen quite quickly, however).

  • They're perhaps not wrong. I've been told before that I should summarize my explanations on Slack into bullet points to make them easier to digest. This is for stuff that's like maybe 3 paragraphs and is frankly not that hard to understand.

    A lot of people are pretty stupid, but worse than that is that so many are just downright lazy and obstinate and refuse to put any effort whatsoever into actually engaging with content that requires thought.

  • It's far from cut and dry, and there are multiple schools of thought and conflicting interpretations. Steven Hijmans is a revisionist. Traditionally, it's indeed believed that it was originally a pagan holiday in celebration of Sol Invictus.

    Steven Hijmans presents an alternative interpretation of the various texts that challenges this understanding. He may or may not be correct, but nevertheless, one should not assume that his views reflect a consensus among historians.

  • The best is trying to change the styling of page-builder plugins that shove their css god-knows-where in the Frankenstein's monster that is the WordPress database schema.

    I'm so glad that I'm a million miles from WordPress now. I'm convinced it's propped up entirely by contractors and ad agencies with minimal to no understanding of how to actually build software and just build on a mountain of hacks to do anything at all.