Comment by alexjplant | Hacker News Reader

Comment by alexjplant | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

I will also say that starting to use Linux in earnest around the age of 20 was a very humbling experience having been raised on Windows. Back in the 00s being able to deal with Microsoft esoterica by way of registry hacks and MMC snap-in wizardry meant that you were a "smart computer kid" that non-technical folks found impressive. It wasn't until I started using an OS that acted more consistently and predictably that I realized I'd been building a career (and decently-sized ego) out of Microsoft-specific make-work. Being freed up to learn more timeless and universal concepts lined up perfectly with my college coursework centered around writing shells, compilers, etc. and completely changed how I interacted with computers for the better.

Apropos - if I ever win the lottery and don't need a job I'm going to spend some time learning Plan 9. Superficially it seems to be Unix without many of the warts combined with some concepts from NT/VMS that make good sense.

> building a career (and decently-sized ego) out of Microsoft-specific make-work

This can be quite a successful career, probably even if you start today.

That's what I'm doing right now because it's easy. I need to look for more challenging work soon.

My brother built his company (IT services in the manufacturing sector) on the back of Microsoft starting in the mid 90s. He's done extremely well and continues to work on interesting stuff (these days cloud, complex databases, CRM, etc). Employees are by-and-large long term and well compensated. Not FAANG numbers to be sure, but we're in a city with a reasonable CoL.

But he focused on building a long-term sustainable business, not chasing some buzzword-du-jour, VC funded pipedream with a quick exit, and thus no matter his personal success will never have any HN cred.

> and thus no matter his personal success will never have any HN cred

These sorts of comments really don't fit with what I've seen here. HN is very encouraging even of personal projects.

I interpreted this more as his friend wouldn’t be respected as much by the HN crowd because he’s an entrepreneur with a sustainable lifestyle business, not one that is based on hot cutting-edge tech, breaking new ground, or having the possibility of a 9-10 digit exit. (note: been working in startups most of my career, no options were ever worth a cent so I take it all with a grain of salt and don’t judge)

It’s also similar to working for a boring shipping company vs working at FAANG. You could be doing an identical job at both, but one is perceived by some to have a special cachet.

> his friend wouldn’t be respected as much by the HN crowd because he’s an entrepreneur with a sustainable lifestyle business, not one that is based on hot cutting-edge tech, breaking new ground, or having the possibility of a 9-10 digit exit

That is indeed what it says, but I've never seen anything to substantiate this. Lots of people are very curious about people who have side hustles, or side hustles that became main hustles. HN is a set of pretty un-herdlike individuals, and you're as likely to see someone who thinks socialism's a great idea as someone who thinks capitalism's lifted billions out of poverty.

> if I ever win the lottery and don't need a job I'm going to spend some time learning Plan 9.

I'd recommend adding OpenGenera and IBM's systems I and Z to that list: a whole bunch of us build careers out of unnecessary unix make-work too

Also Mesa/XDE, Mesa/Cedar, Burroughs, Oberon, AOS, TAO, Solo, MacOS and Lisa OS, Inferno, Amiga, Singularity, Midori.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com