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

I no longer build software

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

311–320 of 891 posts

Re: I no longer build software

#311

Post by city41 »

protomyth wrote: post #63
jb1991 wrote: post #20

Amen. Modern software development is frankly kinda sucky. The old days pre-2000 were arguably a lot more enjoyable. Today it's just digital plumbing and dealing with all sorts of issues that are not creative. The sheer complexity is frankly absurd as well. I've thought about moving on from software many times, and I know many who have. Just because you can do something doesn't mean it's best way to spend your short l…

I think a lot of the pre-2000 programming was a bit more enjoyable because most of us were not programming for the web and actually using platforms that were designed for application development. The web is a very poor fit for what most people want designed.

I think there is a lot of truth to this. I started programming in C++ and then Java. But for about the past decade I've done web dev. Recently I've found myself back working on some non-web projects and it's a breath of fresh air in many ways.

True, a lot of that could just be the change in scenery. But I really appreciate that just about everything about the platform exists in order to create software, rather than trying to jump through the bizarre hoops that browsers created. Not dealing with Webpack is an absolute god send.

But with all that said, I think wasm has the potential to bring us sanity again. And if not wasm, then possibly tools like Rome will make web dev a bit more sane at least.

Re: I no longer build software

#312

Post by david_draco »

yoz-y wrote: post #253
qz2 wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair we could do nearly all of that before without much of an issue. Now we inherit the overhead of the software, demand pricing, apps that are made of shit and string (uber eats I'm looking at you) and zero customer service...

Uhh. Before I didn’t even have Internet, much less a screen on which I could tap on a button.

There used to be telephones (with buttons). You could order all of the above through it, given a credit card.

Re: I no longer build software

#313

Post by draw_down »

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 think that’s the wrong frame- the two problems for me are the corporate environment (which is hellish and always getting worse, but also applies to any other office job) and the “never finished” nature of software.

I don’t want to keep adding features to the same thing, I don’t want to keep being the expert on how it works and how long it will take to do x and sit around planning out roadmaps and do user research and all this shit. I want to work on something for a while and have that be enough and then do another project.

It’s the nature of the work, not “I’m building websites when I could be building mobile apps”.

Re: I no longer build software

#314

Post by chpmrc »

plazmatic wrote: post #234
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…

All this, yet the world is unquestionably getting worse. Crazy times.

Except it's not. Books like Factfulness show it quite clearly. We have our fair share of problems but quality of life has been steadily improving almost everywhere and almost exponentially in some areas.

Re: I no longer build software

#315

Post by qw »

Chris2048 wrote: post #149

The question is, why is it all so BS. I think the answer is, whenever you get to any kind of scale, you leave the logical world of engineering discipline, and enter the corporate world of product infighting. Who hasn't tried a small, personal project just as a clean walled-garden-of-the-mind to relax in, free from the reality of real software. I think every SWEs dream is that all software will be just as clean. But C…

I think one of the problems is that a lot of the management methods are built for the lowest common denominator. Juniors and mediocre developers who "need" direction and strict structure. Micro management is easier than creating a culture where developers are empowered to make independent decisions, based on shared goals and understanding.

At some point talented developers grow out of that role and start looking for an escape.

Re: I no longer build software

#316

Post by spamizbad »

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 tend to agree but I think what’s driving this stuff lies in the changing software product- and project - culture, and the glue-like nature of modern work is an outgrowth of that.

On the engineering side we’ve fully embraced the ephemeral, disposable nature of code, which tends to run counter to business needs which may require hastily constructed code hack jobs to stick around indefinitely. Really makes taking pride in workmanship impossible. You’re allowed to feel good about what your company is doing, but if you feel good about your code then perhaps you’re indulging yourself on company time and could be more productive... so you end up feeling guilty about doing good work.

I also think over the last 20 years there’s been a concentrated movement to remove technical expertise from the product design process. Engineers are present to provide estimates and gauge feasibility, but aren’t granted much leeway beyond that. Decades ago, you needed dev skill to actively shape technical projects since there wasn’t even that much user-level experience with computers and technology to make judgements.

This loss of balance tends to mean software is driven forward almost exclusively by either new features or redesigns. Technical enhancements are rare, unless they exist to support existing features. Nobody wants to spend a few sprints on "Make this thing feel 30% faster" or "Deal with our memory usage issues in these cases" until it reaches crisis levels or customers complain. So you get bigger, bloated software that runs slowly because nobody is authorized to make anything faster or use less resources until a product market position is threatened because of such technical deficiencies.... although sometimes the answer by product leadership to such problems can be even more features.

Re: I no longer build software

#317

Post by neya »

matthewmacleod wrote: post #237
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…

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…

> Compared to the first steps I took as a developer about 15 years ago, almost everything about software development seems better to me.

If you mean this is better, I hardly agree with you:

https://twitter.com/thomasfuchs/status/810885087214637057?la...

Re: I no longer build software

#318

Post by douglaswlance »

XCSme wrote: post #223
lxrbst wrote: post #147

While I occasionally dream about working on cars or motorcycles at times instead of sitting in front of a computer all day, I think we tend to forget how good of a career developing is. When we picture our dream of doing a simple trade, we only think of the most awesome part of that trade. If I'm a car mechanic, most of it too is just trivial oil and tire changes or changing a basic part of two - not working on engin…

> most of it too is just trivial oil and tire changes or changing a basic part of two I bet that it feels better and more rewarding than updating a dependency and spending 2 days fixing all the errors caused by updating, especially knowing that you will have to do the same thing in a few months. There is something that feels good when you create/fix/improve a real object compared to a software one.

As someone who works on engines and writes code, let me tell you that the feeling is exactly the same. All complex systems stir up the same emotions.

It's frustrating as can be when it doesn't work, and it feels great when it finally does work.

As a human, dealing with complexity is all the same, no matter the medium.

Re: I no longer build software

#320

Post by ClikeX »

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...

Yeah, that argument gets used any time new technology arrises. Sure it wasn't hard, doesn't mean you need to stop working on making it even simpler.

> So we've mostly solved trivial non-problems if/not regressions?

While I agree some developments have worsened the experience of particular things. What developments would you rather have seen?

By the way. VR was already a thing in the 80's. It's hardly new, only improved as the tech came available. And popularity of sci-fi also shows the common dream for many of these technological improvements.

As a fun reference. When the mobile phone got introduced in the 90's here in the Netherlands they did surveys in the street[1]. Everybody was brushing it off as unnecessary.

- "I don't need one"

- "Oh, then you get called while riding a bike haha"

- "I have one at home, and if I'm stranded there's always a landline somewhere"

- "They can send me a letter, and if they need me urgently they can call me on my landline"

[1] => https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNwhIHqM60g

Post reply on HN