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Ask HN: What's the best way to monetize actual programming?

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Re: Ask HN: What's the best way to monetize actual programming?

#121

Post by twohaibei »

boring_twenties wrote: post #109
twohaibei wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you like to describe some of your history and day to day life now? Its so far away from what I do I'm fascinated what HFT job entails.

Well, it's not really all that different from any other programming gig, just very low-level. If you have enjoyed systems or maybe embedded programming in the past, you're probably at least a decent candidate. It's a lot of fun overall, but still, not 100% of the time, for instance you have to interact with dozens of different protocols, all of which are braindead in their own special way. People skills are also more…

Thank you :)

Re: Ask HN: What's the best way to monetize actual programming?

#122

Post by cryptica »

Tabular-Iceberg wrote: post #118
cryptica wrote: post #73

It's quite unusual to find agency work which rewards good programming. Most agency work involves adding unnecessary complexity and bugs to keep the client coming back for fixes... Then after some time the client becomes dependent on the agency... At that point you can take longer and longer to implement features to bill more and more hours. It rewards bad code. Most software agencies sell labour hours, not quality so…

I agree that this is how the industry works, intentionally delivering garbage to be able to sell more billable hours. But is it the only viable strategy? What would it take to compete with high quality work instead? Where your repeat business doesn't come from fixing everything you did wrong, but it comes from your reputation of getting it right the first time around? In a market where there's a surplus of consultant…

The only area I could find where this 'clean and maintainable code' approach is appreciated is in open source. In open source, it's not about money (it's rarely the primary motivator); it's about meeting goals so developers try to be extremely economical with their limited free time.

I don't think it's possible for the commercial software industry to optimize for good code so long as engineers are paid hourly and the industry has monopolistic dynamics which externalize fanaticism and internalize complacency.

To make it work in a commercial context, developer remuneration would have to be based on results (over a medium to long term of at least 6 months) and there would need to be a genuinely competitive environment where everyone has equal opportunity to prove themselves to the market (not prove themselves to management). It has to be tied to user feedback somehow. This is pretty much what happens in open source but would be hard to implement in a commercial setting.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best way to monetize actual programming?

#124

Post by Tabular-Iceberg »

cryptica wrote: post #122
Tabular-Iceberg wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that this is how the industry works, intentionally delivering garbage to be able to sell more billable hours. But is it the only viable strategy? What would it take to compete with high quality work instead? Where your repeat business doesn't come from fixing everything you did wrong, but it comes from your reputation of getting it right the first time around? In a market where there's a surplus of consultant…

The only area I could find where this 'clean and maintainable code' approach is appreciated is in open source. In open source, it's not about money (it's rarely the primary motivator); it's about meeting goals so developers try to be extremely economical with their limited free time. I don't think it's possible for the commercial software industry to optimize for good code so long as engineers are paid hourly and the…

Yes, you'd probably need to either do fixed cost projects where developers get a share of the profits, or simply giving them bonuses on completion of each project to give a financial incentive to do more projects faster. But then again each project has a marginal cost, so it may still make more sense to do as few as possible, even in a market where demand exceeds supply.

But if we're going to screw the customers, why not gold plate everything instead? Even if the developers aren't rewarded with money, doesn't that make for a much more pleasant work environment? If the objective is taking as long as possible to accomplish the task, isn't it more rewarding to build a sparkling jewel than a ball of mud? It may even be somewhat less unethical, since the customer at least gets a quality product out of it, instead of garbage.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best way to monetize actual programming?

#125

Post by chefandy »

dnautics wrote: post #117
InitialLastName wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you have bills to pay, no generational wealth to act as a safety net, and live in a place whose social safety net has been designed to heavily favor employees of large businesses.

For the record, I don't think that's as big a deal. Aside from the generational wealth thing, which I am certain biases the founding type, some of the best founders came about because they had nothing to lose.

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