From my observation, the software community seems to be largely segmented into two main subcultures or school of thoughts (while there are many other shades in between or at their intersection): the hacker one and the non hacker one (I will use "enterprise" for lack of a better word).<p>The hacker subculture has a more craftsmanship oriented approach to software development while the enterprise subculture has a more engineering oriented approach.<p>Some technologies that tend to be more commonly associated with the hacker subculture would be Linux, Python/Ruby/Go, REST, etc. And with the enterprise: Java/C#, Windows, Oracle, SOAP, UML, etc. (I might be a bit off here)<p>Obviously, Hacker News is largely dominated by the hacker subculture and since it is my primary source of information, I am sometimes wondering if I am missing out on some valuable knowledge from the other side of the industry (e.g. I stumbled upon infoq.com recently and realised I didn't understand half of the jargon - IT governance, AOP, DDD, APM, etc.).<p>Do you think my assessment is somewhat accurate? If so, any actionable advice on how to get more exposure to the non-hacker side of the industry?
Other than working at an enterprise-type company, getting exposure through watching videos might help. And remember - the best definition of enterprise software that I've ever heard is: enterprise software is when the person buying the software almost is never the one who uses it.<p><a href="https://www.oracle.com/javaone/sessions/index.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.oracle.com/javaone/sessions/index.html</a><p>Based on your brief posting, you might be interested in more CIO-style matters.<p><a href="http://www.cioinsight.com/ciovideos/" rel="nofollow">http://www.cioinsight.com/ciovideos/</a><p>Really, I personally believe the more exposure you have to fields outside of your profession (at least the one you are in for now), the better mental model of the world you want to be part of you produce.<p>I used to work in enterprise software so I can say for sure that it its own unique bubble, just like startups.<p>In fact, read this book:<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Seeing-like-State-Certain-Condition/dp/0300078153" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/Seeing-like-State-Certain-Condition/dp...</a>
I work on enterprise software, and I can tell you that Linux is very big in the enterprise space - it's not just a hacker thing. For example, IBM makes it available on all their server platforms, even their largest mainframes.<p>And from reading the comments on HN for a few years, I know that there are others here who work on enterprise software.<p><i>"I stumbled upon infoq.com recently and realised I didn't understand half of the jargon..."</i><p>The jargon is an ever-changing spew of new names created by marketing people for the same old shit. I've worked in enterprise for my whole career and I don't even understand most of the jargon on my employer's web site.