Evil programmer's tip: avoid “easy” things (2016) • Hacker News Board

Re: Evil programmer's tip: avoid “easy” things (2016)

#31

Post by erdo » Wed, Jul 28, 2021, 9:12 PM UTC

Swizec wrote: post #27

agumonkey wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd bet a huge amount of "pro skills" is having a sense of balance between time-to-implement / feature-value. And design stuff that allows for slight additions without going full-blown NIH framework

“How to make this work within constraints” and “When to suggest alternatives with better constraints that require smol tweaks in requirements” is the whole point of engineering. “Build whatever they ask” is … eh it’s not what engineering is about. You have to be a partner, an expert. Can’t expect the suits to know everything, that’s what they hired you for.

So much this

Re: Evil programmer's tip: avoid “easy” things (2016)

#32

Post by erdo » Wed, Jul 28, 2021, 9:14 PM UTC

tcoff91 wrote: post #26

quelsolaar wrote: post #21

I actively try to avoid to do anything the easy way, because I know ill get bored if do. Motivation is the most valuable resource in programming. I rather do something over engineered that I find interesting, then something simple and boring. Even if it takes 3 times the effort, I know ill put more than 3 times the effort in if I'm motivated, and ill end up learning something and ill end up with something I'm proud o…

Sounds like you’ll end up with something 3x as hard for future engineers to maintain also.

(Or yourself to maintain in a year's time)

Re: Evil programmer's tip: avoid “easy” things (2016)

#33

Post by sam0x17 » Wed, Jul 28, 2021, 9:16 PM UTC

simonbarker87 wrote: post #7

At my last job I made a feature to deploy arbitrary user code (most likely a trained model in Python) to a subdomain running a JS server that could take input parameters when called at that URL and would respond with the answer from the model. This effectively cut down DS deployments from potentially days to about 45 seconds. It was seen that be hard and I had a good amount of help from our awesome devops person and…

I will say as someone who has to wrangle a lot of junior devs -- don't have imposter syndrome on this. The hard part is sticking with the issue and seeing it through to the logical conclusion. Many people have difficulty even conceptualizing the steps that need to be taken in order to solve a problem. If you are smart enough to get help from someone in devops and understand the advice they gave, you're doing the same stuff senior devs and CTOs do on a daily basis. We're all frauds lol

Re: Evil programmer's tip: avoid “easy” things (2016)

#34

Post by BurningFrog » Wed, Jul 28, 2021, 9:16 PM UTC

jofer wrote: post #29

Ouch. This hits close to home. I _constantly_ get passed over for the interesting work, despite being _extremely_ qualified for it. (e.g. I keep getting told I don't "have a scientific background", so I'm not qualified to work on problem X, despite the fact that I have a PhD in the field and extensive experience on closely related problems) It's because I'm seen as a technician, not an engineer or a scientist. That's…

> SAY NO TO URGENT ONE-OFF REQUESTS FROM MANAGEMENT!!!

Or find new management, if this is a consistent problem.

Unless you happen to be the management hiring boss, that means finding a different place to work.

Re: Evil programmer's tip: avoid “easy” things (2016)

#35

Post by bob1029 » Wed, Jul 28, 2021, 9:17 PM UTC

wnevets wrote: post #4

> Under time pressure, the scope shrinks You may call it evil but I call it building the things that actually need to get done.

Simply prioritizing tasks correctly is all you really need to do.

If you can't figure out what is important or not, default to order by descending difficulty. Get the team on a call and figure out hardest, 2nd hardest, 3rd hardest, and then assign those tasks.

You will likely (but not always) find the trivial, "easy" shit wasn't that valuable to begin with - otherwise it would have been prioritized by the business and have been completed already.

There are additional benefits with this approach - If the whole team starts knocking out the scariest shit first, it's like paying off your biggest debt first. The psychological power of that is really hard to overstate in my experience.

Re: Evil programmer's tip: avoid “easy” things (2016)

#36

Post by junon » Wed, Jul 28, 2021, 9:19 PM UTC

BurningFrog wrote: post #34

jofer wrote: post #29

Ouch. This hits close to home. I _constantly_ get passed over for the interesting work, despite being _extremely_ qualified for it. (e.g. I keep getting told I don't "have a scientific background", so I'm not qualified to work on problem X, despite the fact that I have a PhD in the field and extensive experience on closely related problems) It's because I'm seen as a technician, not an engineer or a scientist. That's…

> SAY NO TO URGENT ONE-OFF REQUESTS FROM MANAGEMENT!!! Or find new management, if this is a consistent problem. Unless you happen to be the management hiring boss, that means finding a different place to work.

This is really easy to say, but having done pretty much exactly this for ages, finding management that doesn't take advantage of you in this regard is really rare.

Re: Evil programmer's tip: avoid “easy” things (2016)

#37

Post by stingraycharles » Wed, Jul 28, 2021, 9:21 PM UTC

jofer wrote: post #29

Ouch. This hits close to home. I _constantly_ get passed over for the interesting work, despite being _extremely_ qualified for it. (e.g. I keep getting told I don't "have a scientific background", so I'm not qualified to work on problem X, despite the fact that I have a PhD in the field and extensive experience on closely related problems) It's because I'm seen as a technician, not an engineer or a scientist. That's…

If you have a PhD in the field and are spending your time prepping demos and/or generating reports, then I would say: move away from where you’re currently at. Even if you think it’s too late, chances are you still can.

This can be done by either changing how you’re being perceived internally, or, the easier way: getting a different job elsewhere.

Re: Evil programmer's tip: avoid “easy” things (2016)

#38

Post by abledon » Wed, Jul 28, 2021, 9:22 PM UTC

junon wrote: post #36

BurningFrog wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> SAY NO TO URGENT ONE-OFF REQUESTS FROM MANAGEMENT!!! Or find new management, if this is a consistent problem. Unless you happen to be the management hiring boss, that means finding a different place to work.

This is really easy to say, but having done pretty much exactly this for ages, finding management that doesn't take advantage of you in this regard is really rare.

what industry/country are you in?

Re: Evil programmer's tip: avoid “easy” things (2016)

#39

Post by fnord77 » Wed, Jul 28, 2021, 9:24 PM UTC

jofer wrote: post #29

Ouch. This hits close to home. I _constantly_ get passed over for the interesting work, despite being _extremely_ qualified for it. (e.g. I keep getting told I don't "have a scientific background", so I'm not qualified to work on problem X, despite the fact that I have a PhD in the field and extensive experience on closely related problems) It's because I'm seen as a technician, not an engineer or a scientist. That's…

don't volunteer for the one-off quickies, either.

they'll keep coming to you.

Re: Evil programmer's tip: avoid “easy” things (2016)

#40

Post by josh-stylo » Wed, Jul 28, 2021, 9:25 PM UTC

jofer wrote: post #29

Ouch. This hits close to home. I _constantly_ get passed over for the interesting work, despite being _extremely_ qualified for it. (e.g. I keep getting told I don't "have a scientific background", so I'm not qualified to work on problem X, despite the fact that I have a PhD in the field and extensive experience on closely related problems) It's because I'm seen as a technician, not an engineer or a scientist. That's…

I'm not sure how old you are but if you're planning on working for another 5-10 years, you may as well try to make it enjoyable for yourself. Perhaps you can find a way to line things up so that your manager looks their best by giving you credit. If you can frame them in a positive light, they'll want you at the presentations making it hard for others to steal credit and giving you more exposure within the org. If you feel so negatively about your manager that you can't speak highly, maybe you're at the wrong job or on the wrong team? It's a sellers market for software engineers right now so I'd encourage you to see what the market wants to offer you. Just some thoughts - I'm sure I'm missing most of the nuance of your situation.