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Ask HN: Do you hate software engineering but love programming?

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Re: Ask HN: Do you hate software engineering but love programming?

#111

Post by Trasmatta »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #6

> I have come to a realization that I don't really enjoy Software Engineering(& the processes that it comes with) but I do love programming & solving problems. I can almost guarantee that you’re just at the wrong company. Some software companies can turn even the simplest tasks into a grueling series of processes, endless meetings, and joint work across a big number of “stakeholders”. These companies will take the jo…

What are these unicorn companies? I've worked at 7 companies (and interviewed at many more) and never seen anything close to this mythical "company that values programming and real productivity". I feel like they must be exceptionally rare.

Re: Ask HN: Do you hate software engineering but love programming?

#112

Post by jagtstronaut »

I feel this, but maybe a little different. I love programming, but I don’t love all the framework stuff that you end up constantly managing in a more mature app or the initial set up of all the dependency stuff overwhelms me.

Figuring out why some cloud formation stack BS isn’t working just isn’t fun to me. I prefer the kind of work where I can solve the problem by surfing through the actual code and figuring it out.

Re: Ask HN: Do you hate software engineering but love programming?

#113

Post by ahartmetz »

torben-friis wrote: post #25

I am the exact opposite. I mean, I don’t like processes and meetings, but I do like the planning and architecture part much more than I like actually writing code. Usually, if your mind is decently organized, I find that the problem is solved before writing a single line of code. If that happens, then the actual part of writing becomes dull and mechanical - the problem has already been solved. I’ve never understood p…

You might want to become some kind of technically minded product manager? Good people seem to be especially rare (therefore valuable) in product management.

Re: Ask HN: Do you hate software engineering but love programming?

#114

Post by yashap »

Sounds like you should join an early stage startup - like 5-15 people in the whole company. There will be lots of rapid development of new features, lots of outages, and minimal process. There will still be some refactoring/rearchitecting, but with a lot less code and a lot less users you can do it a lot faster.

You could also consider agency work. There will be more process, a lot more checking in with stakeholders, but you’ll build a wide variety of greenfield projects, and sounds like that’s important to you.

Re: Ask HN: Do you hate software engineering but love programming?

#116

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

I tend to like engineering, but that's because I'm sort of a completionist. I like finishing stuff. I like getting to the point where I no longer have to worry about it, and I do a good job, the first time, so I no longer have to worry about it.

I like to F^3: Finite, Focused, and Finished:

    - Finite: I know what "done" looks like. Tasks have a discrete beginning and end, though the schedule may be fuzzy.

    - Focused: No distractions. I stay on beam, and devote full attention to the task at hand.

    - Finished: I don't stop, until I have reached a point that I can wrap things. I usually punctuate this with a final tagged commit.
I've come to realize that this is kind of an aberration.

I cover it, in a way, in this post: https://littlegreenviper.com/miscellany/thats-not-what-ships...

Re: Ask HN: Do you hate software engineering but love programming?

#117

Post by JohnBooty »

Does anybody enjoy the boring, non-programming bits of software engineering?

I look at it like professional sports. There's a saying: you're paid to practice, 'cause the actual games are fun.

That's the way I look at it. I'd write code for free, more or less. My employer is paying me for all the other crap I slog through: gnarly legacy code, weird bugs, endless meetings, etc.

Re: Ask HN: Do you hate software engineering but love programming?

#119

Post by time_to_smile »

shmatt wrote: post #67
rco8786 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously. It’s hard to imagine a group of 40 people that would need a sufficient velocity of changes/new features to warrant 5 full time engineers.

From my experience, this is pretty common in AI Internal tools used by a dozen or a couple dozen AI engineers/Data Scientists, the models they output used by millions. It's totally worth keeping 5-10 person engineering team to create better and stronger tools that make upgrading and deploying new models easier and faster

> totally worth keeping 5-10 person engineering team

I've worked in AI/ML for a long time, and I can tell you that in all but the rarest of exceptions nobody has sat down and done the math to really determine if that value is there. In my experience, most cases it's not.

I've seen teams like you describe and then asked them "what's the difference in value between what our model does today and the theoretical optimum"? The answer, which nobody liked, was fractions of a penny per user. That means if the team achieved perfection it wouldn't really matter in practice.

We're going to see a lot of the AI/ML teams disappear as companies are forced to focus on determining the real value add being provided.

Re: Ask HN: Do you hate software engineering but love programming?

#120

Post by kraig911 »

Idk__Throwaway wrote: post #106
kraig911 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me it's misogynistic because when I heard it first it's implied that my happiness is tied to a woman. Since I'm happily married and very much in love I know that without her I'd probably end up being a philosopher pondering problems without answers to run away from the trauma of losing her. I've been through it before :)

And how is implying your happiness is tied to a woman misogynistic?

For sake of mental gymnastics I'll humor you. It's misogynistic because it's rooted in I presume in my culture that women generally don't sit and ponder problems, or resort to alcohol, drugs and crime as bad as men when things go bad. Women generally move on. So that belies a certain belief that women are the cause of all problems - And that is misogynistic.
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