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I no longer build software

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Re: I no longer build software

#881

Post by anticristi »

smolder wrote: post #630
anticristi wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very nicely put. I mean look at a car: It's essentially a lot of 3rd party components put together coherently. I don't think any part of my Peugeot has a Peugeot label on it, rather Bosch, Autoliv, Michelin, etc. Same thing with airplanes. Boeing is pretty much Honeywell+GE+Liebherr to name a few. I am unsure why people find componentizing and integrating unrewarding in IT. I didn't hear my dad (a sound engineer) com…

Let me work with your analogy a bit. What if your dad's job was to install sound systems designed around poor quality speaker components, using expensive DSP systems that add a lot of latency to the signal and draw lots of power? He knows he could build better components than the ones he uses if he put the time in, and create a better overall system design with a better price/performance by applying state of the art…

I understand your analogy, but I don't think it is that bad. Rather, instead of wiring one perfectly-sized speakers, a sound engineer might have to use two off-the-shelf speakers of a smaller size.

I understand the frustration of not doing things optimally from a theoretical point of view. However, the unoptimality is offset by using battle-tested, robust components.

Re: I no longer build software

#882

Post by mpwoz »

nicbou wrote: post #652
mythz wrote: post #239

Seems to be a heavy "all modern software development sucks" vibe in this thread, when the issue is more "software I get paid to write sucks". What software would you write if you could write whatever you wanted using whatever language/technology you wanted? Unless all the joy gets sucked out beforehand, pretty sure I'm going to move to be developing Mobile Apps after I retire. It was the most fun I've had writing App…

> What software would you write if you could write whatever you wanted using whatever language/technology you wanted? The sort that solves problems I'm interested in. I love the idea of treating software as a home-cooked meal [1]: something you prepare with love for a small crowd of people. For instance, I added a recipes section to my personal website. I also added achievements to it some time ago[2]. Both were comp…

Thank you for the Robin Sloan link, I've been a fan of his ever since I read Sourdough for a book club a few years ago (incidentally while learning how to make my own by total coincedence) and his style really resonates with me. That blog was an interesting take and I've definitely experienced some of his frustration while making a small browser extension - it took an hour to code, and about 3 hours to wrangle it to conform to the chrome web store requirements before giving up and switching to Firefox ;)

Love the achievements section too, neat idea!

Re: I no longer build software

#883

Post by eeZah7Ux »

axegon_ wrote: post #242
eeZah7Ux wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> pulling comments and likes on things which can be considered "inappropriate" and "offensive" > That alone is enough for me to turn down the offer > I take chopping off my finger in a heartbeat You would rather lose a finger that work in a company that has strict very rules around offensive behavior? ...

> You would rather lose a finger that work in a company that has strict very rules around offensive behavior? As I said, in a heartbeat. I was born behind the iron curtain and still live in a place where it casts a dark shadow. There's a fine line between "strict rules" and full on dictatorship. Frankly I never understood the fuss around the so-called "offensive behavior". I spent 5 years of my life studying abroad.…

> There's a fine line between "strict rules" and full on dictatorship

There's a very big line between a company's silly hiring policy and a government. I doubt the company will send goons to kill you.

The fact that you can't tell the difference says a lot.

> Frankly I never understood the fuss around the so-called "offensive behavior".

There you go.

Re: I no longer build software

#884

Post by eeZah7Ux »

DarkWiiPlayer wrote: post #189
eeZah7Ux wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> pulling comments and likes on things which can be considered "inappropriate" and "offensive" > That alone is enough for me to turn down the offer > I take chopping off my finger in a heartbeat You would rather lose a finger that work in a company that has strict very rules around offensive behavior? ...

Uh... I don't think you understand the problem. A company going though your private social media is a big no-no. It's as if they'd call your friends and family and ask them "Has OP ever said or done anything offensive?". It's none of their concern and the fact that they even try this shit is a massive red flag. If they don't respect your privacy before they hire you, they won't magically start respecting it afterward…

> A company going though your private social media is a big no-no

I fully agree. I would not work there.

> It's as if they'd call your friends and family

Not at all: they would be alarmed by the call.

Yet, comparing this to "reign of terror" or "having a finger cut off" it's a huge and dishonest exaggeration.

People living under oppressive regimes have much bigger issues than not being hired by this company.

Re: I no longer build software

#885

Post by eeZah7Ux »

square_usual wrote: post #196
eeZah7Ux wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The plethora of tools to make "devops" simpler and cheaper made it much more expensive. You cannot simplify something by adding overly complex layers of abstraction on top of it.

They make it cheaper at scale. Most of us don't need that scale, so for us it's expensive.

...and yet all FAANGS implement their tooling instead of using the popular devops stuff.

Are they not understanding costs and scaling?

Re: I no longer build software

#886

Post by ricksharp »

NortySpock wrote: post #835
ricksharp wrote: post #379

I’ve been building software for around 20 years. It’s more enjoyable to me than it has ever been. One of the reasons is I have my own playground repo + site where I put all my experiments and write whatever I want. I can now make more in a day than I could have made in a year 15 years ago. In the past few months, I have: - built a serverless website/ code playground that enables me to host all my experiments and cost…

Can you describe more about your serverless website / code playground? Just curious. (I'm currently re-discovering the fun of coding by writing video games and hosting them internally to my house on docker containers on a Raspberry Pi.)

Sure: https://ricklove.me

So, almost all my content is hidden, but if you like text adventures you might have a go with the header bar.

It's pointing at my repo which is a mono-repo full of whatever I feel like: https://github.com/ricklove/rick-love-master

Basically, this is a website all built in react. It uses a simplified version of gatsby to generate a static website with async loaded components. That is hosted on netlify which basically provides free https, simple dns management, and git deploy with auto CDN cache expiration. In addition, I use serverless framework cli to define my AWS infrastructure and deploy the serverless stuff from command line. Essentially, I can make anything and deploy it in about 30 secs.

Some interesting things:

- A text adventure called dork (it's in the console simulator in the header)

- A doodle game for parties (using serverless websockets with AWS Api Gateway, Lambda, and DynamoDB): https://ricklove.me/games/doodle-party?room=hacker-news

- A bunch of educational games I made for my kids (using AWS lambda and S3 for storage): https://ricklove.me/games

- A code relationship visualizer: https://ricklove.me/tests/code-space/

- Components Testing (e.g. Stripe: https://ricklove.me/tests/stripe/)

Re: I no longer build software

#887

Post by axegon_ »

eeZah7Ux wrote: post #883
axegon_ wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You would rather lose a finger that work in a company that has strict very rules around offensive behavior? As I said, in a heartbeat. I was born behind the iron curtain and still live in a place where it casts a dark shadow. There's a fine line between "strict rules" and full on dictatorship. Frankly I never understood the fuss around the so-called "offensive behavior". I spent 5 years of my life studying abroad.…

> There's a fine line between "strict rules" and full on dictatorship There's a very big line between a company's silly hiring policy and a government. I doubt the company will send goons to kill you. The fact that you can't tell the difference says a lot. > Frankly I never understood the fuss around the so-called "offensive behavior". There you go.

Seems you selectively read only parts of my comment. It's about dignity and self-respect. While many people are gladly giving those away, I'm not. As I said, I've been called every stereotype known to mankind related to eastern Europeans. Do I care? No. The same way I didn't care when I was traveling through the UK in 2014 just as Nigel Farage was preaching how 150 million Bulgarians and Romanians were about to flood the UK and take everyone's jobs, rob everyone's house, kill every baby and rape everyone and their dog. Those were the headlines of every news report and the face of every newspaper stand. Again - did I care? "Cool story bro". Did any of that cause any harm to me or those around me? Not in the slightest. If anything I learned to joke about it myself.

The main issue is that when these things become the primary concern of a company, those that climb the ladder are not climbing it necessarily for their contribution but for their "attitude" or as I prefer to call it, ass-licking abilities. Because many people aren't buying into any of that but are willing to exploit this niche. Here's another example: I know a guy with a 5 figure monthly salary who has spoken at several seminars with multiple videos online, promoting the LGBTQ community. Great, right? Behind closed doors his reaction to all of those efforts was "what a bunch of faggots". As a developer he is absolutely terrible. He'd never be able to tell you the difference between float and double. Guess how he worked his way to the position he's in... Sadly all the translations I could find were terrible but here's the least bad one [1]. It's worth a read and you will see the analogy and the problem.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/satire/comments/1khe87/tale_of_the_...

Re: I no longer build software

#888

Post by throwawaygh »

bialpio wrote: post #735
throwawaygh wrote: post #615

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

So? If I get to pick how I waste my time, then that time is not really wasted.

So, I wonder how much social media use is a real choice. A lot of it feels more analogous the sort of false choice people make when they smoke or self-medicate with over-consumption alcohol.

Re: I no longer build software

#889

Post by fock »

zerr wrote: post #785
burntoutfire wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm from Poland. Of course, everything depends on the conditions of the retirement that you're comfortable with. For me, it's 5000 PLN ($1300) a month till I'm 85 years old + paid-off house. The 5k PLN should be very comfortable assuming no children, which I don't want. Assuming ultra-safe investing to only protect the principal (i.e. no return above inflation) and wanting to retire at 40, you'd need around 2,500,000…

You're way underpaid, even by Polish standards. You can easily get a remote job e.g. at German company that pays 70K-90K+ EUR.

would you mind naming the German companies paying 90K+€. I know quite a large number of people working in really big companies in Germany, which are considered very well-paying, and while 70-90K is certainly standard, anything else requires taking up management roles, which are not necessarily remote and not so many.

Re: I no longer build software

#890

Post by levicole »

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…

Wow! I'm so jealous that you went to the Furniture Institute, and didn't realize it shut down.

I am lucky enough to live in TN and have access to some great local woodworkers that give classes, specifically some amazing windsor chair makers.

Good luck with everything, I got a good chuckle out of the GitHub comment.

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