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I no longer build software

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Re: I no longer build software

#531

Post by notacoward »

aarongough wrote: post #460
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…

Unfortunately I agree with this. A great quote I saw a while ago: “The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads.” –Jeff Hammerbacher Every paying software job I've ever had was in some way involved getting people to click on ads. Either directly making a product where ad click rate is a measured metric, or products that helped people make products where clicking on ads was a metric.…

I sort-of know Jeff, and I think he comes here sometimes, so: hi! Funny thing: the same company "inspired" both of us. The best minds of my generation are figuring out how to get two broken systems to talk to one another.

Re: I no longer build software

#532

Post by baddox »

nescioquid wrote: post #497
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…

Reading this litany of technologically-enabled consumer achievements, I thought of David Graeber who visited the disappointment we sometimes feel for how things actually went from mid-century to now. "[...]Where, in short, are the flying cars? Where are the force fields, tractor beams, teleportation pods, antigravity sleds, tricorders, immortality drugs, colonies on Mars, and all the other technological wonders any c…

I don’t really see it as an indictment that we don’t yet have a short list of things from science fiction. The reason authors wrote about those things is because the are so beyond our technological capabilities—that’s why they make for interesting science fiction!

Re: I no longer build software

#533

Post by bluejay2387 »

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…

I think what has changed is the expectation that work should always be 'joyful'. I don't the majority of employees working in any industry have ever been involved in cutting edge or creative work.

Can you imagine what the medical field would be like if the majority of general practitioners started complaining about the fact that they don't get to work in neurology research?

Re: I no longer build software

#534

Post by CyberRabbi »

simondelacourt wrote: post #270
CyberRabbi wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so?

As you've laid your judgement of your woodwork on all woodwork, and thus have concluded that all woodwork is less intelligible than all software building. I know this is an interpretation, and not verbatim. But it might be sensible to be a little bit less strongly opinionated on the levels of work being intelligible, as its just an opinion, and would not consider it a fact. The work I do on software I consider as rel…

> thus have concluded that all woodwork is less intelligible than all software building

If you read my initial comment carefully you’ll see that I’ve made no such conclusion.

Re: I no longer build software

#535

Post by alexpetralia »

grishka wrote: post #449
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'm only 27 but I'm already dissatisfied a lot with most of what the software industry does and the decisions it makes. I've been 1.5 years without a job at this point and wherever I look for one I'm very disappointed. - The arbitrary deadlines that serve no purpose. Example: we have to update our app every week/month because reasons . - The utter lack of understanding of the concept of feature completeness. Example:…

To me, this sounds like developers who are too far away from the business. Either they don't understand the context, or they aren't given the latitude to express their concerns about product direction.

Re: I no longer build software

#536

Post by CyberRabbi »

SamBam wrote: post #222
CyberRabbi wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both are grunt work, the point is that manual labor grunt work is just as bad or worse. Do you do manual labor?

You keep saying this like it's an objective fact. It's not. Running a bandsaw 20 times might sound to you like the epitome of boredom. To me, a (poor) woodworking perfectionist (i.e. I'm always trying to make my work furniture-grade, but usually failing) it's an exercise in constant concentration and error-correction. To a master, it can be the epitome of mindfulness.

An activity being “mindful” is not the same as an activity being “intellectual stimulating.” I do not consider software engineering mindful in any significant way but I do agree with you that repetitive manual labor is quite mindful.

Re: I no longer build software

#537

Post by baddox »

coldtea wrote: post #442
tombert wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like an awfully reductionist take, and is demonstrably wrong. > to actually meet friends and not in VR space Nintendo released the Virtual Boy in the 90s, a (somewhat unsuccessful) attempt at a semi-VR thing; they were (and are) a pretty big business, and I don't think that they were just doing it because they thought it was cool; there was demand for something like virtual reality at the time. > People li…

> This is also wrong; anecdata, but at least one person (my dad) hated having to call up travel agencies in the 90s to book a plane ticket. Yeah, and I hate scratching my head when itchy. Doesn't mean an "automatic head stratcher" is the best use of our innovation, or adds anything significant to humanity...

So your argument is as follows:

1. People didn’t mind meeting with travel agencies.

2. Actually people hated meeting with travel agencies. Never mind number 1.

3. Automatic head scratchers are a waste of time.

4. Therefore online travel websites are a waste of time.

Re: I no longer build software

#538

Post by mhaberl »

rbreve wrote: post #521
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…

How I miss the old days simplicity. One php File you just uploaded with ftp and that was the deployment. Now you need to know so many frameworks and processes to deploy a simple web app. It’s overwhelming and I get anxious because It’s so hard to choose what to learn.

You can still do that. There is no need to use a complicated stack when the problem is simple.

Re: I no longer build software

#539

Post by TeMPOraL »

resonious wrote: post #494
TeMPOraL wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. And I'm not angry at the person who drives the shape of the codebase; working with code designed around a different philosophy than your own is something that one can get used to. But I do feel that the large codebases I've been dealing with were often way too large for what they're doing - even though I couldn't always pinpoint what was superfluous. It's probably just entropy at work, but I can't stop thinkin…

I definitely agree. It's quite easy to look at a large codebase and feel like it's way more complex than it needs to be. That line of thinking often leads to rewrites, and in my experience rewrites often lead to newfound understanding of why the codebase was complex in the first place.

True. I've learned to resist the urge to rewrite code just because it feels too ugly/complex to me - except in the cases where I know I can get tangible benefits (performance, better API) and the scope of rewrite is limited and guarded by extensive tests. It's true that some of the cruft accrues because of changing requirements and the ongoing process of learning that is a good chunk of our work.

And yet accepting that, I still can't shake the feeling that things are more complex than they should be. That also applies to the code I'm writing myself (which is immune from the "rewrite because I could do it better" urge)!

Re: I no longer build software

#540

Post by throwaway0a5e »

roel_v wrote: post #265
snazz wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally off-topic, but the automatic blade brakes on modern table saws are really cool. It runs a current through the blade, so when something moist like your finger or a hot dog gets too close (maybe using capacitance?), it automatically drops the blade and instantly stops it with a single-use brake mechanism. Better to destroy the $100 blade-and-brake assembly than to lose a finger.

Those videos show up in my Youtube feed the last few weeks too (although these saws have existed for many years now), but I still wonder - why do they always use hotdogs in the demo videos? Can't they find anyone who's willing to risk a finger, or is it something much more boring like OSHA rules or something?

>or is it something much more boring like OSHA rules or something?

I think it's more like if you understand the tech well enough that you are willing to risk it you likely understand how not to stick your hand in a saw in the first place, don't see the value add and don't wind up working for these people.

Also there's probably a pretty big social aspect of it. The guy willing to stick his hand in the saw for the demo video is gonna get shunned by most of the kind of people who want to work on tech like this.

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