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

511–520 of 891 posts

Re: I no longer build software

#511

Post by C1sc0cat »

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.

What is the correct background? our industry is hardly one of those those where you have to go to a white shoe ivy or Oxbridge.

Re: I no longer build software

#512

Post by kilbuz »

bart_spoon wrote: post #213
kilbuz wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps something software-adjacent, such as a statistician.

As a statistician now working as a machine learning engineer, my response is “definitely not”. It’s all the frustrations of software development, but on top of that you are now frequently dealing with clients/colleagues whose requests are now not simply impractical, but usually defy the laws of mathematics and probability, and an ever present pressure to put out work that amounts to fraud. Analytics have a lot of val…

Thank you for sharing this, these are fair comments. My experience has been more positive, but I see the truth in many of your points. For what it's worth, I have always been involved in controlled experimentation, and never anything related to ML or modeling. Our biggest issue is usually ensuring we are getting accurate counts of events, and when I see all the challenges in that, I wonder how anything more advanced ever gets done.

Re: I no longer build software

#513

Post by stevedonovan »

ativzzz wrote: post #468
sdevonoes wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that true tho? I mean, I love programming, but I hate React. I love thinking about data structures and their relationships, but I don't like Docker. I spent hours thinking about how can I solve a problem (just for fun) and I absolutely don't need GCP nor Azure. I like coming up with cool algorithms (or reading about them) but I find Laravel (or Django) really unelegant and not worth my time.

It depends on the problem you're solving of course. All of these tools are built to be able to solve larger, more complex problems more effectively. You are still welcome to ignore all of them and write a cool program for yourself for fun, just don't expect to get paid for it. Ultimately, we get paid to solve business problems, not to have fun with programming.

This is of course true. But is a particular fashionable technology the best way to solve that business problem, or is yet another layer of fun? I suspect that being able to deliver simple scalable solutions without bandwagon dependencies is going to be a differentiator, in _business terms_

Re: I no longer build software

#514

Post by ativzzz »

jfim wrote: post #491
ativzzz wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. Though because of the growth of the industry, these spots where actual cutting edge work is happening are insanely competitive, and I would bet that many of the programmers (not all of course) who worked on the cool stuff 20 years ago would not make the cut for the cutting edge today, or are simply not interested in the particular niche of that edge.

How much of it is actual competitiveness and how much of it is the artificial barriers people put in the form of technical interviews? There's a big gap between software craftsmanship and the algorithmic trivia interview expectations nowadays, and it seems to keep widening.

Working on the cutting edge implies some sort of combination of greater talents and ability to work harder than others (hence increased competition), which means that the artificial barrier is a mere pittance.

The people interested in doing cutting edge work will find a way to be there no matter what. The vast majority of people overestimate themselves.

Re: I no longer build software

#515

Post by cmrdporcupine »

fsloth wrote: post #175
notacoward wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good for you. No, really. I wish you nothing but the best. But that's now . After some years, when you have already secured a relatively decent life, your perspective on the value of continuing to do it might change. In fact, it would be rather amazing if it didn't. Yes, it's absolutely a privileged position, but it's still how I feel and how I suspect a lot of programmers my age feel. You can't dismiss our reality a…

I don't think you can secure a decent life by programming outside of US - if this is understood as position of comfortable financial independence. I'm a programmer, my income is in the top 10th percentile, but that just means I'm in the upper middle class with the privilege to pay more taxes. I need to work until I get to retirement to secure myself financially.

FWIW I think that's the same in the US as well, unless you strike it lucky with stock options. As obscene as Silicon Valley salaries are, it would take remarkable financial discipline to get to the point where an early retirement could be had.

I believe that due to market forces, engineering salaries are set as high as they can be without producing "escape velocity" for said engineers.

That said, I'm not in the US proper but in Canada, but I'm in the same position as you: highest tax band, make very good money, but unless I were to dump everything and move to an area with a much lower cost of living I will be in no position to retire before 65. Doing that (major cost of living reduction) becomes difficult once you have children.

Re: I no longer build software

#516

Post by slingnow »

varispeed wrote: post #391
nicbou wrote: post #75

Add me to the woodworking ex-developers. I built a website that pays the bills, and now I have a lot of time on my hands. I am finishing my first piece of furniture today. It's pretty scary to work without an undo button. The physical world isn't just instructions, but movements. A little twitch can ruin a cut. A clumsy movement can dent a piece of wood you spent an hour sanding. You truly experience the meaning of "…

> Add me to the woodworking ex-developers (...) I have a lot of time on my hands. Be careful with that table saw...

Yes, heed the scary warning of the complete stranger on the internet. You might want to quit the hobby altogether. I heard that there was risk involved. Eeks!

Re: I no longer build software

#517

Post by jdreaver »

intotheabyss wrote: post #143

I'm a mechanical engineer in aerospace looking to move to software. I like the idea of setting up an office at home and working for myself. Is software really this bad, as all of the comments here suggest? Should I make the jump to software from a career in which I have a decade of experience? I just find aerospace boring, unimaginative, stressful and low paying, and if I could work on just building code for web apps…

I have a BS and MS in mechanical engineering. I started working on simulation software, and now I work in edtech.

This is an interesting thread, but my advice is to never take comments on the internet as any sort of representative sample. It is unlikely someone happy with their job would comment on a thread about quitting, because it makes for a boring addition to the thread.

I sometimes wonder what my work life would be like if I switched back to mechanical engineering, but I'm very happy working purely in software. Engineering requires a ton of capital and fairly large teams to do cool things. With software, a single person or a small team on a shoestring budget can build pretty neat things. I also work 100% remote, which I'm not sure would be possible with a mech eng job.

I do wish I spent more time in the machine shop at school though. Many of my neighbors in my HOA are either "real engineers" or retired blue collar workers, and they can fix things much better than I can. I can help reset their router though! :)

Re: I no longer build software

#518

Post by defterGoose »

jehb wrote: post #209
bilbo0s wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious question, didn't anyone else' school have shop class? I was a college prep, NHS, cross country, all AP core courses kind of guy, and I took it all four years of high school. Or was there some kind of restriction on taking it at your school? Or maybe your parents didn't let you? Genuinely curious as to why someone with a professed interest would not have taken shop?

Shop was heavily discouraged for college-track students when I went through high school, both by the administration in terms of guidance counseling and timing of the classes, as well as through heavy social reinforcement by peers.

Perfect example of why so many people hate high school. "Avoid this thing you're interested in because it won't help your career prospects. Also it's a waste of time."

Re: I no longer build software

#519

Post by war1025 »

christiansakai wrote: post #452
jdmoreira wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wait... your software engineering job is stress free? That surprises me.

Yeah it is. Maybe stress is relative for people.

I've been in software for a decade now and I would absolutely call my job stress free.

My broader family is almost entirely working class though, so maybe it's just a matter of perspective.

Re: I no longer build software

#520

Post by Kronen »

pbronez wrote: post #425
jlangenauer wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There are some economic theories about non-monetary compensation that try to explain this. Basically: Total Compensation = Salary + Benefits + Intangibles Those Intangibles can be things like working environment or commute, but they can also include your affinity for the organization’s mission. People are willing to take smaller salaries when they’re working on something they love & respect. It takes more money to co…

I disagree, one of those intangibles is the easiness to learn, so most of the time you get paid less for working on boring or undesirable but easy to learn things like one CRUD app after another. And you get paid better for more difficult and interesting things, because there are less people able to do it.
Post reply on HN