I have worked in couple of Big Techs and they don't care what languages are you proficient in. All that matters is if you're comfortable in the domain they are hiring. Learning languages and frameworks are easier.

So pick a domain you want to explore, like working with services, or mobile, or mobile architecture, web etc

I personally started my journey with Python for back-end and I still love it and do my micro projects in Python.

In industry, I've worked with C#, Java, Golang, Python and concepts I learned during my exploration were super useful in my work. These concepts were handling of data, caches, running services, scaling them up, cloud etc etc

I'm sure there is similar story for mobile and web.

So TL;DR, pick a domain you want to explore and pick a language you're comfortable in. Build expertise in the domain and not the language/framework.

Not that expertise in language/framework doesn't matter, I just personally feel from my experience in industry that domain knowledge is valued more.

Google maps moat isn’t evaporating. Most of the alternative mentioned here work only either in certain cities in US (like Apple Maps) or in specific countries.

I’m a user in India and nothing, absolutely nothing comes close to Google maps in both urban and rural areas.

Your statement does not contradict the general idea that its moat is evaporating.

10 years ago, most of the alternatives mentioned didn't even work in certain US cities or specific countries, and that's changed. It's only a matter of time before that holds true in India, and beyond. What that slow and steady march towards parity does to a moat can certainly be described as "evaporation".

> Your statement does not contradict the general idea that its moat is evaporating

Personally I think it does because frankly speaking this sort of change tends to happen in the US/Canada and maybe a handful of other western countries at best and nowhere else, for reasons far greater than tech enthusiasts' belly-aching.

Take Apple Maps as an alternative, for example, which is pretty much only available on Apple devices and can thus not march towards parity amongst populations that simply cannot afford Apple devices (which is the majority of people on Earth). It's not just "a matter of time" before Apple Maps is a real challenger in India, because iPhones have a low-single-digit market share there. It would take actual significant action such as Apple releasing Apple Maps for Android for it to even be in the running, and even if that happens then it would still need to contend with Google Maps' existing foothold.

Right and before the alternatives didn’t even work in those specific places. Ergo there’s no reason to think there won’t be changes to competitors in 5 years in India.

So if CIA uses GNU/Linux and Libreoffice then should we gross out about Linux and stop using it?

Microsoft might have billions of problems but CIA using windows and PowerPoint isn't one of them.

If the FSF becomes a CIA vendor, I'm definitely out. Your analogy doesn't quite make sense, though. Neither Linux nor GNU are vendors to anyone. If they were, it would throw enough of their mission into question that most people would stop supporting them and fork everything.

Curious, why does Samsung need to have Phone booted up for battery repair? I recently had a battery replacement done for my iPhone and I had similar concerns if I need to give them Phone unlocked, but they asked me to turn off Phone. That is what I expect from battery repair!

You want to turn it back on to validate everything is working right and it’s all plugged in correct. You also want to validate you didn’t break anything else while attempting the repair

And also(sadly necessary) you want to stop scammers who will send you a broken phone and then pretend you broke it. So you want to switch it on before and after the repair.

Especially the screen. I mean you have to rip off the screen to get to the internals. Lots of people already have cracked screens and it is hard to put them back on without making the cracks even bigger. A small crack with no chromatic effects can easily make those from the prying. Why would you not want to validate the quality of the screen after you have just been wrestling with it?

Oh man, HTC 10 was the worst phone I owned in terms of repair-ability (I even saw one phone repair place explicitly saying they don't support that phone). Not only you risk screen (primarily) and other components damage. You can also break the phone in subtle ways when putting it back[1] and reopening it back is again tough because you need to unglue the screen first to get to screws.

Having a builtin validating code as one commenter mentioned would be a godsend, but nearly all companies do everything they can to make customers not want their phones repaired.

[1] things like some sensors not working, accidentally clipping the tape with buttons, touch screen being funky (although that likely was due to non genuine screen), or my favorite - gps working but never able to get exact location)

I destroyed an iPhone 6 Plus screen one time reassembling it. Apparently I switched a 1.7 mm screw with a 1.3 mm, and when I popped it back together then entire screen (which wasn’t working for touch anyway) shattered.

Can't they have a signed "self-test" image that they can boot up and it checks the phone? This wouldn't have access to any user data but can boot up and check that all of the components are working. This sounds much quicker and more effective than prodding at the user's OS anyways.

That sounds like repair mode

At least on my phone (Samsung), the "self-test" app is on the /system partition, which is where the user OS is, and you need to boot normally to use it. You can run it by entering *#0*# in the dialer, no need to flash anything.

Having a dedicated test image (like /recovery) is a possibility, but it wouldn't be the same environment as the user. The kernel may be different, maybe some runtime calibration data would be missing, and most customers want to see their phone working after a repair.

In high volume test and repair environments this exists, but part of how they can do it is they erase and overwrite the data on the phone. When you don’t care about the users data this becomes much easier. Data migration is a pain. (Esp when it’s not yours)

I worked at a phone repair place for a few years about a decade ago. This would have been great! However, it wasn't something that existed.

Plus, a lot of phones give out diagnosic info (current going in, battery voltage, current going out, etc.)

Phones also have induction chargers on their back plates (Qi, usually to charge heaphones and stuff), that have to be enabled in software to charge.

In my case they ran a diagnosis over the network to make sure everything is working.

Diagnosis software is built into iPhone so I can put a trust on it that it ain't sharing private data to the store employees.

Similarly they ran a diagnosis again at the end of repair. They did boot up the phone my themselves and ran it. Looks like they can run diagnosis on locked Phone.

This is overall much better than asking to unlock Phone.

When I had my iPhone battery changed, they explicitly said it should be unlocked and / or I should give them the code. So I went through the trouble of backing everything up, wiping the phone clean, and then reinstalling everything when I got it back.

If there was some kind of "status debug port" or whatever, the technicians could've done the various checks the sibling talks about without needing full control of my phone.

I replied to another thread and adding here again, they have diagnosis tool built into iPhone that can be triggered over the network when connected to same WiFi. This also works when Phone is locked.

This is how my repair went through. At no point they asked for my passcode or to unlock Phone.

This.

I assume the technician wants to make sure the phone still works after they replace the battery...

It’s not just Samsung Apple does the same. I was shocked when I wanted to replace my iphone display and the technician asked me to turn off pass code. Like he didn’t even give me another choice. I did a quick backup on icloud and wiped my phone and gave it. It was annoying to restore everything.

In India, this is known as mass recruiting where IT recruiters like TCS and Infosys hire about to graduate students in bulk irrespective of their stream or experience.