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What I’ve Learned in 45 Years in the Software Industry

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Re: What I’ve Learned in 45 Years in the Software Industry

#281

Post by ddingus »

toyg wrote: post #255
ddingus wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It just occurred to me a sysadmin log would be very valuable: Installed update X to prevent risk Y Wrote script to advance process Z on input A Etc...

It would, but these logs can also feel like oppressive and meaningless bureaucracy. A lot of sysadmins are not even good at typing... It’s one of those things that would probably be naturally suited to voice-activated systems (“Hey Siri, today I updated system X to avoid Y, and I wrote a script to improve process Z on input A” - 5 seconds to say, log saved in the right place, keywords like “updated” and “system X” re…

Honestly, that kind of tool would be useful to a lot of people.

Re: What I’ve Learned in 45 Years in the Software Industry

#282

Post by lmm »

airstrike wrote: post #45
marcus_holmes wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I entered the industry with no degree, having taught myself to code. After approx 15 years as a developer, I decided to get a degree, because it was becoming a problem (Australia is very sensitive to qualifications). I decided to get an MBA because all the hard problems I'd met were people and/or business problems. The tech is generally easy in commercial coding. There is usually a definitive answer, and if not then…

Wow. This must be the very first pro-MBA comment in the history of HN. Feels refreshing!

I think everyone agrees that bad management is the biggest problem facing a lot of software companies. The part that's disputed is whether managers with MBAs are actually any better than managers without them.

Re: What I’ve Learned in 45 Years in the Software Industry

#283

Post by asiachick »

xyzelement wrote: post #22
lrossi wrote: post #6

Something that I find interesting is that career advice coming from professionals having many years of experience focuses almost exclusively on the people aspects and not the technology: communication, trust, teamwork, documentation, clarity. The advice is clear, precise and honest. This is the opposite of what you get from new hires/juniors: they tend to focus on which stacks matter, what to learn, how to develop, d…

What you're saying is important for everyone to internalize. I'll spin it like this: Your job satisfaction/pay are a function of your impact. Your impact is a function of your leverage. If you're a "pure coder" who doesn't have any of the other skills you mentioned, your output is incredibly limited. At best, you produce a day's worth of code in a day, but you also require someone to manage you closely to make sure y…

I'm not sure how "(a) work independently" fits. In fact it seems the opposite. The whole point is about working with and influencing others. That's not "working independently"

Re: What I’ve Learned in 45 Years in the Software Industry

#284

Post by asiachick »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #43
lrossi wrote: post #6

Something that I find interesting is that career advice coming from professionals having many years of experience focuses almost exclusively on the people aspects and not the technology: communication, trust, teamwork, documentation, clarity. The advice is clear, precise and honest. This is the opposite of what you get from new hires/juniors: they tend to focus on which stacks matter, what to learn, how to develop, d…

I entered the industry with no degree, having taught myself to code. After approx 15 years as a developer, I decided to get a degree, because it was becoming a problem (Australia is very sensitive to qualifications). I decided to get an MBA because all the hard problems I'd met were people and/or business problems. The tech is generally easy in commercial coding. There is usually a definitive answer, and if not then…

What are some example of things you learned getting your MBA?

Re: What I’ve Learned in 45 Years in the Software Industry

#285

Post by [deleted] »

lmm wrote: post #282
airstrike wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. This must be the very first pro-MBA comment in the history of HN. Feels refreshing!

I think everyone agrees that bad management is the biggest problem facing a lot of software companies. The part that's disputed is whether managers with MBAs are actually any better than managers without them.

[deleted]

Re: What I’ve Learned in 45 Years in the Software Industry

#286

Post by SoSoRoCoCo »

"Beware of Lock-In"

45 years ago when there were, oh, 5 computer languages: YES.

Today, with a dozen languages and hundreds of frameworks and tens of thousands of packages in those frameworks, maybe not so much. We could do with a little "lock in" for maybe a few years. IMHO.

Re: What I’ve Learned in 45 Years in the Software Industry

#287

Post by dodobirdlord »

gen220 wrote: post #233
tannhaeuser wrote: post #81

What I'd be really interested in is how tech churn is perceived by people older than me. I'm only 30 years in, so I tend to defend my generation's choices such as POSIX, SQL, XML, SOA, Java, and C/C++ before that (plus special-purpose pet peeves of mine such as markup/SGML and logic programming which came before) though I'm also claiming to be proficient in and generally open towards new tech. I consider most of supp…

> initiatives for standardization have almost dropped to zero compared to the 1990s and 2000s I think OSS adoption explains this. Standards were all about advocating for common interfaces, even if the implementations were proprietary. Proprietary software was more a thing in the 90s and 00s. Nowadays, common practice is to use open implementations , not just open interfaces. Nowadays, we only see widespread initiativ…

Before the triumph of OSS standardization required multiple parties to come to agreement and then each produce their own implementation, so implementers had an incentive to fight for their own objectives so that they didn't get backed into a corner of having to do unprofitable work. Lots of bickering about was was and wasn't worth including. To navigate this environment requires committees and formal standards documents.

But you know what's a great consolation prize for not getting exactly what you want? Not having to do any work! So when Docker comes along with Docker Containers or Google comes along with Kubernetes, the consolation prize of not having to do any work is a lot larger than the downside of not getting to have any input. Working code is working code, especially if someone reputable has also promised to maintain it for free.

Re: What I’ve Learned in 45 Years in the Software Industry

#288

Post by fairity »

xyzelement wrote: post #22
lrossi wrote: post #6

Something that I find interesting is that career advice coming from professionals having many years of experience focuses almost exclusively on the people aspects and not the technology: communication, trust, teamwork, documentation, clarity. The advice is clear, precise and honest. This is the opposite of what you get from new hires/juniors: they tend to focus on which stacks matter, what to learn, how to develop, d…

What you're saying is important for everyone to internalize. I'll spin it like this: Your job satisfaction/pay are a function of your impact. Your impact is a function of your leverage. If you're a "pure coder" who doesn't have any of the other skills you mentioned, your output is incredibly limited. At best, you produce a day's worth of code in a day, but you also require someone to manage you closely to make sure y…

> The more of these things you do, you become orders of magnitude more impactful than a pure coder.

Your job satisfaction/pay are also a function of how unique your skillset is.

With this in mind, increasing your impact (through soft skills) is just one of two ways to increase pay - the other way is to do something that not many others can do. For many people, doing something unique is far more satisfying than dealing with people problems.

Re: What I’ve Learned in 45 Years in the Software Industry

#289

Post by tayo42 »

lrossi wrote: post #6

Something that I find interesting is that career advice coming from professionals having many years of experience focuses almost exclusively on the people aspects and not the technology: communication, trust, teamwork, documentation, clarity. The advice is clear, precise and honest. This is the opposite of what you get from new hires/juniors: they tend to focus on which stacks matter, what to learn, how to develop, d…

You ever wonder if there's some kind of bias? Like successful people people (not a typo) will be more outgoing and likely to give advice. A successful tech focused person might not be blogging and giving unsolicited advice.

Re: What I’ve Learned in 45 Years in the Software Industry

#290

Post by [deleted] »

astrange wrote: post #271
closeparen wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the party line. It misses that “a day’s worth of code” is highly unequal across individuals. The people whose “day’s worth of code” are most valuable, quickly get pulled off of spending their days that way. It appears that they key skill is coordinating a lot of developers, because the ones left developing are the ones you need a lot of (and who need close supervision) to get anything done. Managers will neve…

That means you have bad middle/upper management. Large tech companies have heard of the Peter Principle and don't promote this way; they have separate technical tracks. Which is not to say they're doing everything right.

[deleted]
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