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I no longer build software

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Re: I no longer build software

#701

Post by Diederich »

bobbytuck wrote: post #674
Diederich wrote: post #659

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I sincerely feel bad for people who have to stay in it. I'm in my 50s, and I've been getting paid to build software for over 27 years now, and started programming on a near daily basis on a TRS-80 in the 1970s. Please don't feel sorry for me. I still very much enjoy building software. I won't necessarily disagree with the particular challenges you cite. The total complexity is enormous now, but the tools and abstra…

Another TRS-80 fan here. I learned programming by sitting in the back of a Radio Shack where they had a Model I Level II and a Model II with those big 8" drives. This was probably around '81 or so. A year or so later they eventually had a Model III in the front of the store. Whenever I get burned out on software (in my case, Vue and React) -- and build complexity -- I always remind myself of those TRS-80 days. The on…

This was my first computer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-80_Color_Computer Got it for Christmas in 1980. Second computer was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-80_Model_100 and third was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga_1000 I have the Model 100 in storage, and it still works just like new, taking four AA batteries.

Complexity is daunting today. I believe, however, that the power available far outweighs the total difficulties.

I am still inspired by the basic possibilities that most anybody can, with nothing but access to a computer and the Internet, write some javascript and html in a simple editor and make it available to most everyone in the world.

Objectively speaking, that's simple and approachable, far more so than anything I ever did or was aware of.

Re: I no longer build software

#702

Post by leptons »

Diederich wrote: post #659
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 sincerely feel bad for people who have to stay in it. I'm in my 50s, and I've been getting paid to build software for over 27 years now, and started programming on a near daily basis on a TRS-80 in the 1970s. Please don't feel sorry for me. I still very much enjoy building software. I won't necessarily disagree with the particular challenges you cite. The total complexity is enormous now, but the tools and abstra…

I'm also in my 50s, and I can't imagine ever losing interest in programming.

A computer contains practically infinite possibilities, and people who lose interest in that are really just lacking creativity, and maybe some cognitive ability.

I don't only program though, I am creative in other ways and I build many things that have nothing to do with computers, but I do often incorporate programming into these creative pursuits, because it sometimes pushes the project to the "next level".

If someone only writes "glue code" then yeah, that will get boring. There are so many other kinds of programming though, that many never even explore. 3D is a whole entire interesting field that is far removed from "glue code". Home automation is one of my latest obsessions. The list goes on and on.

Re: I no longer build software

#703

Post by briefcomment »

nicbou wrote: post #610
dpcan wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I built a website that pays the bills, and now I have a lot of time on my hands." Okay.... I assume you're not going to talk about this because then you'll have so much competition you won't be able to pay the bills anymore, but do you have any generalized background information about this?

You can find it in my post history. I help people settle in my country, in plain English. It's just not the main point of this conversation.

How do you monetize the site? It looks really useful, but I don't see any ads or payment options.

Re: I no longer build software

#704

Post by SahAssar »

nicbou wrote: post #696
SahAssar wrote: post #672

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usually this means dropshipping, but it could be something different.

Nope. https://allaboutberlin.com Isn't dropshipping extremely overcrowded since The 4 Hour Work Week popularised it?

I heard dropshipping still "works" if you know both the marketing and the dev work for it, but I'd say it is getting more rare.

Good to hear I was wrong :)

Re: I no longer build software

#705

Post by vmception »

microtherion wrote: post #548
vmception wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

check out crypto, especially the “defi” space building there is a creative process and it pays better than big tech The onchain codebases arent that big because they cant be.

I can't judge whether the actual programming there is fun, but I can't imagine an environment where bugs get exploited to the tune of tens of millions of dollars can be all that fun, and the entire field seems to be built on fraud, scams, and finding greater fools. I suspect a nontrivial number of programmers in that field will find themselves making license plates or exploring harbors with concrete shoes a few years…

The bugs don’t affect the programmer or the company, assuming there even is a company

And the programmers have easily translatable skills, so nice try at making a point but it doesn’t make sense when there is a real conversation to have

But you werent actually here to debate the differences in how that could affect programmers in that industry vs other industries

Your preconceptions are a random incoherent mixture of things that are oddly excusing bad actors or bad companies by ignoring them and conflating it with blaming a specialized skillset or sector

You could have kept all that in your head because this was clearly a copypasta rebuttal prepared for any conversation about crypto

Re: I no longer build software

#706

Post by grishka »

pier25 wrote: post #640
grishka wrote: post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO "the business" is the root of the problem. Businesses tend to put money before literally everything else, and thus we end up with the awfulness that is the modern social media for example. No matter how visionary, proficient, and user-respecting you are as a developer, if you aren't complicit in earning all the money in the world at all costs, you're gonna get replaced by someone else who is.

No offense but I think you're being dramatic and a bit naive. There are plenty of small companies chasing a dream other than total economic world domination. Obviously if you look at Facebook etc that's all you're going to see. Also, good luck running a business, any business of any size, without caring about money. Once you're responsible for the the livelihood of your employees and yourself (and maybe even SO and y…

> There are plenty of small companies chasing a dream other than total economic world domination.

That is until they are pressured to "grow" by their investors that they do have more often than not.

> Also, good luck running a business, any business of any size, without caring about money.

I've worked at a company that was alive and well without chasing profits. It did a bare minimum of monetization to cover its expenses and get a little extra, and that was it. Users were happy, we were happy too. Then the investors decided they've had enough of it, sold their shares to others and those forced the CEO to leave. It was then acquired by a big corporation. I quit in around two years after that when I realized there's no going back and it's only going to get worse over time. It took a lot of effort to make myself go to HR and tell them I'm resigning. I still miss the spirit that was there when I joined. And I'm not sure there are any more companies like this, especially in 2020.

Re: I no longer build software

#708

Post by one2know »

XCSme wrote: post #223
lxrbst wrote: post #147

While I occasionally dream about working on cars or motorcycles at times instead of sitting in front of a computer all day, I think we tend to forget how good of a career developing is. When we picture our dream of doing a simple trade, we only think of the most awesome part of that trade. If I'm a car mechanic, most of it too is just trivial oil and tire changes or changing a basic part of two - not working on engin…

> most of it too is just trivial oil and tire changes or changing a basic part of two I bet that it feels better and more rewarding than updating a dependency and spending 2 days fixing all the errors caused by updating, especially knowing that you will have to do the same thing in a few months. There is something that feels good when you create/fix/improve a real object compared to a software one.

Dependency fixing is nothing compared to dealing with all the people you typically find in a software shop, IT, managers, pseudo-developers like SRE, infosec, or devops. Those people are actively blocking app developers in order to extract a paycheck, and sometimes it feels like the app developer and product manager are the only people actually interested in making money.

Re: I no longer build software

#709

Post by kennu »

tluyben2 wrote: post #694
kennu wrote: post #685

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have different experiences. My "lego blocks" are AWS services. Each service is a black box that maintains its API backwards compatible forever. My custom stuff is built around the API and keeps working forever. ( * ) In my view AWS has been very successful in maintaining this backwards compatible model even when they often add new features to services. There are sometimes edge cases that are not possible to impleme…

What are you paying though? The most common reason I get pulled in is because of exorbitant aws bills which eclipse dev bills... This sound expensive.

In the past 5 years all my projects have been based on AWS Lambda, API Gateway, S3, DynamoDB and other serverless technologies which are only billed for actual usage and network traffic. So they don't cost much unless they actually get heavy load from users.

Re: I no longer build software

#710

Post by burntoutfire »

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.

It's very doable in Poland - see my comment above somewhere. At least for now, the taxes for contract work (even long-term one) are low and the pay puts you probably in 98-99th percentile in the country. Retiring in 10-20 years is real (of course, it requires full-blown careerism: job hopping, going after the hottest fields/fads etc.).
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