Comment by jacoblambda
4 months ago
Frankly there is no value in learning user-hostile proprietary technologies in a way that the owner of said technologies actively wants to discourage and prevent.
Like learn the proprietary tech in the environments it's intended to be used in but if you can't use it in that environment I personally wouldn't waste my time with it. With FOSS tech at least you can make the argument that you can learn stuff by maintaining it properly but with a proprietary stack in an unsupported and actively user hostile environment the best you are going to do is learn how to maintain a fragile truce with the software gods.
Peeling all the way all the politics / idealism from your comment and the value proposition between these two options is basically the same, with the difference being that on a proprietary stack there’s a higher chance of things breaking in a way that you low/no likelihood of fixing. It’s all good and well that it seems like this makes you personally want to throw up in your mouth a bit or whatever, but you are claiming objectivity that clearly isn’t here.
Yeah I'll learn as much as I absolutely have to in order to get my paycheck. Any more and you need to give me a raise.
That's not a good way to make money. It's not how FAANG pays people, and if it is how your employer pays people then you should always be learning so you can change to better jobs.
A funny thing about "never work for free" advice is that a lot of highly paid jobs (investment banking, high end escorts) are about doing tons of client work for free in a way that eventually gets them to pay you way too much when they do pay you.
I learn the interesting stuff, I just don't learn proprietary tech that I really don't ever want to be dependent on for my wages.
In fact most of the essential skills for my job I've learnt in my own time, and continue to learn. I invest my own money in equipment and training courses. I love learning. But only when it's interesting to me, not because it'll make more money to somebody else. If it'll make you more money, pay me.
> Frankly there is no value in learning user-hostile proprietary technologies in a way that the owner of said technologies actively wants to discourage and prevent.
Security research. And, uh, applied security research.