Subject: Full-Stack Engineer (PHP) - New York City, NY - 6 Months - Locals Only F2F Mandatory
What the Heck is Full-Stack?
A new buzz word to put on the resume. Oh Gosh.
I've been seeing this new term "FullStack" show up for about a year now. And I have been ignoring it for about a year now as well. At first it seemed to be associated with Java programmers like "Mandatory gotta have: Need Java Full Stack Developer" as if Java had come out with a new programming language or extension called Java Full-Stack.
In the world of programming has anything NEW ever came out in the past 50 years that is somehow different from an "if-then" statement? Not that I am aware of. Is Python any different from Basic or C?
Not really.
Just dressed up the if-then statement is all I ever see. Let’s use two curly braces rather than one curly brace {}. Wow, that’s so kool. About the only difference I ever see or have to worry about is, do I put a period at the end or a semicolon or nothing? There is really no unique difference between any programming language I have ever came across or had to learn.
Quantum Computing
I keep watching this new quantum computing stuff with the ability to get away from the binary bit banging 0's-1's. It takes a bit banger to know a bit banger. You know who you are! Quantum computing is nice, but without a processor to go with the quantum "all possible simultaneous at once" scenario, then we have to wait on it.
D-Wave has a quantum processor and even google has one in house, I am told by a friend of a friend, and there are chips in the works with qubits Josephson junctions that can hold a qubit. But still, can't order on online yet.
So I guess we wait.
Alpho GO was also interesting. A program that plays previous versions of itself to adjust it's next value and search policy with a limited monti-carlo tree search subset to out compete its old self I thought was a good design. It's an interesting algorithm (they call it artificial intelligence...maybe it is) but no doubt just a collection of "if-then" statements running on a "C" compiler on top of a stack of intel processors. I see applications for this outside of gaming such as powertrain controllers that self-calibrate.
So back to the question: What the heck is Full-Stack?
Recently I have been seeing "Full-Stack" show up more and more in the job descriptions that flood in every day.
I've been programming computers for over 35 years now. Yeah, I'v been around a while but just so you know, I don't feel like it.
So my question is, does anyone else get these hokey job descriptions asking for "Full-Stack" and just what exactly does it mean?
As you can see from the above title this recruiter was asking for a "Full-Stack Engineer (PHP)". Now I know PHP, I have been programming in that language for the past couple of years, in addition to 5 or 6 others that all look and feel and do exactly the same thing. But for the life of me, I have never seen mentioned 1 time, "Full Stack".
So I have several PHP reference book, so I just pulled this one off the shelf: "Beginning PHP and MySQL, From Novice to Professional. PHP 5 and PHP 6 1044 pages by W. Jason Gilmore Apress 2008 ISBN-13: 978-1-59059-862-2". This is just one book. This one comes with a 300 page companion book and I have several PHP reference books. And looking in the Index, I see absolutely nothing mentioned about "Full Stack". I see "Full Text Indexes, MySQL" starting on page 913. I see "Full-Text Search, MySQL" beginning on page 923. But nothing mentioned about "Full-Stack(PHP)". Nothing Not a word.
The guy with the job does say "Engineer". Now I have a 4 year Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Engineering. I know what an Engineer is. I am one! I earned the exclusive right to call myself an Engineer. An Engineer is all he really needs. As long as he has an Engineer, he don't need nothing else.
So here's the problem.
The guy is out looking to fill a job description for a "Full-Stack Engineer (PHP)" and will not be able to find this person because he is looking for a programming technology that just does not exist. And this non-existent person must be local to New York. I suppose because they don't want to pay any travel expenses. And if they do find this person, they are only going to keep you around for 6 months, max. So this means you will be living in expensive hotels for 6 months before they tell you 'so-long' and flip you back out onto the street. Wow that sounds like a nice job. Where do I sign up.
So should I apply to his job, or ignore him?
Do other people get these same crazy job descriptions from recruiters or is it just me?
Thanks,
Doug
