Enterprise Software Projects Killed the Software Developer • Hacker News Board

Re: Enterprise Software Projects Killed the Software Developer

#61

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 11:01 PM UTC

slownews45 wrote: post #57

thinkharderdev wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Reflection, endless hierarchies, complexity on complexity" sounds like the exact opposite of "elegant properly engineered code"

You may not have worked with folks really into "properly engineered code". But it is amazing sometimes to see how they can twist language into pretzels by knowing every trick and pattern out there. And yes, somewhere in OOP land this is all proper engineering and the abstraction on abstraction on library on library is the key. The worst is when they start talking about future this and that. Trouble!

[deleted]

Re: Enterprise Software Projects Killed the Software Developer

#62

Post by slownews45 » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 11:05 PM UTC

winrid wrote: post #58

slownews45 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually - I've found the "elegant properly engineered code" a total NIGHTMARE to deal with. Reflection, endless hierarchies, complexity on complexity. The PHP script kid basically writes a linear program (tons of duplication) with no crazinesses. Yes, it's "low quality", but if you do a few function out refactorings you've got something very easy to work with. I just wish there was a standard template - access check…

I think the hidden message in your comment is "duplication over abstraction" - and I agree! Often duplicating things is preferable to complicated abstractions.

I find functions etc fine. But the problem is a lot of code let's you go absolutely crazy with complex design patterns - and folks who like to be "engineers" and "architects" go totally nuts with these. There was a fad I think around OOP (maybe with Java) which then bled into a lot of places. Yes, you can do crazy stuff, generics, meta programming, reflections etc.

But for example, if go just beefed up the standard library (especially around data structures - give us everything - and common functions there) I think they could have pushed a bit longer in terms of holding off on generics.

Re: Enterprise Software Projects Killed the Software Developer

#63

Post by stevenalowe » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 11:06 PM UTC

avmich wrote: post #54

There was that interview with Peter Norvig - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VPxEcT_Adc - I believe there he said something roughly like "before programming was about composing algorithms, structures etc. - and engineers used ideas from SICP - now it's about composing 3rd-party libraries and solutions - and engineers don't read manuals, don't worry about how systems work internally etc." Pardon if I stretched the me…

ah, yes and no. You really can't know the internal workings of everything, it's not practical anymore.

in other words: you can stand up a web site in less than an hour that will handle enormous loads across the globe, but not if you pause to read all the library code that goes into it.

fortunately, humans are pretty good a having faith in things

Re: Enterprise Software Projects Killed the Software Developer

#64

Post by cjtrowbridge » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 11:19 PM UTC

"When Hiro learned how to do this, way back fifteen years ago, a hacker could sit down and write an entire piece of software by himself. Now, that's no longer possible. Software comes out of factories, and hackers are, to a greater or lesser extent, assembly-line workers. Worse yet, they may become managers who never get to write any code themselves." Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash, 1992

Re: Enterprise Software Projects Killed the Software Developer

#65

Post by Pet_Ant » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 11:27 PM UTC

windows2020 wrote: post #21

blacktriangle wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the key...in time. In time doesn't help when the majority of your devs are junior which is a common case in large internal dev shops.

How will they learn to better express logic or master the language without experience?

They won’t. They’ll be mentoring other juniors and then onto management long before then.

Re: Enterprise Software Projects Killed the Software Developer

#66

Post by Aeolun » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 11:37 PM UTC

IceNotNice wrote: post #60

javajosh wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excellent comment. This is true, and I think golang embodies the idea (or attempts to). Enterprise wants consistency over anything else. That said, there is a type of cleverness that can be brought to bear on Enterprise systems that, for example, take a simple, unidirectional data flow into account - something that is rather abstract, but which can and will thwart lots of complexity down the line.

Can you elaborate a bit on the golang part? As someone who dabbled with Go but never found it too alluring when comparing to other options (if I wanted ease-of-use I'd go with Python, if I wanted performance I'd go lower level - C++/Rust), I'm interested what you mean by it. Go did find a footing in the industry and a lot of cloud infrastructure relies on it, I do think it's the most interesting option out of compile…

Go finds a really good position in between. The language itself restricts your ability to get too crazy (with for example types).

I hate it, but I can totally see how it would work really well for keeping your architecture simple.

Re: Enterprise Software Projects Killed the Software Developer

#67

Post by Aeolun » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 11:42 PM UTC

mirekrusin wrote: post #50

The best enterprice architects I worked with don't know shit. They can plot 3 boxes with 4 arrows and call it a day. They can take credit for working system, it doesn't matter. What really matters is that they don't waste time on useless preplanning, don't give you (as tech lead/senior dev) solutions to implement, but problems to solve. They don't know how to solve integration problems, but they know how to click to…

Hmm, yeah. The worst ones are the ones that think they actually know coding, or how a system should be implemented.

But mostly it’s annoying since we spend hours or days going around in circles until we arrive at the obvious solution (which the engineering team proposed at the start).

Re: Enterprise Software Projects Killed the Software Developer

#68

Post by Aeolun » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 11:45 PM UTC

908B64B197 wrote: post #9

lamplovin wrote: post #3

Why would it be a problem to write code in a way that's easily understood by others reading it? If your code is so complicated that a little bit of documentation can't explain it or at least help get people started then you're probably being too "clever" with your code and need to simplify it a bit. Simple code doesn't mean it has to be under-engineered or non-performant, and creating a culture that doesn't take the…

The real problem is that the while the same code might look obvious to John Carmack, it might not look obvious to $outsourced_bodyshop_ressource_0443434. Then you start coding for the lowest common denominator.

There is no code in existence that will look obvious to $outsourced_bodyshop_ressource_04434.

Re: Enterprise Software Projects Killed the Software Developer

#69

Post by avmich » Tue, Aug 31, 2021, 12:06 AM UTC

stevenalowe wrote: post #63

avmich wrote: post #54

There was that interview with Peter Norvig - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VPxEcT_Adc - I believe there he said something roughly like "before programming was about composing algorithms, structures etc. - and engineers used ideas from SICP - now it's about composing 3rd-party libraries and solutions - and engineers don't read manuals, don't worry about how systems work internally etc." Pardon if I stretched the me…

ah, yes and no. You really can't know the internal workings of everything, it's not practical anymore. in other words: you can stand up a web site in less than an hour that will handle enormous loads across the globe, but not if you pause to read all the library code that goes into it. fortunately, humans are pretty good a having faith in things

There is "From NAND to Tetris". There are not-too-few people with knowledge "from quantum mechanics to UI". At some point you get accustomed to actually know everything :) and you're annoyed with details which are excessive. The non-essential ("incidental") complexity.

You can probably make website faster if you learn 3rd party tools for that... but then you won't be in the position of Paul Graham in Viaweb, where a small team run circles around competition, being that much more productive. I suspect Apple's success is largely because Woz knew ins and outs of the system.

Your important here word is "anymore". Maybe we're at the wave of complexity which will wane. I don't actually think it will last.

Re: Enterprise Software Projects Killed the Software Developer

#70

Post by dangus » Tue, Aug 31, 2021, 12:14 AM UTC

This post largely glosses over the business motivation of these efforts.

Businesses want to reduce risk. That means reducing the probability of expensive surprises.

That means they'd rather spend 10% more on inefficient code running in production than to risk their 10x developer quitting and nobody else being able to understand the codebase, costing the company a lot more.

A lot of developers and engineers just want to have their space to tinker, to grow their skills and their mind. As a bonus, under this arrangement they'd get paid for it!

That's not how the real world works. Work follows the money, not the passion, and that's why work generally sucks.

E.g.: Photographers don't get to spend all day doing art photography, they largely have to do wedding photos to pay the bills.

If you don't want your hobby to suck, don't do it as a job (or accept that work sucks and do stuff on the side for your own enjoyment if you have the energy for it).

My best advice for any engineer is to take active interest in the business' needs and wants and consider those to be on a higher pedestal than implementation details.