"We do these things not because they were easy, but because we thought they would be easy."
Evil programmer's tip: avoid “easy” things (2016)
41–50 of 203 posts
Re: Evil programmer's tip: avoid “easy” things (2016)
#42Heh, I think this applies to pretty much everything and everyone. For most people, anything you haven't done yourself or know in great detail, you will not be able to gauge how hard it is. And sometimes what people are calling hard is actually very easy for a certain set of people. So its all relative anyway.
Re: Evil programmer's tip: avoid “easy” things (2016)
#43At 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…
It's sort of like how it's better to be a firefighter than a maintainer, which is guess is the point. The ease may be similar, but coming in to save everyone from an explosion gets you more points than oiling the valve every day so pressure doesn't build up in the first place. It's a cultural issue that is very hard to combat.
Indeed, thank your (figurative and literal) janitors and maintenance staff! :)
Re: Evil programmer's tip: avoid “easy” things (2016)
#44I 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…
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Re: Evil programmer's tip: avoid “easy” things (2016)
#45At 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…
computing is a fraud, a CPU is literally a rock that we tricked into thinking
Re: Evil programmer's tip: avoid “easy” things (2016)
#46I 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…
I can't tell if this is sarcasm or not. If serious ...
This seems like a reckless way of regulating your motivation at work IMO. I don't mean to be snarky. But it really does put a lot of risk and cost on your colleagues, doubly so if you're leading a team, /and/ puts a lot of risk on your own career and reputation.
If you need to over-engineer everything to stay motivated, you need a different job. A job where the _problems_ are hard and the challenge is to find simple solutions to them, instead of the other way around.
Re: Evil programmer's tip: avoid “easy” things (2016)
#47I 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.
Beats not doing it at all.
Re: Evil programmer's tip: avoid “easy” things (2016)
#48Ouch. 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…
In my experience, as an employee (with no real skin in the game), doing the unglamorous jobs rarely gets rewarded with anything but more unglamorous work. You have to fight for your career and be willing to switch roles or jobs when you recognize when you've hit a glass ceiling. If I was told no to a project I (a) wanted to work on, (b) was qualified for, and (c) needed to be done, I would be looking for a new job. Whatever "social equity" I've given up for a new job has always been worth it.
Re: Evil programmer's tip: avoid “easy” things (2016)
#49A lot of wisdom here. The hard things are almost always more fun than the easy things anyway. > To get away with postponing, you need an excuse: other supposedly urgent work; This is shockingly easy in “shared resource” environments where team lines blur and management expects people to pitch in “where ever”. Just take on a tasks for manager A and B and play them off of each other.
Yes, there are a lot of dysfunctional organizations out there. That's a strategy that might yield short term financial success and entertainment value, but it's probably not helping out the organization.
I mean, outside of small-startup environments, who cares?
Do I have a moral responsibility to care? Maybe. Do I have a real reason to care outside of that tenuous-at-best ethical reason? If you believe the author's piece, no.
Re: Evil programmer's tip: avoid “easy” things (2016)
#50This works until your boss understands software development
That situation is in the 'good problems to have' category.