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I no longer build software

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Re: I no longer build software

#851

Post by aarongough »

ci5er wrote: post #721
aarongough wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

> Every paying software job I've ever had was in some way involved getting people to click on ads. That's an amazing fact. May I ask how old you are? I've been designing SOCs, DSPs, Control Systems and a lot of software for various systems since 1985, and I can only recall one that might have been close to "clicking on ads" (it was a personalized "on hold" system for dial-in to major retailers (like JCP), to replace…

I'm 35. Luckily I'm now running my own manufacturing business where I get to work on a much wider range of stuff!

Re: I no longer build software

#852

Post by aarongough »

Diederich wrote: post #663
aarongough wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

> Every paying software job I've ever had was in some way involved getting people to click on ads. This is interesting, thanks for sharing that. Of the nine organizations that have paid me to write software since 1993, only one of them would fit in your criteria. Note: I am in no way doubting your claim, and I actually appreciate your perspective and the quote you cited. I will more deeply consider that when categori…

I have been lucky enough to work with a lot of great people, and I definitely found a lot of enjoyment in a lot of the work I've done, but I definitely wish that time had been spent doing work with more of a positive impact... Luckily there's still lots of time and I'm working on more impactful stuff now!

Re: I no longer build software

#853

Post by samatman »

bigiain wrote: post #845
samatman wrote: post #773

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not sure traveling these days is really that much simpler. I arrive in a foreign country. My phone works as soon as I turn it off airplane mode. I already have lodging, which didn't involve any long-distance calling or navigating foreign accents over a scratchy submarine cable. I don't know how to get there. Is public transit an option? One short map query later, I determine that it is , but that would involve…

> Traveling these days is really that much simpler. Maybe, but I'm not totally convinced the "simplicity" has really made my life any better? I have personal experience of travelling both pre and post smartphone era. I've spent reasonable or large amounts of time in San Francisco, New York, London, Bangkok, and Singapore (from Sydney), and a day or a few days in many more places. None of the "pre smart phone era" tra…

> I have personal experience of travelling both pre and post smartphone era.

Neither of those stories were made up...

Never argued that it's better, only that it's simpler.

Hard to tell if it's better since I'm older now. You only get to be a twentysomething on his first trip to Asia once.

Re: I no longer build software

#854

Post by mauvehaus »

eatbitseveryday wrote: post #349
mauvehaus wrote: post #123

Holy shit, this is me! A couple things to clarify: I posted the original issue as a minor complaint about the docker cli and promptly forgot about it. I never expected it to get any traction or follow-up. At the time I posted it, I was working as a contractor for my former full time employer. I had left full-time work there in early 2017 to attend the full-time program at the (sadly now-defunct) Furniture Institute o…

What made you interested in woodworking? My father retired a short while ago (though not from software) and took up woodworking. How do you price items? How do you handle shipping, or is the work all local?

Oh man. Shipping. Have I got a horror story about that. Let's just say that the chandelier pictured on my website is the first of two that I built. I crated it and sent it to a show in the care of a well-known shipping company (you've seen their trucks if you live in the US). And then I had to build a second one for the show.

I'm told that shipping via specialist companies that routinely handle art and high end furniture is a much better experience for all parties.

I'm trying to keep jobs within a reasonable drive or the pieces small enough that I can double box and peanut them without driving the cost for the dimensional weight through the roof.

Re: I no longer build software

#855

Post by mauvehaus »

xvilka wrote: post #831
mauvehaus wrote: post #123

Holy shit, this is me! A couple things to clarify: I posted the original issue as a minor complaint about the docker cli and promptly forgot about it. I never expected it to get any traction or follow-up. At the time I posted it, I was working as a contractor for my former full time employer. I had left full-time work there in early 2017 to attend the full-time program at the (sadly now-defunct) Furniture Institute o…

Sorry for such a direct question. With the pandemic hit your business, do you regret switching the professions?

That is such a complicated question. The short answer is no, but I don't feel like that really does it justice.

Re: I no longer build software

#856

Post by xkcd-sucks »

SCNP wrote: post #458
burger_moon wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went the other way into programming from the trades. Sometimes, especially when I read about people leaving this industry to go work in the trades it makes me nostalgic and miss working with my hands and building real things. But I also have enough bad memories of shitty work conditions and waking up sore day after day to give me a gut check to stay put for a little longer. > I don't think programming is the probke…

I also went from residential/commercial framing and remodeling into systems engineering/sysadmin. There are moments that really stand out on both sides, as you said. I distinctly remember packing the tools up one day and thinking about how the second floor of that house wasn't there that morning. It was a good feeling that has stuck with me for 15 years. But I also remember the days our crew was trying to eke out a f…

Framing seems a bit like a race to the bottom, because it's invisible to most people. Lots of software gigs are the same. Furniture is the opposite, and maybe some software is too

Re: I no longer build software

#857

Post by 0xEFF »

sli wrote: post #406
bob1029 wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modern software development is incredible if you are able to avoid the buzzword bullshit and focus on delivering cool solutions that solve real problems.

I've never worked a development job where I get any say in avoiding buzzwords or delivering solutions I would call cool. I typically get caught up in clients bikeshedding irrelevant details and managers enabling and promoting it. I hear so much on HN and on reddit about jobs that give programmers some level of autonomy but I just don't see it. My entire experience is very much the opposite, and I absolutely loathe th…

Consult. If your client doesn’t follow your advice most of the time move on to a client who does.

Re: I no longer build software

#858

Post by xkcd-sucks »

chpmrc wrote: post #304
derefr wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the implication is that ride hailing, delivery ordering, and flight/hotel booking were possible to do by calling the company on the telephone . Which— if you already know precisely what you want—has almost as little friction as opening an app and tapping a button. (And to make that apply more often, these companies used to distribute fliers containing their “browsable UI.”) “Live streams” of rocket launches w…

Calling has absolutely not the same friction as using an app. It's orders of magnitudes less efficient, more expensive and sometimes just impossible (good luck calling radio taxi in some countries where you don't speak the language). I think comparing what we could do 20+ years ago with what we can do now and saying "meh" is outright absurd. But, hey, everyone is entitled to their opinion.

For people that don't embody crippling social anxiety, calling is less friction and more effective.

I say this as one of those people, and still struggle to phone people when I know it will bring better results :)

Re: I no longer build software

#859

Post by xkcd-sucks »

bluntfang wrote: post #482
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…

>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?

Shit I live in the #3 housing cost city in the USA and after 8pm I can get precisely zero decent restaurants to deliver in any amount of time. Domino's will deliver at 9, but the same is true in the boonies.

Re: I no longer build software

#860

Post by mauvehaus »

mauvehaus wrote: post #123

Holy shit, this is me! A couple things to clarify: I posted the original issue as a minor complaint about the docker cli and promptly forgot about it. I never expected it to get any traction or follow-up. At the time I posted it, I was working as a contractor for my former full time employer. I had left full-time work there in early 2017 to attend the full-time program at the (sadly now-defunct) Furniture Institute o…

I'm off to bed for the evening. If I haven't addressed your comment specifically, I'd like you to know that I did read it. Thank you everybody for your kind words. I hope I addressed nearly everything people asked about even if I didn't reply directly to every comment; there were a lot of good questions!

I have not read all the way down the over 800 comments, and if you shared kind words or asked a question outside this thread, I apologize if I missed it.

I'm honestly astonished at how much this seems to have resonated with a lot of people. If it's not blindingly apparent by my comment, this was the last thing I expected to see at the top of HN on a Monday morning!

If you're trying to learn woodworking or are interested in learning it, I'd encourage you to do so. We all started somewhere, and for me that was struggling mightily to get a board flat with a hand plane in an evening class. My first dovetails were as rough as anybody's. Whatever you want to build, go ahead and build it. There's room for all kinds of woodworking in the world, fancy and plain alike.

The instagram woodworking community has been a mostly positive space for folks in the field both as hobbyists and professionals. If I can take a moment to veer briefly into politics, it hasn't been universally welcoming to women and people of color. Laura Mays talked about losing followers every time she promoted a show of female woodworkers. This is, frankly, shameful. There is room in this field for anybody who wants to explore it, at whatever level they choose to. Shutting people out because they don't fit our preconceived notions of what a woodworker looks like makes us all poorer.

Lastly, there are really too many people out there sharing excellent woodworking content to hope to name without some omissions. In addition to everybody I've linked or mentioned in other comments, I'd like to add in no particular order William Ng, Richard Macquire, Paul Sellers, woodgears.ca, seejanedrill on youtube, and artofplants on instagram.

I've doubtless omitted any number of other highly worthy people I've stumbled across over the years. I'd encourage everybody to go down the rabbit hole as far as they'd like and discover those people and more.

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