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I don’t belong in tech

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Re: I don’t belong in tech

#61

Post by kabes »

rm999 wrote: post #23

The author makes some great points that I initially wanted to dismiss, but I think are actually really interesting. Unlike many other types of engineering/craft, most experienced software developers have settled on an aversion to perfectionism. A good carpenter wants to build a solid house even if no one will ever see its frame. Ditto to an auto engineer at BMW, or a hardware engineer at Apple, or a mechanical engine…

I think it's mainly because software engineering is still more an art than a science.

Although we may have formal engineering education, most of us end up making business logic where there are few rules on how to do it. You can't compare it with building a bridge, which has a strict mathematical workflow.

Re: I don’t belong in tech

#62

Post by chris_wot »

Slartie wrote: post #30
dunkelheit wrote: post #7

Maybe she should quit doing user-facing stuff and try getting into systems programming for a change. Or some other area where sloppy solutions lead to tangible reduction of business value and thus are not tolerated. Tech is big, no need to quit all of it.

Totally seconding this. Just trying to "quick fix" apparent bugs, without having understood the complex problem in its entirety beforehand, is a pretty bad approach in quite some areas of the tech world. This is true for most server-side work, for example - you just can't put a band-aid type solution on a problem created by a weird race condition between different requests processed in parallel, because you most like…

I'm not entirely sure that she's right in tarring the whole industry with the same brush.

Taking a bug out to tea is fantastic, because it really is about understanding the problem. But she conflates maintenance coding and program writing. There is a lot of half-baked software out there, but to say that this isn't like any other industry - like journalism - is really patently absurd. Despite best intentions, journalism is absolutely like programming. A sub-editor is really just like your QA department in many ways. And just like she made a mistake in a script on NPR unintentionally, so too do programmers.

This piece is really a mass of contradictions. Take the following:

But here’s the thing. No one will ever remember that number. No one remembers it now, and I’m sure no one noticed it when it happened. But I knew it happened, that it was an easily preventable mistake, and, in journalism, being wrong in that way is absolutely unacceptable.

So... what is it? Was it unacceptable that the figure got into the story to the extent that she got fired? No, of course not - I'm assuming NPR ran a correction, and forgave her for her mistake.

I really doubt most programmers are going out of their way to slap together code that has deliberate bugs. Yeah, they exist but to say any software development house that writes email clients, job seeking sites or any other software are intentionally encouraging this sort of behaviour seems to be an insult to the vast majority of founders and software developers who work hard to hone their craft and take care to produce quality software.

This essay seems overly emotionally wrought and with a perspective that is out of kilter with reality. For me, despite her protestations that she is no better than all the others who work at software development, there's an implicit undertone of superiority masked by claims of victimisation and isolation. It's not particularly fair, and it seems rather manipulative to me.

Re: I don’t belong in tech

#63

Post by rm999 »

woah wrote: post #38
rm999 wrote: post #23

The author makes some great points that I initially wanted to dismiss, but I think are actually really interesting. Unlike many other types of engineering/craft, most experienced software developers have settled on an aversion to perfectionism. A good carpenter wants to build a solid house even if no one will ever see its frame. Ditto to an auto engineer at BMW, or a hardware engineer at Apple, or a mechanical engine…

I'll have to disagree. I used to be a carpenter and the objective is definitely not to be perfect. Building anything, houses or apps, the objective is to work within tolerances. The modern system of 2x4 framing and drywall allows those tolerances to be very loose without affecting the end product, but I digress. Would you prefer a half-finished house with perfectly cut studs (that you can't see inside the drywall), o…

There's a huge difference in economics. A house will be used, so looser tolerances in carpentry are not obviously good and are seen by many as a bad trend. Sure, you may not die from those lower tolerances, but you'll likely regret it. See for example http://www.mcmansionhell.com/post/150597521816/mcmansions-10...

The median house will be used for decades, the median software is used for months (maybe days, or even minutes). This is really what my point is.

Re: I don’t belong in tech

#64

Post by rokhayakebe »

DannyBee wrote: post #54
rm999 wrote: post #23

The author makes some great points that I initially wanted to dismiss, but I think are actually really interesting. Unlike many other types of engineering/craft, most experienced software developers have settled on an aversion to perfectionism. A good carpenter wants to build a solid house even if no one will ever see its frame. Ditto to an auto engineer at BMW, or a hardware engineer at Apple, or a mechanical engine…

" A good carpenter wants to build a solid house even if no one will ever see its frame. Ditto to an auto engineer at BMW, or a hardware engineer at Apple, or a mechanical engineer at Boeing. Why do software engineers break this mold? " They don't, but a good carpenter is not going to try to figure out how to make every single wall perfectly 90 degrees, etc. He's going to take a level, see if the thing is in a center…

Instead, you sat on a mountain and meditated upon your code, until you understood it well enough to fix the problem and try again.

:)

Re: I don’t belong in tech

#65

Post by sctb »

danellis wrote: post #25
dominotw wrote: post #19

overly flowery writing made it really hard to get at the core point the author was trying to make. from what i got she wants everthing to be perfectly done with unlimited time. I would imagine one of the core qualities of software dev is figuring out what level of perfection is acceptable. Not everything in the world need to be 100% perfect, Walmart exists for a reason. That said its a welcome attitude in world full…

This kind of vacuous, meandering, self-indulgent drivel would be torn to shreds if it had been written by a man.

This comment is uncivil, unsubstantive ("if false then X"), and introduces a classic flamewar topic with nothing at all to say about it, new or otherwise. Please do not do this here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: I don’t belong in tech

#66

Post by orasis »

s_q_b wrote: post #48

I apologize if you assumed this was a story about a difference rooted in race and gender, because it is not. That’s not where we are going. That's not an apology. You deliberately manipulated your audience by playing on their fears of being deemed discriminatory, their anxiety over real ethnic tensions, and perhaps most egregiously, you intentionally encouraged gender stereotyping of women for your own purpose of obt…

Writing is art too my friend. Why feel so insulted?

Re: I don’t belong in tech

#67

Post by alangpierce »

dominotw wrote: post #19

overly flowery writing made it really hard to get at the core point the author was trying to make. from what i got she wants everthing to be perfectly done with unlimited time. I would imagine one of the core qualities of software dev is figuring out what level of perfection is acceptable. Not everything in the world need to be 100% perfect, Walmart exists for a reason. That said its a welcome attitude in world full…

I'm pretty sure the style of writing was to convey emotion and help people understand her perspective at a deeper level, it wasn't just long for no reason. In this case, the article is specifically about what motivates us to keep on programming and keep on building things, so the human side of things is really important. It's not just that she wants everything to be perfect, she believes that the relationship between a website developer and one of its users should be one of trust, and it feels wrong to betray that even if it's more efficient from an engineering standpoint. Accurately conveying "this feels wrong" is complicated, hence the long article.

Re: I don’t belong in tech

#68

Post by user5994461 »

dack wrote: post #34
angersock wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a fair comment. In design you at least have a chance at clean work safe from messy reality.

I'm not sure about that - designers have to build a UX that works in the real world, and sometimes there are really complicated processes that need to be exposed in a nice way. I imagine this has similar tradeoffs as programming (i.e. difficulty in implementation, balancing power/intuitiveness)

As a designer, one can live exclusively in "photoshop", ignoring the complexity of the process and the reality of usage. It's not like you can "test" a drawing with a real user.

As a programmer, you gotta get all the little details right or the application is not possible to use. There is no way around it, whatever is forgotten will just hit you right in your face.

And last but not least. Drawing is dead easy. A programmer could design a UI in a drag&drop devtool maybe as fast as a designer. The challenge when creating an application is not the drawing of the UI but the handling of the user interactions and the data.

Re: I don’t belong in tech

#69

Post by scilro »

s_q_b wrote: post #48

I apologize if you assumed this was a story about a difference rooted in race and gender, because it is not. That’s not where we are going. That's not an apology. You deliberately manipulated your audience by playing on their fears of being deemed discriminatory, their anxiety over real ethnic tensions, and perhaps most egregiously, you intentionally encouraged gender stereotyping of women for your own purpose of obt…

Race wasn't the focus of the story, but it was an element of the prelude to it. My understanding of the purpose of that paragraph was to underscore that it wouldn't come up again. And frankly, if you break out in hives at the briefest mention of race especially when you're specifically asked not to pay attention to it I don't think that's a failing on the part of the author.

Re: I don’t belong in tech

#70

Post by DanFeldman »

This level of attention to detail, perfection, and craftsmanship is found largely at bigger companies with more to lose with their products. Automakers, manufacturing, aerospace. When I worked at GM, this sort of thinking was necessary at every step. Perfection and correctness was written into every process.

Also, about 40% of the engineers in my group were female (active safety/autonomous vehicles. We solved awesome problems, but moved slowly to do it right. Maybe the author should look at companies whose markets demand less iteration and more safety.

"You get there first, making waves while I sit in last place and watch." There are companies out there that do not subscribe to this thinking!

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