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I no longer build software

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Re: I no longer build software

#611

Post by rellekio »

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…

You should watch the Cube and it's sequels.

Re: I no longer build software

#612

Post by leothecool »

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…

We can do all this amazing stuff but we can't allocate cloud resources by simply calling a constructor. Wild times.

Re: I no longer build software

#613

Post by ditonal »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #178
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 don't recall it being any better pre-2000. Frankly the tools really sucked back then. Build systems and IDEs were awful. Just go play with an autotools-based C project sometime to remind/education yourself. Visual Studio 7, horrible. No mainstream refactoring IDEs to speak of. C++ compilers across multiple platforms were horrible at standards compliance consistency, and you could barely get a working STL, practical…

Totally agree, and let's also mention Stack Overflow and the plentiful learning resources on Youtube etc. In 2000, I was a teenager trying to learn C++ and the Win32 API, and when I got stuck I got really stuck. These days, the amount of resources to help you with a problem or learn a new technology are infinitely higher which removes one of the most frustrating aspect of software dev.

Re: I no longer build software

#614

Post by nicbou »

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...

That would increase the time:hands ratio.

Re: I no longer build software

#615

Post by throwawaygh »

CptFribble wrote: post #467
coldtea wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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...

innovation doesn't always look like a steam engine or a polio vaccine, with immediate and obvious impact on society. sometimes innovation looks like 1000 small improvements that only save us 30 seconds of our day, but once they're all built we suddenly have whole hours freed up that used to be taken up by things like spending an hour on the phone with a travel agent

For every 30 seconds the average person saves on misc. Tasks, there are whole minutes spent doom scrolling on social media apps.

Re: I no longer build software

#616

Post by Akronymus »

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…

> an obscenely large pseudo-object-oriented codebase

It shocks me, just how often OOP is just not nearly the best approach to something. I certainly still lack in experience though. But why use OOP for something like putting data from a sensor onto a bus? And stuff like that.

Re: I no longer build software

#617

Post by nicbou »

bcrosby95 wrote: post #325
nicbou wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't pick up woodworking to build a house. If that was my goal, sticking to programming would be the fastest way to get a house built. My ability to make money from programming far exceeds my ability to save money by doing anything else. If it was about the money, I wouldn't rent a garage, fill it with tools and spend my weekends building subpar furniture for twice the cost (a common woodworking trope). I'd just…

I probably average to about $50/hour programming. Last time I hired someone to fix something in my house I ended up paying about $350 for 1.5 hours of work. Physical materials was just a low voltage cable. I had a plumber quote me $1300 to replace a $250 part that just screws on/off. I did it myself in a few hours. Since I work on salary, one of the best ways for me to get more money is to save mine by not paying ove…

That's of course assuming that you are already skilled and equipped enough to do the job yourself. If you're starting from scratch, you'll end up saving below minimum wage by doing it yourself.

Besides, if you're already working 40 hours a week, the remaining time is much more valuable, because it's relatively scarce. Not everyone is comfortable spending their evenings doing extra work.

Re: I no longer build software

#619

Post by non-entity »

abraxas wrote: post #573
ecpottinger wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My solution was to dump the Windows environment for my personal use. I program in Arduino where I only have 2.5 K for my variables, programming with so little memory really forces you to think about your program methods. I built small projects using 74LSxxx chips, building logic instead of programming it can be refreshing. When I need more space I program in C++ on a Haiku machine, 32 GB of ram and 12 CPUs gives you…

What is a "Haiku machine"?

Haiku is BeOS derived opetating system.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiku_(operating_system)

Re: I no longer build software

#620

Post by rabuse »

tluyben2 wrote: post #499
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…

Not to mention that those CRUD apps have been done, exactly the same, 10000s of times before and 10000s of people are doing the same work you are doing now at this moment. Everyone thinks they are productive but value is being burned all day, every day in most companies all over the world. The level of reuse is depressing and people, especially here, firmly believe we need to use the latest frontend and backend crap…

I'm so tired of React being thrown into every single web stack as of late. You don't need some large React boilerplate mess, that could've been done with some simple PHP+Jquery stack. It's caused this SPA nightmare also, where you have a large delay in page loading, when it's a site with basic functionality.
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