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Ask HN: As a developer, what are your biggest pain points?

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Re: Ask HN: As a developer, what are your biggest pain points?

#51

Post by corysama »

tluyben2 wrote: post #22

As most clients only appreciate things when they see them; a better enviroment to mock up applications which look and feel like the real thing but take less time than actually implementing the real thing. I used many tools meant for that but usually the endclient (internal or external) says ‘yes thats great’ or ‘come back when its done’, which are basically the same remark in reality. In the first case when you deliv…

This is good. Customers don’t know what they want. It’s not their job. They only know what they don’t want after they see it. Anything that helps customers understand the implications of their own requests cheaper is a huge win for everyone.

Re: Ask HN: As a developer, what are your biggest pain points?

#52

Post by tluyben2 »

noir_lord wrote: post #33
tluyben2 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Besides for research projects or your own company, in my opinion this should always be the case. I see people literally screwing their employers by introducing ‘shiny X’ (usually seen in a frontpage post on HN...) saying it will be faster. It never is in the greater scheme of things and it always costs more because it will have issues.

Couldn't agree more. Outside of work on my own time I play with things I think might be useful or worth using a year or two from now, if they are fantastic, if not I learnt something and had fun. At work it's PHP (I inherited that project sadly), C# and Java, On my radar in the next year are Kotlin and F# (Kotlin particularly since we have java applications in production on industrial handhelds and the codebase previ…

Also been programming since the early 80s and I do by far most programming in my head and on paper (I ‘just have to type it in’; that is mostly bullshit because of the real world vs my abstractions but it does save me a lot of wasted time behind a computer).

Screwing the employer is a tad harsh but I am the employer often and I see people coming up with these things, so I give them some room to play. Usually they just go back to the old ways when they see it is not that silver bullet the Medium article claimed. I just can imagine when someone does this with more power or less supervision within a company as an employee and actually costing the company money for some unproven and resume driven thing which does not necessarily bring any business value.

Re: Ask HN: As a developer, what are your biggest pain points?

#53

Post by serichsen »

- Technical decisions from non-technical people (especially management and politics)

- False commitment to up-front design decisions, even in the face of absurdities and architectural violations

- Inability to throw away code

- Overengineering

- Underengineering

Re: Ask HN: As a developer, what are your biggest pain points?

#55

Post by WheelsAtLarge »

vga805 wrote: post #15

The need to be stationary for 8 hours a day. standing desks help, but not enough. I plan to start doing yoga, which I think will help with this.

A note on this, my doctor tells me that sitting for a long time will ruin your lower back and will cause problems in the future if you are not proactive and minimize it. This is an absolute fact so keep that in mind. He sees it constantly in his older patients.

Re: Ask HN: As a developer, what are your biggest pain points?

#56

Post by mtalantikite »

vga805 wrote: post #15

The need to be stationary for 8 hours a day. standing desks help, but not enough. I plan to start doing yoga, which I think will help with this.

I started a yoga practice at the beginning of the year and it’s been amazing. I wasn’t inactive before — being in NYC I always walk and I used to run a good amount — but yoga has opened my body up further than I really realized was possible. All those years sitting at a desk coding and studying all day really took its toll.

I’d suggest trying a few yoga schools out until you find the teachers you connect with who teach a style you like (I’ve found Ashtanga to work for me). Then just commit yourself to struggle through it for the first couple months until your body starts opening up.

Re: Ask HN: As a developer, what are your biggest pain points?

#57

Post by zoomablemind »

Petty, charted off 'areas of responsibility' that hamper natural collaboration.

These may be cozy to some middle-managers to protect their domain, but ultimately this slows down the project flow via scrolls of email, request tickets, kowtows and 'bribes' just to have some matching project pieces fit. I guess, it's all down to team interactions.

Re: Ask HN: As a developer, what are your biggest pain points?

#58

Post by alain_gilbert »

Not necessarily a developer problem exclusively, but I always have to fight with the AC.

I'm freezing all day long, while some of my coworkers are apparently sweating. I think it has to do with the fact that the AC outside of the conference rooms is much more "efficient", and these coworkers use the conference rooms way more than I do.

Re: Ask HN: As a developer, what are your biggest pain points?

#59

Post by Dannymetconan »

Being told I was getting hired a backend Java developer for a first job and then working in a JavaScript, Java and DevOps full stack role for the last two years.

The frustration that comes from being required to be competent on a large range of technologies because of this and feeling just as I start to invest enough time in one I have to switch to doing something else. Most recently was working with Jenkins and Groovy!

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