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I no longer build software

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Re: I no longer build software

#481

Post by erikbye »

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…

Software development is like building a house with a hammer that continually change its shape and hence how it’s used.

Re: I no longer build software

#482

Post by bluntfang »

chpmrc wrote: post #208
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…

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…

>I can order food from hundreds of restaurants and have it delivered in less than 30 mins with the tap of a button.

Where do you live? I would say the same but in under an hour. Is this a little hyperbolic?

Re: I no longer build software

#483

Post by phaedrus »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #345
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'm ~23 years behind GP, and I feel the same way as them already. Goes to say, this may be a matter of personality. There were few and brief moments in my career as a software developer when I was truly happy at my work. Most of those involved implementing an architecture or algorithm I figured out from scratch, or took from scientific literature - either as prototype or directly in the product. Sometimes as "hold my…

I like how you describe focusing on your plot of land as a positive coping strategy. I had been doing it instinctively (or necessarily), but had thought of it as some kind of failing. Your comment makes me feel better about it.

The end goal of software I work on is to help airplanes land safely. But actually, I work on the software which presents the user interface that displays and sends configuration settings to a device on the ground that helps achieve that.

So my day to day is figuring out whether two bytes in a serial buffer an ad hoc protocol are actually transposed, or if the comments are in 20 year old code are lying about which is which. Or trying to figure out whether a Win32 font setting command from two decades ago is still interpreted the same on Windows 10.

The rabbit holes and yak shaving just go on and on. I have it in me to enjoy doing the work, but when I think about how many steps I am removed from the actual airplanes and I feel badly for filling my brain and my workday with trivia.

Re: I no longer build software

#484

Post by caleb-allen »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #345
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'm ~23 years behind GP, and I feel the same way as them already. Goes to say, this may be a matter of personality. There were few and brief moments in my career as a software developer when I was truly happy at my work. Most of those involved implementing an architecture or algorithm I figured out from scratch, or took from scientific literature - either as prototype or directly in the product. Sometimes as "hold my…

I resonate with this rant very strongly!

Re: I no longer build software

#485

Post by protomyth »

pjc50 wrote: post #127
protomyth wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> The web is a very poor fit for what most people want designed. The web is an application development platform that's split into two pieces with a critical security boundary in the middle, which causes basically all of its problems because every web app has to be a distributed system. If you can constrain what you want to build to either a set of pages and forms or a single client-server app that sits in a sandbox a…

On the other hand, the alternative is worse: a proprietary platform which shifts unpredictably and from which the owner can ban you.

I'm not sure that's the only alternative. I would actually describe the web as shifting, unpredictable at the behest of one company with the controlling browser and search engine.

Re: I no longer build software

#486

Post by christiansakai »

fraktl wrote: post #469
christiansakai wrote: post #310

The grass is always greener on the other side. Let's see. I have 3 degrees in unrelated field (Industrial Eng, Theology, and CompSci), and worked in on a few careers, white collar jobs like being a sales engineer at a biodiesel company, helping running a cafe for a family business, being a church administrator before the current software engineering. I also worked on low paid labor jobs such as laundry, dry cleaning,…

Software development is not your calling, it's just another job for you. A very good job, but still: just a job. I'm not critcizing you, just stating how I understood what you wrote. Difference between something that's your calling (music, judging by what you wrote) and a job is that you don't invest emotion into the job. When you invest emotion into what you do, when your craft is sacred to you - then you experience…

Indeed, it is not my calling. I think earlier in my career I thought that way. But I also don't know what my calling in life anyway for now.

I think I'm pretty good at my craft because I spent time after work honing it. I am in the same boat as OP and you, already went through the disillusionment, but I have other things that satisfy my creative side and physical side, besides I need the money as well.

In regards to social media, I stayed away from Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin (pretty satisfied with my current job I don't need other roles). I still use Reddit, Youtube, and probably other visual/audio social media for reasons related to hobbies.

Re: I no longer build software

#487

Post by protomyth »

ifend wrote: post #370
protomyth wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Agree 100%.

What really still bugs me, was that it was much easier to build an application on NeXTSTEP in the early 90's than it is today with the modern web.

Re: I no longer build software

#488

Post by fsociety »

whack wrote: post #324

I can't relate to any of the "software sucks now" comments. I started off writing code the "old school" way. C or C++ using vanilla vim. I spent so much time wrestling with compile errors, pointer logic, memory management, looking up documentation to figure out what methods were available in a class, and using grep to figure out where/how methods were calling one another. It was a colossal mess. I had almost no inter…

I agree with you, tooling is better - even much better around C/C++. The issue I see is that programs today have more bugs than ever.

I don’t think that is just a symptom of more developers, but of the quality of development employers and such want to pay for.

Suppose that is an issue of software becoming a commodity.

Re: I no longer build software

#489

Post by vibrolax »

I stopped working at age 59 to help with an illness in the family. I was afraid that I would miss exercising my mind and interacting with people the way building software often did. I had a decent job with interesting work, good pay, and good working conditions. But I haven't regretted walking away to take advantage of our life-long prudence and hard work.

Re: I no longer build software

#490

Post by blamefaang »

cpursley wrote: post #284
cpursley wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your overall tone is negative and elitist. Thee $300 supermarket bike (I have one and put over 40 miles on it weekly and it's help up fine for four years) provides access to folks who otherwise can't afford the fancy $1,500 aluminium/carbon machines. Fancy bikes are still getting made and even getting better. Newly rich kid or VC funded startups distributes money from wealthy people to an every growing software indus…

The downvotes are fun. I guess some people are just against inclusiveness? I'm very grateful to be in this industry despite not having the "correct" background.

Open source as an art is inclusive. Or at least as a social model for developing software, has greater potential than startups, which are exclusive to those with financially viable skills

A working culture tuned to movement of a minority of capital “haves” isn’t much different mathematically than a monarchy and his lords and barons, etc.

There’s a gentler temperament, but “work the jobs we will pay for, while deflating your buying power to maintain historical human narratives” isn’t exactly fostering free flow of capital, labor, and ideas.

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