Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What Makes a Great Software Engineer? [pdf]

faculty.washington.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 134 posts

Re: What Makes a Great Software Engineer? [pdf]

#111

Post by jcadam »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #95
lr4444lr wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I admit some envy of people who find their passion early and make the most of every year of their life leading up to a career, but if he's so smart and driven, why is he working at some "boring tech" company as a cog under some layer management? Why doesn't he consult solo and reap the fruit of his precociousness?

> I admit some envy of people who find their passion early and make the most of every year of their life leading up to a career Don't. At least some of us are having a bad time working because of it. I found programming in my early teenage years, and - excuse me if I sound arrogant - by now, I've already seen or worked with anything even remotely interesting programming-wise that a regular coding dayjob could throw a…

I started programming when I was 8, on the family Apple ][. By my late twenties, I was ready to give it up. Working on legacy code bases for bad bosses has a way of sucking the joy out of software engineering (kind of like after four years in the Army I never wanted to go camping again).

But about the time my kids were old enough to no longer need constant, unrelenting supervision (all my kids were born by the time I was 25) I began taking up side projects again, which has largely renewed my love of programming.

So now I put up with the drudgery of the day job so I can go home and work on something I enjoy (I mean really, the day job could be anything at this point - programming just pays better than anything else I could do, and occasionally an interesting problem at work pops up). Which is also why I tend to become extremely resentful if forced to work very much overtime :)

Re: What Makes a Great Software Engineer? [pdf]

#112

Post by adjkant »

Aaargh20318 wrote: post #92
jwdunne wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Each to their own - I don't see it as a bad thing. Having children has made me happier and more fulfilled in ways that I could never have imagined. You cannot know the feeling of it until you do. You cannot really understand it until you do. It changes your world.

> Having children has made me happier and more fulfilled in ways that I could never have imagined. That's my main problem with it, it's super selfish to procreate. I don't feel I have the right to force new life (with all the pain and suffering that entails) onto this world for the sake of making me happy. I love my potential children too much to do that to them.

I don't want to have kids in the slightest, but this is not accurate at all. You can have kids for both reasons, and enjoying the lives of your kids is not wrong if you love and care for them for their sake alone as well. In fact, when I tell people that I don't want kids, people go the other way and tell me I'm being selfish not to.

Re: What Makes a Great Software Engineer? [pdf]

#113

Post by pc86 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #93
jwdunne wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly the same :) the guilt of not spending time with my kids and my wife is too much. There have been times where I've tried to sit down and work on something but it's no fun when there's a strong feeling of "I should be spending this time with my family". The other thing I've noticed is that the separation and challenge of raising children has made me more productive. You don't know stress until you've had a newb…

> There have been times where I've tried to sit down and work on something but it's no fun when there's a strong feeling of "I should be spending this time with my family". That doesn't sound like a recommendation for becoming a parent. In fact it sounds the opposite - "don't have children, or you'll guilt yourself out of every other thing you could be doing".

Well life is about choices. People are free not to have children. But yes, when you do you bear a certain level of responsibility to them. I think a lot of people would characterize sitting in your office building CRUD apps every night so that you have a sweet green GitHub calendar while your kids sit alone on the couch watching TV as an abdication of that responsibility.

Re: What Makes a Great Software Engineer? [pdf]

#114

Post by paulus_magnus2 »

Articles like this one never look from the side of the engineer and / or never consider his opportunity cost.

Why would anyone work for you on an engineer salary if they are "great" and have all the CEO skills. They shouldn't.

Selecting for passion is selecting for people, usually young who have no life outside work, don't know their real market value and have easy to abuse personality, will tolerate agile micromanagement etc etc. Women usually have more social skills, enough to know not to become software engineers in bigco.

Re: What Makes a Great Software Engineer? [pdf]

#115

Post by dwheeler »

Aaargh20318 wrote: post #92
jwdunne wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Each to their own - I don't see it as a bad thing. Having children has made me happier and more fulfilled in ways that I could never have imagined. You cannot know the feeling of it until you do. You cannot really understand it until you do. It changes your world.

> Having children has made me happier and more fulfilled in ways that I could never have imagined. That's my main problem with it, it's super selfish to procreate. I don't feel I have the right to force new life (with all the pain and suffering that entails) onto this world for the sake of making me happy. I love my potential children too much to do that to them.

That's rediculous. For most people, having children is the most selfless possible thing. Kids are extremely expensive.

Re: What Makes a Great Software Engineer? [pdf]

#116

Post by coisnepe »

saltedmd5 wrote: post #103
Aaargh20318 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Having children has made me happier and more fulfilled in ways that I could never have imagined. That's my main problem with it, it's super selfish to procreate. I don't feel I have the right to force new life (with all the pain and suffering that entails) onto this world for the sake of making me happy. I love my potential children too much to do that to them.

I think this is probably the most self-indulgent thing I've ever read.

Is it just a coincidence that there was an article about this very thing a few days ago here?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15869983

Re: What Makes a Great Software Engineer? [pdf]

#117

Post by chrshawkes »

jwdunne wrote: post #83
jdcskillet wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I couldn’t agree with you more. I wish I could do more than give you an upvote, so here is an internet cheers and just know there are a lot of people who feel the same way. I also love what I do, read when I can, but at the end of the day I work hours which allow me to be with my kids and wife as much as possible. I hope to keep getting better, to become a great engineer, but I will take the slower road if it means m…

Exactly the same :) the guilt of not spending time with my kids and my wife is too much. There have been times where I've tried to sit down and work on something but it's no fun when there's a strong feeling of "I should be spending this time with my family". The other thing I've noticed is that the separation and challenge of raising children has made me more productive. You don't know stress until you've had a newb…

You don't know stress until you've had a divorce due to all of these after hours spent studying the latest fad. That is real stress and that happens to a lot of programmers. I am dealing with that personally, I have had 2 kids and I have done the best I could. Newborn stress is nothing compared to a divorce from a long term marriage.

Re: What Makes a Great Software Engineer? [pdf]

#118

Post by kybernetikos »

enraged_camel wrote: post #79
jwdunne wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a relief. Three kids mandate 9 to 5 work hours. There isn't much quality time or mental energy to dedicate after that. It's a relief because whatever energy I have left I spend on books, articles, papers. Those things have helped my 9 to 5 in a big way. I bring what I learn to the job. It doesn't beat hands on practice. I do itch to work on practice projects and I'm hoping when the kids are a little older, I'l…

>>In any case, my kids are my number one. The day my first was born was the day my motivations and my reason for being shifted. Your kids should be your number one priority, absolutely. Make no mistake though: when you have kids you are trading off professional development outside of work for raising a family. Nothing wrong with that, but the trade off definitely is there. People who ambitiously work on personal proj…

> when you have kids you are trading off professional development outside of work for raising a family.

I believe that having children gave me more motivation and reason to be better at the things I do. It also forced me to structure my life a lot more which can have beneficial effects on productivity too.

Re: What Makes a Great Software Engineer? [pdf]

#119

Post by jwdunne »

chrshawkes wrote: post #117
jwdunne wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly the same :) the guilt of not spending time with my kids and my wife is too much. There have been times where I've tried to sit down and work on something but it's no fun when there's a strong feeling of "I should be spending this time with my family". The other thing I've noticed is that the separation and challenge of raising children has made me more productive. You don't know stress until you've had a newb…

You don't know stress until you've had a divorce due to all of these after hours spent studying the latest fad. That is real stress and that happens to a lot of programmers. I am dealing with that personally, I have had 2 kids and I have done the best I could. Newborn stress is nothing compared to a divorce from a long term marriage.

Well there is that. One other thing I've learned is that no matter how stresses I get, there's always someone going through worse and here we are.

Sorry to hear that man, cannot imagine what you're going through - I've come close with my Mrs and it's not nice.

Re: What Makes a Great Software Engineer? [pdf]

#120

Post by ManlyBread »

deepGem wrote: post #97
jschwartzi wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it's not about being unwilling to occasionally work overtime. The thing 9-to-5'ers are railing against is that overtime is being taken for granted. It's that projects are planned with unrealistic deadlines assuming we'll burn our lives away meeting them.

But don't the managers take the required estimates from engineers and plan accordingly ? Unless there is a strong deadline set by the market or by the customers.

They also can say that the estimate is unreasonable and demand to cut the hours because they're the ones who get a final say.
Post reply on HN