I no longer build software • Hacker News Board

Re: I no longer build software

#291

Post by binyu » Mon, Sep 21, 2020, 1:41 PM UTC

notacoward wrote: post #125

Totally on board with not building software any more. In fact, at 55 this is my last week of it. For real. Basically, everything sucks more about building software nowadays more than I remember it sucking before, from the mere mechanics of navigating through an obscenely large pseudo-object-oriented codebase to the WRONG constructs/idioms people use to build distributed systems to the way software is packaged and dep…

I disagree with you. Today's scenario is certainly much more interesting than the post dot-com boom years, maybe not as interesting as the very early days of computing, but certainly ripe for innovation, and a test-bed for innumerable breakthroughs that are yet to come. We are currently living the post "Big data" age and advancing fast toward the pre quantum computing era, with a renaissance of AI and machine learning technologies. Cryptography is ripe for disruption and the past years have seen the introduction and deployment of novel concepts and semi-old ideas that have finally found application with cryptocurrencies and distributed systems. There are several projects at the forefront of technology with defined goals in mind, and definitely solving real world problems, like privacy in cloud computing, for example. Software stacks have matured intro fully fledged products and there is plenty of choice for every use case, one just need to delve into the enormous amount of information available and do his homework. Operating systems have also advanced a lot and I love, for one, how easy is to operate Ubuntu nowadays, and the level of freedom it offers to users. Maybe you need to think a bit outside the box? respectfully, have a great one!

Re: I no longer build software

#292

Post by bad_user » Mon, Sep 21, 2020, 1:42 PM UTC

jlangenauer wrote: post #278

matthewmacleod wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It goes without saying that your feelings are personal ones, totally valid, and nobody can really question them. I'm 20 years behind you, and I don't know what effect that will have on my views. But I don't really recognise the picture you're painting. Compared to the first steps I took as a developer about 15 years ago, almost everything about software development seems better to me. I find developing software to be…

I think you are right to say that the methods are vastly improved, but the ends to which those methods are applied have become ever more uninteresting (for a lot of people), and often morally suspect. We have built exquisite tools, but we use them to extract profit, to manipulate behaviour and often for no discernable purpose at all. Programming has become joyless. There are ever-shrinking spaces where a developer ge…

No, programming became useful for the mainstream.

I program ever since you had to restrict arrays to 64k in Pascal's 286 real mode. It was definitely fun, but other than building really limited games and freaking text areas (that would regularly crash with out of memory errors, losing your changes), along with bad accounting software build in MS Fox, there wasn't much you could do.

And I remember people literally leaving the industry when the migration from MS-DOS to the Win API happened, which was forced around the time of Win 95. Because everything was terrible.

But I love it when seeing young, privileged, overpaid software developers complain about joy. Keep at it.

Re: I no longer build software

#293

Post by driverdan » Mon, Sep 21, 2020, 1:42 PM UTC

mythz wrote: post #239

Seems to be a heavy "all modern software development sucks" vibe in this thread, when the issue is more "software I get paid to write sucks". What software would you write if you could write whatever you wanted using whatever language/technology you wanted? Unless all the joy gets sucked out beforehand, pretty sure I'm going to move to be developing Mobile Apps after I retire. It was the most fun I've had writing App…

I hate mobile app development because of the gatekeeping store process. Apple and Google, but especially Apple, make arbitrary decisions that can have a major impact on your revenue and sanity. No thanks.

Re: I no longer build software

#294

Post by GoToRO » Mon, Sep 21, 2020, 1:42 PM UTC

The problem is the software was open source, zero income. I bet the woodworking will not be free.

Re: I no longer build software

#295

Post by roadbeats » Mon, Sep 21, 2020, 1:42 PM UTC

A naive question: is it still a real thing to be entrepreneurial software engineer?

After reading this thread, as somebody who quit comfortable and well paying job for a startup being founded from scratch, I feel like I’m alone in this sort of path now.

Re: I no longer build software

#296

Post by bsagdiyev » Mon, Sep 21, 2020, 1:42 PM UTC

senko wrote: post #179

leothekim wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Building software was never simple or easy I think it’s gotten a whole lot simpler in the past 10 years. People used to have to rack their own hardware, install PDUs, check temperature gauges, plug wires, configure the switches, setup RAID and backups, make sure you have that serial cable plugged in so you can telnet in in case the switches don’t work, and lock the data center doors without forgetting their keys ba…

> People used to have to rack their own hardware, install PDUs, check temperature gauges, plug wires, configure the switches, setup RAID and backups, make sure you have that serial cable plugged in so you can telnet in in case the switches don’t work, and lock the data center doors without forgetting their keys back in the day. Yes, and other people did this job, not programmers. People that loved tinkering with hard…

We still exist. Our job titles just changed and more responsibility was put on our plates. Now we do the above work, plus manage automation (Jenkins pipelines, Ansible playbooks, etc) among other work. Not that the increased responsibility is an issue, just that the title makes us seem fancier than we are. I think that is part of the problem, everyone needs some ridiculous title now, a “lowly” sysadmin gets looked at sideways.

Re: I no longer build software

#297

Post by krageon » Mon, Sep 21, 2020, 1:44 PM UTC

bserge wrote: post #268

DarkWiiPlayer wrote: post #168

It seems like nowadays you just can't make money building interesting things anymore. Most of the available programming work is really just writing glue code to make big software systems work as intended, to the point where it can feel more like writing configuration files than actual programming. Put simply, 98% of programming these days is scripting. On the other hand, you have lots of fun things one can do with co…

That's the case in most industries. Find me one that isn't just about the daily grind and making money. In construction, you could do cool stuff, and do things perfectly, but people want "normal" and time is money so you need to work fast. If you have an auto repair shop, you could build an EV from scratch. But you're getting paid to fix other people's cars. Even if you do tuning and modding, it's all just standardiz…

So what you're saying is that it's indeed shit, just like everything else?

Re: I no longer build software

#298

Post by fogihujy » Mon, Sep 21, 2020, 1:44 PM UTC

carlivar wrote: post #158

throwaway8941 wrote: post #145

This is a privileged position to take. IT is one of the very few ways to have a relatively decent life in my third world (well, technically second world) country, especially for those of us who can't rely on nepotism to put them in a comfortable place. Sure, I can go make furniture out of wood for $150 a month (and I did at some point in my life), but I'd rather keep my cushy lifestyle and stare at a screen for 16 ho…

I wonder if those making furniture are just doing it to stave off boredom after cashing in millions of tech stock profits. I've already seen exactly this sort of pattern in a few people I know.

I'm neither rich, nor do I work as a programmer or software engineer, but I have found woodworking to be extremely rewarding. Wood is an amazing material, and there's thousands of years of woodworking experience available in books, online instruction videos and DYI guides so it's relatively easy to get into. It's nice to use one's hands for other things than a mouse/keyboard.

Re: I no longer build software

#299

Post by driverdan » Mon, Sep 21, 2020, 1:45 PM UTC

ArcMex wrote: post #31

pliftkl wrote: post #8

This made me laugh, because I actually am planning on making a transition to woodworking. My house is paid off, and I can live on a fairly small income that I can probably generate mostly from passive income. If I can actually supplement that with building furniture, bonus. If not, then I still get to build furniture.

Funny, I want to move to a farm and keep goats and chickens (I am a Systems Architect). I still want to code in my spare time, if only to just pass on the skills to my offspring.

Have you ever worked on a farm? If not make sure you understand exactly what it entails. Most people who've never done it vastly underestimate how much work it is.

That said, a small hobby farm with goats and chickens doesn't take much work. But going on vacation can be problematic.

Re: I no longer build software

#300

Post by derefr » Mon, Sep 21, 2020, 1:45 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #275

chpmrc wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can order a comfy car anywhere I am with the tap of a button. I can order food from hundreds of restaurants and have it delivered in less than 30 mins with the tap of a button. I can book flights and hotels with the tap of a button. I can play with friends in virtual reality and actually sweat. I can watch a live stream of SpaceX launching reusable rockets in space. I could buy a car that is almost fully "self driv…

So we've mostly solved trivial non-problems if/not regressions? People lived in 1990 and didn't feel that bad to have to call a travel agency to get a ticket, or, god forbid, to actually meet friends and not in VR space... I'll give you "self driving cars" -- well, I would if they could work today, which they don't...

> or, god forbid, to actually meet friends and not in VR space...

These technologies really do solve problems for some people. Ignoring the temporary problem it’s solving for most-everyone right now, VR lets quadriplegics and house-bound invalids go places that aren’t accessible, e.g. the middle of the jungle. And VR is also useful for assisted visualization in the treatment of PTSD and other associated disorders.

This is also the thing that everyone who makes fun of those “as seen on TV” products needs to be reminded of: they’re not really for you. For many products, there’s a smaller core of people who actually need the product, and then a much larger halo of people who might want the product if you sell it the right way. For the As-seen-on-TV products, the core market is usually “old people who don’t move around well, or have the grip strength/dexterity necessary to operate hand tools.”

But even the core market doesn’t like being advertised to in a way that points out their problems. They’d rather that you wrote your pitch to target the larger halo market, and then they will see that ad, and notice the particular benefits to themselves as a core-market member.

So in the end, you get things like the ad for the Snuggie (whose real point, IIRC, is that it’s a robe that someone can put on an infirm person without having to lift them to get it around them) that instead markets it as a sort of weird throw-blanket with arms; or ads for VR headsets that market them as being for Beat Saber. In both cases, the advertising is ignoring the core market with a need for the product, knowing that they’ll discover it on their own once they see the advertising aimed at the larger market.