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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?

#711

Post by krageon »

cjcenizal wrote: post #474
emadabdulrahim wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Common sense is dead. Certain groups of people lack self and/or social awareness to notice that they've replaced religion with ideology. For example, we criticize religion for shaming many parts of our sexuality "Welcome to church, you're a sexual being and you should be ashamed". Now that's been replaced with "You're a man, you should feel guilty because you're from the oppressor group." etc. Welcome to Western soci…

I think recognizing one’s privilege is uncoupled from how you choose to feel about it.

That's a good point. There's absolutely no reason to feel bad about being privileged. You should be happy! Perhaps spread some of that happiness around, make the world a happier place. Everyone wins.

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

#712

Post by krageon »

xigoi wrote: post #692
concordDance wrote: post #592

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can and should do better than them, not descend to their level. It's obvious to any reader that the parent was just making a bold assertion.

How do you prove that something is false if you weren't given a reason why it should be true in the first place?

By saying what you just said. It's already better than saying "No u".

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

#713

Post by philosopher1234 »

zmgsabst wrote: post #699
philosopher1234 wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are a misogynist. This is literally the first sentence. Your post is shamefully misleading. > Aristotle saw women as subject to men, but as higher than slaves, and lacking authority; he believed the husband should exert political rule over the wife.

Yawn — you name calling because you think a cherry picked quote about family dynamics defines an entire philosopher’s view is the bad faith I’ve come to expect from people of your persuasion. Your post is more misleading than mine: you’re hanging your entire opinion on a de-contextualized cherry-picked line and using that to ignore other parts of the philosopher’s work. Go on, scream about how everyone who disagrees…

You are incapable of recognizing misogyny, and see it as an all or nothing quality. You need to think more deeply.

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

#714

Post by Doxin »

xiphias2 wrote: post #679
015a wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And every time these posts come around, someone immediately jumps in and plays a character in Office Space, saying "oh the engineers don't like talking to people, that's why I'm valuable". Look at all the recent layoffs; get the data and ask around "how many Engineers with 1+ years of seniority were impacted by the layoffs". The number is dwarfed by literally every other business function. Dwarfed. Your probability o…

While I agree with you, I think sales is the most important job category besides engineering, and the usual problem is with the people who put themselves between sales and engineering. To know how important sales is, just see what is the most important talent to be paired with a programmer in a 2-person startup. The ratio of sales to engineering at the same time depends on the required growth / burn rate of the compa…

The real trouble starts when sales can dictate what engineering works on. I did an internship at a company with a 10:1 sales:engineering ratio and it was living hell. You'd have salespeople coming in three times a day with the equivalent of "I sold such and such feature to a client, we need it next week.'

Everything was rushed. Nothing worked right.

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

#715

Post by aprdm »

davidw wrote: post #183
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…

I think the real "unicorns" are * Small/medium size companies where you recognize most everyone even if you don't work with them. There are enough people so you don't have to do things you're not qualified for like in the very early days of a startup. * Steady growth, but not crazy, venture fueled moonshots. * Selling something that earns enough money to grow the business in a fairly organic way. I worked in a place…

Might be the exception but I’m at a company with tens of thousand of people and we don’t have many rituals, if you want to solve a problem you go and do it. But you do have to own your solution.

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

#716

Post by jimbomins »

I find the opposite. Analysis, requirements capture and design get you to the point where programming is required. But it's the least interesting part of the process.

I don't consider Agile as software engineering it's managed hackery intended to keep people sprinting until they drop.

Programming as an aspect of analysis is however fun.

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

#717

Post by jimbomins »

jimbomins wrote: post #716

I find the opposite. Analysis, requirements capture and design get you to the point where programming is required. But it's the least interesting part of the process. I don't consider Agile as software engineering it's managed hackery intended to keep people sprinting until they drop. Programming as an aspect of analysis is however fun.

To be clearer than my first post. The whole set of processes that are software engineering are fun, including dealing with people for requirements, design, analysis. But programming at the end is like writing up the final report once you have the answer.

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

#718

Post by jimbomins »

jonas21 wrote: post #290
itake wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve worked at 3-4 small companies (less than 30 employees) and I’ve never been happy. There is always 1 person that makes my life miserable (constantly rejecting my ideas, ego is larger than their experience level, etc). I’ve worked at a 100, and two 1,000 engineer count companies and I never met any “coding princesses” in those roles. I think part of the problem that triggers this is in small companies, one enginee…

> At large companies no one feels like they own 100% of the code, and each change is very collaborative. That's how you end up with endless process, design by committee, and having a dozen meetings with all "stakeholders" before actually writing any code. I'd much rather work at a place where individuals or small groups have a strong vision on the code and product and are capable on executing independently on that. I…

Small groups of 1+ with a vision isn't really software engineering though. You aren't building to solve someone else's problem and it's that which is engineering. Turning up to the beach with bricks and cement on a whim with mates to create a small damn because it's your vision? Well that's kind of build it and (hope) they will come.

Or to be kinder. If you are filling your own hole (identified need) you can be more free in your approach. After all only you decide if it's right, finished, a failure or success.

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

#719

Post by jimbomins »

lelanthran wrote: post #504
mindcrime wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't upvote this enough times. Time and time again you see this: people say "I hate agile because of X, Y and Z" where X, Y, and Z - at best - are orthogonal to the idea of Agile, and at worst (and perhaps even "ordinarily") are complete anathema to the spirit of Agile. Sorry, but anybody who thinks Agile is about velocity, story points, planning poker, standups, retrospectives, backlog grooming, etc. has been sold…

> Sorry, but anybody who thinks Agile is about velocity, story points, planning poker, standups, retrospectives, backlog grooming, etc. has been sold a bill of goods. Now that's not to say that those things don't have (some) value. Spot on. You and parent have hit the two points that matter: 1. Agile is about removing impediments to productivity 2. velocity, story points, planning poker, standups, retrospectives, bac…

"removing impediments" - just sounds like good managers in any process. Bad managers often are an impediment.

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

#720

Post by jimbomins »

RHSman2 wrote: post #579
mindcrime wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

/u/lr4444lr and /u/ajmurmann nailed it. "Agile" is just what the Agile Manifesto says. Strictly speaking, "Agile" in and of itself isn't even a methodology - it's just a set of principles, to which a number of concrete methodologies claim some association. They differ in the degree to which they faithfully represent the spirit of the manifesto. So really, you're never "doing Agile". You're "doing $X" where $X can be…

Difference between doing Agile and being agile is the same as education. You can have engineers who are educated well and you can have engineers who get stuff done, well without a high level of ‘education’.

If you have an engineer the whole point of them being able to claim the title is they are educated and expert in their field. Without knowledge and expertise in a field you aren't going to get any engineering done.

Which is different to saying anyone trained to be an engineer will be able to get stuff done. But getting stuff done was always a recnognised requirement of an engineer; i.e. by definition they should be getting stuff done.

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