/r/socialistprogrammers

Photograph via snooOG

A forum in which to collaboratively explore the crossroads where working-class politics meet with computer science.

Let's crash capitalism and bootstrap socialism!

Rules

I. On Topic
Content must be related to Socialism and Programming. Enforced strictly for link-only posts and crossposts. Enforced loosely for discussion posts and OC shitposts.
II. Respect Others
Engage honestly or not at all. Personal attacks will not be tolerated.
III. Self-Promotion
Ask for approval in modmail before self-promotion.
IV. Liberalism
Liberalism must be criticized. Unrepentant liberals will be banned.
V. Drama
Ban.

/r/socialistprogrammers

14,750 Subscribers

1

Weekly Programming Q&A

Ask questions about programming that may have nothing to do with socialism here, or share some of your knowledge with comrades.

0 Comments
2024/04/12
06:00 UTC

2

Weekly Socialism Q&A

Ask all of your questions that you don't feel warrant their own post. Be polite when answering and discussing, and do not fall back on sectarian slurs.

This includes general questions about socialism, not just those related to programming.

5 Comments
2024/04/12
06:00 UTC

9

Physical product development cooperative

I'm and embedded systems guy. I worked with a product development consultancy before and I was also involved with a housing cooperative.

I feel it deeply in my bones that the cooperative model is perfect for a technology consultancy. Many others agree - I mean, it's not exactly a new idea. There is plenty of fairly successful technology cooperatives out there - where the workers are co-owners and decisions are made democratically. That said, most of them seem to be focused on web, apps, DevOps or IT. As an embedded products guy I don't really have an existing organisation I could obviously join. So I thought I might try to play a part in starting one.

So here it is. A very vague post, with not a huge amount of specifics - it's meant to be a broadly cast net to see if there is any interest in people with relevant skillsets (i.e. electronics, embedded software, industrial design, and also very importantly business development) to band together and freelance collectively on projects of our choosing.

I'm currently based in Scotland (not sure for how much longer) and would love to be able to work with people with some degree of face-to-face, but that said in the current day and age a distributed company (even across continents) can work just as well.

1 Comment
2024/04/10
11:17 UTC

2

Weekly Programming Q&A

Ask questions about programming that may have nothing to do with socialism here, or share some of your knowledge with comrades.

0 Comments
2024/04/05
06:00 UTC

1

Weekly Socialism Q&A

Ask all of your questions that you don't feel warrant their own post. Be polite when answering and discussing, and do not fall back on sectarian slurs.

This includes general questions about socialism, not just those related to programming.

0 Comments
2024/04/05
06:00 UTC

36

How could computer hardware manufacturing become sustainable?

So, speaking as someone who isn't a programmer but does know a decent amount about these issues, there's a lot of horrors involved in the production of computers/servers, from the atrocities in the extraction of raw materials both on a human and environmental level, to the pollution and worker mistreatment involved in production, to the extreme water and power costs of running servers that make the net tick.

And, I see a depressing amount of eco-leftists and third-worldists say that this means we can't have a liberated sustainable world and have accessible personal computing even under socialism, that it'd be impossible to get the raw materials without wrecking the environment, that if the people extracting the minerals and building the hardware were paid properly it'd become unaffordable, that it would be impossible to maintain water/power needs for servers sustainably, ect.

And I think that possibility, pardon my french, fucking sucks. And, I figured since y'all are programmers and socialists, you'd probably have a better idea of the logistical side of these issues/problems from a socialist perspective, so I'm wondering, what's your perspective on how all those problems with personal computer production could be dealt with under a socialist system; in a way that might allow it to expand universally even?

I mean, aside from obvious things like "Don't build your water-hungry servers in fucking deserts, Jesus H Christ" and "End the locked down, unrepairable planned obsolescence model of smartphones," stuff that's not evident or often overlooked in this conversation. And, more to the point, what's your views on how we get to there from here?

19 Comments
2024/03/29
23:30 UTC

1

Weekly Programming Q&A

Ask questions about programming that may have nothing to do with socialism here, or share some of your knowledge with comrades.

0 Comments
2024/03/29
06:00 UTC

1

Weekly Socialism Q&A

Ask all of your questions that you don't feel warrant their own post. Be polite when answering and discussing, and do not fall back on sectarian slurs.

This includes general questions about socialism, not just those related to programming.

0 Comments
2024/03/29
06:00 UTC

1

Weekly Programming Q&A

Ask questions about programming that may have nothing to do with socialism here, or share some of your knowledge with comrades.

0 Comments
2024/03/22
06:00 UTC

2

Weekly Socialism Q&A

Ask all of your questions that you don't feel warrant their own post. Be polite when answering and discussing, and do not fall back on sectarian slurs.

This includes general questions about socialism, not just those related to programming.

1 Comment
2024/03/22
06:00 UTC

30

Retaliation Even in the OSS!

Imagine pouring your heart and soul into months of hard work, only to have the opportunity to showcase your efforts at a major conference stripped away from you. How would you feel? I wrote it all here.

It's a bitter pill to swallow when the conference management team, instead of standing by its members and advocating for them, chooses to discard them at the first sign of trouble. This isn't the supportive and inclusive environment we all strive for; it's a betrayal of trust and a disheartening reminder of the power dynamics at play.

#KubeCon #kubecon2024 #kubeconeu #cncf

7 Comments
2024/03/18
14:35 UTC

24

POWERING ON: a 6-week political education and organizing program for tech workers (link in comments)

5 Comments
2024/03/15
10:38 UTC

1

Weekly Programming Q&A

Ask questions about programming that may have nothing to do with socialism here, or share some of your knowledge with comrades.

1 Comment
2024/03/15
06:00 UTC

1

Weekly Socialism Q&A

Ask all of your questions that you don't feel warrant their own post. Be polite when answering and discussing, and do not fall back on sectarian slurs.

This includes general questions about socialism, not just those related to programming.

0 Comments
2024/03/15
06:00 UTC

17

Tired of working in Web

Hi all, new to post but unsure where else to bring up these concerns.

I got into programming from creative and service work as a way to maximize my earnings from my labor. I got myself into a situation where I had to switch jobs a few times to get out of my financial situation involving credit card debt I acquired over the pandemic before I got into coding as a profession. Now fast forward I’ve been busting my butt working as the sole internal developer for a super disorganized brand and the working conditions are not great. Poor management cutting corners, siloed departments discovering fundamental issues after years of being ignored, being included on so many unnecessary threads and meetings irrelevant to my role causing me to have to work late to get my actual work done. There’s a lot more I can add but I won’t. I worked so much overtime this past year I had a few mini mental breakdowns wondering if I’m just trapped in this situation now. I don’t feel excited or any joy going to work anymore.

Even after the company did the best it ever did in terms of revenue for our direct e-comm channel , I got a small bonus of 5k and small salary 5% pay raise which is basically just a Cost of Living adjustment in 2024. I hate to think I contributed so much to this company’s success the past year with the awful conditions I’ve had to work in just to get a tiny reward. Not to mention I’m now also managing a new employee that has been super helpful but should have been here the entire last year as there were previously two devs and external devs for a long time.

Anyway, I started with programming as a creative tech venture (previously made A/V art and am involved in music) and now ended up here. I feel trapped like I took the job because I was desperate for money even though I knew it had the potential to be rough. I can’t really foresee working here long term and feeling happy and am curious if anyone has successfully made a switch out of working in corporate/web/brand side programming into more creative avenues like live programming / creative technology? Im considering even going back to school to get my MFA to have an exit point.

I feel like my heart is very much not with AWS/Google platforms and any of these big SaaS vendors I have to work with everyday. HELP!

3 Comments
2024/03/12
22:10 UTC

1

Weekly Programming Q&A

Ask questions about programming that may have nothing to do with socialism here, or share some of your knowledge with comrades.

0 Comments
2024/03/08
07:00 UTC

2

Weekly Socialism Q&A

Ask all of your questions that you don't feel warrant their own post. Be polite when answering and discussing, and do not fall back on sectarian slurs.

This includes general questions about socialism, not just those related to programming.

1 Comment
2024/03/08
07:00 UTC

123

Tech layoffs are bringing out the anti-Indian racism

This tech layoff wave is bringing out the racism that people have been hiding.

Browse r/cscareerquestions, Blind, etc and it's full of new grad devs blaming their inability to find a job on Indians: https://imgur.com/a/Z19Iog8

Im from Italy and I worked in the US for a company that had many people who transferred from the India office and they were all professional, kind, and skilled. But for these supposed college educated libs on these subreddits, they only notice nepotism, crony capitalism, and despotic managers only when they happen to be Indian. And when they lose their job to India, they don't blame their corporate overlords, or self reflect on the failures of capitalism - no, they blame and lash out at the people who make a sixth of what they make.

And screw their "well all my managers who were ___ only hired their own kind" and "It's a cultural critique, not racial" dog whistle. They unironically fail to realize they're just as racist and reactionary as the altrighters yelling about the "Migrants Took Our Jobs" shit. Having a college degree and still acting this way makes it worse.

18 Comments
2024/03/07
03:49 UTC

10

Facilitation Fundamentals - Training - March 05 (link in comments)

1 Comment
2024/03/03
13:19 UTC

72

We should rename some fundamental piece of open source tech "form a union" to make it harder for companies to union bust via eavesdropping.

If everyone is talking about the problem they're having with "form a union" then that creates tons of false positives for our snooping corporate overlords to deal with. Maybe we can sneak in some actual organization.

I nominate log4j. We will never be rid of those problems, and log4j needs to lose the name recognition. Win win.

4 Comments
2024/03/02
07:30 UTC

1

Weekly Programming Q&A

Ask questions about programming that may have nothing to do with socialism here, or share some of your knowledge with comrades.

0 Comments
2024/03/01
07:00 UTC

6

Weekly Socialism Q&A

Ask all of your questions that you don't feel warrant their own post. Be polite when answering and discussing, and do not fall back on sectarian slurs.

This includes general questions about socialism, not just those related to programming.

0 Comments
2024/03/01
07:00 UTC

5

Weekly Programming Q&A

Ask questions about programming that may have nothing to do with socialism here, or share some of your knowledge with comrades.

0 Comments
2024/02/23
07:00 UTC

6

Weekly Socialism Q&A

Ask all of your questions that you don't feel warrant their own post. Be polite when answering and discussing, and do not fall back on sectarian slurs.

This includes general questions about socialism, not just those related to programming.

1 Comment
2024/02/23
07:00 UTC

66

marxists.org looks awful, help me fix it

Firstly, I am not affiliated with marxists.org at this time.

This seems to be a common sentiment among its users, or at least enough to be in their FAQ.

But I could not find a project that tried to modernize the site, so I did it myself.

I am not really a UI/UX person, so admittedly the UI sucks right now.

Tech stack:

  • tailwind, templ (go templating), htmx
  • postgres
  • typescript (for the parser)

Repos:

Demo: https://youtu.be/0b-LGEGfZuc

12 Comments
2024/02/18
19:12 UTC

1

Weekly Programming Q&A

Ask questions about programming that may have nothing to do with socialism here, or share some of your knowledge with comrades.

0 Comments
2024/02/16
07:00 UTC

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