I am with him. I was a professional developer for 16 years, but last year I got tired of saving startup money and not using it, and disillusioned with the path that global productivity is exponentiating toward.
I no longer build software
471–480 of 891 posts
Re: I no longer build software
#472Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not my experience. I used to buy the new Thomas Guide (the 1 inch thick paper map book to find my way around Los Angeles). Having Google Maps on my phone has massively changed that. In the middle we had Nav systems but even then I now live somewhere where public transportation is the norm and being able to ask Google Maps how to get somewhere as been a life changing experience. As one concrete example, from 2000-2010…
Like I said, “getting directions” used to be a service. Specifically, back then—and still today, in many places!—you’d be expected to retain the services of a guide when you were in a foreign city/country. Who would often double as your translator, and potentially as your driver as well. Machine directions are still not as good as the service a good guide provides in navigating an unfamiliar city. Especially, no navi…
> Like I said, “getting directions” used to be a service. Specifically, back then—and still today, in many places!—you’d be expected to retain the services of a guide when you were in a foreign city/country. Who would often double as your translator, and potentially as your driver as well.
So previously, travel to foreign destinations was something few could afford, since it required sourcing and hiring a local guide. It would seem our current solutions scale much better and at a lower unit cost, opening up the world to more people than could have experienced it before.
Re: I no longer build software
#473Thanks for helping make a mess and running away.
Pretty typical for your generation, to be honest.
Is it any shock the President embodies that attitude?
There’s little expertise on display here. Just a sad man who didn’t get his nuclear powered Star Trek reality his childish side was promised.
Get to the back of the Trail Of Tears when it comes to generational suffering.
What an exceptional, gritty character the United Armchair Soldiers of America have created.
Re: I no longer build software
#474Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't get the downvotes. You have a very solid extremely valid counter point and I think the person you're responding too created a false dichomtomy. Cheaper does not eliminate the quality. They can both co-exist and indeed do. The lower tier just opens the door for a group of people who never had access before. Thank you for your input.
Ignore the downvotes. Initial votes are misleading, and if the comment is substantial, they'll stabilize to a reasonable value over the following couple hours. > Cheaper does not eliminate the quality. They can both co-exist and indeed do. It sometimes does, if it eliminates quality out of the market. Say a quality frame costed $500 before; then you have a new, cheaper technology that can achieve similar performance…
Sure That's a good point. Things can tend to extremes.
Instead of middle range products you get low tier and high tier products and those absorb their different shares of the market from the middle.
This type of extreme seems to happen in all facets of human society over time including jobs, housing, cars, etc..
The middle becomes pushed out.
That's been a big issue for a long time.
Alot of access is given to people who previously had no access but the middle is somewhat eliminated.
Re: I no longer build software
#475Seems 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…
> What software would you write if you could write whatever you wanted using whatever language/technology you wanted? What does it matter? After a 40+ hour work week developing bullshit, plus all the other demands on a modern adult's time, very few people, even those who like writing software, are going to want to sit down and write more.
I think it’s more the point that it isn’t the profession that sucks but the job.
There are a lot of writers out there but few New York Times best selling fiction authors. We can’t saying earning a living as a writer sucks because most people write for blogs.
Re: I no longer build software
#476Earlier quoted context omitted.
Like I said, “getting directions” used to be a service. Specifically, back then—and still today, in many places!—you’d be expected to retain the services of a guide when you were in a foreign city/country. Who would often double as your translator, and potentially as your driver as well. Machine directions are still not as good as the service a good guide provides in navigating an unfamiliar city. Especially, no navi…
> Like I said, “getting directions” used to be a service. Specifically, back then—and still today, in many places!—you’d be expected to retain the services of a guide when you were in a foreign city/country. Who would often double as your translator, and potentially as your driver as well. So previously, travel to foreign destinations was something few could afford, since it required sourcing and hiring a local guide…
Yes, correct. But that’s moving the goal-posts, kind of: “making something available to a wider audience” isn’t the same thing as making something possible. The original claim was that we’re now in a world where these things are possible. But really, we’re “merely” in a world where they’re more widely-available. They’ve been possible for a long time.
What I wanted to highlight, was that technology making something possible, that was previously impossible, is actually quite rare.
There really aren’t all that many innovations that come along and change the world in such a way that a time-traveller from the past, would need to learn an entirely new conceptual framework to understand how we do things now. Almost always, what we do now, maps in an obvious 1:1 way to what we used to do. Hailing a cab? You could hail a cab in Ancient Greece!
In fact, it’s pretty hard to think of genuinely-novel things humans only started doing in the last 100 years, due to some technological enabler. Playing single-player interactive story-games, maybe — even the progenitor of the medium, the Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book, is AFAIK a 20th-century innovation.
Re: I no longer build software
#477Totally 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…
Thanks.
I think it's worth mentioning that I'm 27 and almost 4 years into my career in software. I am convinced I have the best job of any of my friends, or just about anyone I meet at my age. I make more money and work less hours than >95% of my (all college-educated) friend circle. I don't feel stressed at work ever. My team supports me, my manager encourages me to expand my skillset to whatever interests me.
My career trajectory is looking phenomenal, and I find software development generally fun & rewarding (although certainly not all the time!).
But who knows, maybe that will all change by the time I'm 55 and I'll hate that I spend my career in software dev. Seems unlikely.
Re: I no longer build software
#478Earlier quoted context omitted.
wait... your software engineering job is stress free? That surprises me.
As I see it, it's mainly a question of what you look for when interviewing. If you look for money then you'll likely get more stress. If you look for calm then you'll likely get less stress. You'll also get less money but nothing in life give you everything. I've turned down multiple offers when it was visible they valued workaholism or had bad processes.
This.
I am paid pretty well at my company right now, but there are always my colleague that I know get a higher offer for some other role. I can choose to get salty about it or just try to transition with that role but with less satisfaction and more learning.
There are more to life than just chasing money. No matter who you are, peasants or kings, you are only given a limited time to live. We trade 40 hrs of our life for some numbers on the computer that can go up or down, meanwhile the rich just gained a lot of money due to this pandemic.
Re: I no longer build software
#479Amen. 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…
Okay so it seems most people here on HN hates their jobs? That's sad but i think its not unique. Web dev was especially insane during the IE era, more than today. Most people just hate their jobs, it's nothing unique to the tech sector and i would argue that tech is still a pretty comfortable niche to work in compared to most other fields. Doctors have extreme debt and work crazy hours, teachers get way too little, m…
> Okay so it seems most people here on HN hates their jobs? That's sad but i think its not unique.
Internet comment sections have always biased toward people who hate their jobs, are unhappy with their lives, or are otherwise trying to escape into virtual distractions.
Not everyone fits this description, of course, but the negative comments are over represented relative to what the general population thinks. Never interpret any internet comment section as representative of the norm.
Growing up, my internet commenting activity was highest when I was least happy with my jobs. It was lowest or even non existent when I loved my job. (Currently I enjoy my job, but I have 10-20 minute periods of time to kill on my phone daily for other reasons now).
Also, don’t forget that HN comments are heavily biased toward cynical interpretations.
> Drop the fake self imposed yuppie consumer self policing and perfectionism mindset and just accept that we live in a crazy part of history where everything is obsolete after 5 minutes, so just do what you find acceptable, try to scrape some money together and remember to appreciate the fact that at least you are in a sector where it's pretty easy to be an entrepreneur if you want to
If you hate work, becoming an entrepreneur is the last thing you want to do. Dealing with grumpy customers directly will only make things worse.
The majority of people I meet in the real world have no problems separating their personal identity from their home life and well being. For some reasons developers are particularly bad at mixing their work and their personal identity while chasing perfectionism. I assume it’s because we grew up in front of computers and many of us spend our leisure time on computers as well.
Even the smallest bit of separation of work and personal life can fix this. In other words, learn how to disconnect from technology and do literally anything else for a few hours per week. We don’t need to go all in on quitting the industry to get a break.
Re: I no longer build software
#480I agree that software is not always glamorous or fulfilling work. The same can be said for building in the analogue world. However, you will be hard pressed to find a career that will grant a higher standard of living for yourself and your family while offering the level of flexibility that can be found in software.