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0 pointsjsprogrammer11y ago0 comments

But these are only tangentially related to the real-world in the sense that a over-a-century-old monopolist family & corporation has constructed systems to enrich themselves and requires maintenance on those systems to continue to extract ever more currency from their customers (or non-customers, aka 'market', as it may be).

Most people's conception of real-world problems would be more along the lines of making sure every human being has enough food to survive and thrive, has access to all the world's knowledge and educational materials, or is safe from violence.

But sure, I guess slightly more accurate estimates of retailer quarterlies (which are actually being kept track of in totality) and 'black-box' tinkering is somebody's real-world.

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dsacco11y ago· 1 in thread

That wasn't Patrick's point at all. You're conflating "real problems" with "problems that have a measurable impact on a moral concern of mine." This is the wrong way to look at Stroustrup's claim, and by extension, Patrick's comment.

Morgan Stanley has plenty of "real problems" in that they have plenty of challenging and exciting technical problems that rival those you would see at a top tech company. It isn't fair to dismiss someone's reasons for joining a top Wall St firm as purely financial, because it has many technical challenges to offer very skilled engineers.

Couple this with the fact that, let's face it, most people at AmaGooBookSoft simply aren't "changing the world" in the moral revolutionist sense of the term, and that most of the top tech companies have so much technical debt that many of their engineering teams are focused on maintaining old CRUD apps.

I can perfectly understand Stroustrup's decision here. You'll almost always be sorely disappointed if you join a company for its glamorous reputation. On the other hand, it's objectively verifiable that some companies have truly challenging technical problems, and others don't.

jsprogrammerOP11y ago

First, you've changed the terminology. Bjarne said "real-world problems", not just "real problems". Second, ensuring everyone has access to food is not a "moral concern", but an actual, real-world problem. As in, the "world" has not been able to solve it or accomplish it.

I have no doubt MS has "real problems", but they are primarily "Morgan Stanley problems" of the type I described in my first post.

Third, I made no claims or comparisons to "AmaGooBookSoft". From what I can tell, they aren't too much into solving most of the problems I described, although Google and perhaps some others have made good progress towards expanding access to knowledge and educational materials.

Fourth, I didn't "dismiss someone's reasons"; only confronted them directly, which is pretty much the opposite of 'dismiss'.

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