Extremely disillusioned with technology. Please help

Post by gjs278 » Tue, May 05, 2020, 4:17 PM UTC

not_a_moth wrote: post #570

battery_cowboy wrote: post #2

I'm having similar issues, and i think i found a way out: stop playing their game. Don't make enterprise software. Don't write unit tests. Don't accept pull requests. Simply write software for yourself and have fun doing it. Forget refactoring code into modules, just fucking code. Don't worry about deployment with k8s, just copy the Python script to your production folder and run it. Fuck all that shit about git bran…

Rails was engineered around developer happiness, and I kind of miss those days. And while React is cool I'm still kind of resentful that companies insist on using React and adding a whole Node env when basic jQuery would have done the job. Web development could be stupidly simple if we wanted it to be. I feel like it got too easy, and suddenly there were waves of bootcamp grads, and a lot of developers resented that.

Post by growlist » Tue, May 05, 2020, 4:22 PM UTC

eloff wrote: post #606

fuball63 wrote: post #596

This is just my personal approach to being disillusioned with tech, but I think about it a lot so I thought I'd share. I think one of the most dangerous cliches we are taught when we are young is "do what you love, and you'll never work a day in your life". It sets up the expectation that your passion and your job should be tightly coupled, and if they aren't, there's something flawed with you. Having a job where you…

Job progression up the ladder is mostly inferior to lateral progression to a new company. That's partly why people stay such a short time in a role. You'll get no loyalty, humanity, or recognition from the company. Give them the minimum to keep them happy and keep your job and focus the rest of your energy on something that will benefit you.

Post by Clubber » Tue, May 05, 2020, 4:31 PM UTC

tonyarkles wrote: post #250

unclebucknasty wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a great point, laced with justified indignation. As a graybeard, I've seen multiple generations of "how to do software" and the most recent are the least fun. A lot of this is driven by the agile approach. It's tailor-made for dev burnout: from the endless tight cycles that force people into an infinite loop of productivity with scant satisfaction that comes with "completion", to all of the tools and philosop…

Reading through this thread, and looking in the mirror, it's reinforcing the fact that I, too, am becoming a graybeard. > Likewise, with CI/CD. And don't get me started on the monkey-work that is TDD. You might argue that it improves code quality. But, it's hard to make the case that it improves job satisfaction. If you move more work from the creative, problem-solving bucket into the busy-work bucket, the result wil…

Post by edraferi » Tue, May 05, 2020, 4:36 PM UTC

sanderjd wrote: post #564

christophilus wrote: post #538

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I’m in the US and my experience is the same as yours. Maybe 50% of my friends are coworkers and former coworkers. I have almost always stayed at companies longer than I otherwise would because I loved my coworkers. Burnout for me is caused by too much bureaucracy, too many meetings, and incompatible programming philosophies. Only twice in my long career have I left a job due to an insufferable coworker.

> incompatible programming philosophies This really hits home for me. I'm at my most miserable when working with people who value doing things fast more than doing them well. I suspect those people are also at their most miserable when working with me. I see them as creating work that I'll have to do eventually to clean up their mess, and I suspect they see me as an insufferable gatekeeper.

Post by Clubber » Tue, May 05, 2020, 4:41 PM UTC

meheleventyone wrote: post #421

woah wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No unit tests?? You should just recommend never running your code if that's where you're going.

Not having unit tests doesn’t imply not testing nor suggest anything about the value of testing.