Times are great for programmers now. How does it end? • Hacker News Board

Re: Times are great for programmers now. How does it end?

#461

Post by rixed » Mon, Feb 21, 2022, 2:36 PM UTC

LAC-Tech wrote: post #176

I feel like we have so much leverage and don't use it at all. We're still attending stand-ups every day with non programmers telling us when we can and cannot refactor. It's nuts to me that a skilled profession - that not many can do - lets themselves get micro-managed like this. If anyone has read Developer Hegemony , I'm fully on board with that general premise - we start operating like lawyers with partnerships, a…

Not only are devs micromanaged by any figure of authority with not much tech knowledge and sometime not even business knowledge and freshly landed from a different industry, if not from school, but devs are also happy to be, quite frankly, considered as mere children.

Other skilled professions do not either communicate with memes, have slides and swings in the office (as seen in some Google offices), etc. If part of the geek culture is being infantile, that's no wonder that devs got told what to do.

I don't know if the gamification of dev work went so far because of this, or if the causality goes the other way around.

Re: Times are great for programmers now. How does it end?

#462

Post by rightbyte » Mon, Feb 21, 2022, 2:36 PM UTC

codegrappler wrote: post #394

rightbyte wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need fancy AI to make us unemployed. Just back to basic would do. You list complex solutions which would just need even more programmers to maintain.

Was coming here to say this. Every time a more sophisticated system has been built to replace a simpler one, it requires MORE programmers, not less.

Ye. I think there is way to much "automation" nowadays.

It is like all these business systems corparations use. They would probably be better off with some secretaries with typewriters sending internal paper mail.

Systems that try to automate too much are too rigid to use in a sane way.

The nice thing with a no computer system, is that if you want to do something, just do it. An analogue would be writing math notation on paper or on a computer. I can hardly imagine even Knuth prefering the later.

Computers should be used for well defined tasks they are good at with rather simple programs, or the whole business need to adjust to what the computer allows.

Re: Times are great for programmers now. How does it end?

#463

Post by francisofascii » Mon, Feb 21, 2022, 2:40 PM UTC

tupac_speedrap wrote: post #52

osrec wrote: post #27

I actually think high quality programmers will always be in high demand. Poor programmers will get found out sooner, as the general population becomes more technical.

The general population isn't becoming more technical though, as an example almost everybody drives cars but most people aren't mechanics. People see cars and tech as a means to an end, which is perfectly fine for me. They just want to get their job done.

In the same way that giving IPads to grade schoolers does not make them more technical.

Re: Times are great for programmers now. How does it end?

#464

Post by blockwriter » Mon, Feb 21, 2022, 2:46 PM UTC

LAC-Tech wrote: post #176

I feel like we have so much leverage and don't use it at all. We're still attending stand-ups every day with non programmers telling us when we can and cannot refactor. It's nuts to me that a skilled profession - that not many can do - lets themselves get micro-managed like this. If anyone has read Developer Hegemony , I'm fully on board with that general premise - we start operating like lawyers with partnerships, a…

I feel like lawyers enjoy this relationship because they control how many lawyers are admitted to the bar.

Re: Times are great for programmers now. How does it end?

#465

Post by iSnow » Mon, Feb 21, 2022, 2:46 PM UTC

Dave3of5 wrote: post #348

iSnow wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish I could get this across to my PMs, bosses and other non-technical stake-holders. Current PM is an nice guy but first of all, he absolutely loves to talk and second, he believes the "daily status meeting" format is what Scrum is all about.

Send him this link: https://www.scrum.org/resources/what-is-a-daily-scrum From the horses mouth: "The Daily Scrum is Not a Status Meeting" Or maybe see about getting him certified.

We even have a Scrum master & certified Scrum trainer and she does not intervene which is kind of surprising considering the DSU devolved into a status meeting. You can't make it up, old industry really doesn't change.

Re: Times are great for programmers now. How does it end?

#466

Post by gilbetron » Mon, Feb 21, 2022, 2:47 PM UTC

BirAdam wrote: post #437

It ends the same way it did the last time. A giant tech market crash, more market consolidation, and massive cultural change. At this point, things move so fast that operating systems are shipped with known bugs, security flaws, and half baked ideas. They are then patched via over-the-net updates. I think this will stop. People will go back to more traditional development paradigms out of necessity. They also won’t c…

> At this point, things move so fast that operating systems are shipped with known bugs, security flaws, and half baked ideas.

Wait, you think that wasn't the case 10, 20, 30+ years ago?

OS releases are far better now than they were pretty much ever.

Re: Times are great for programmers now. How does it end?

#467

Post by 4gotunameagain » Mon, Feb 21, 2022, 2:47 PM UTC

Damogran6 wrote: post #429

I’m coming to the uncomforable conclusion that we’re ALL doing a dance. Programmers make a product, Managers manage the people, HR protects the company, Legal protects HR, the Shareholders leverage the Executive Staff to make their profit margins. But in all of this, very little ACTUAL STUFF happens. (I say this as a security guy, who’s line on the balance sheet is ALWAYS in the cost column.) So much of what we do is…

It's why it's called busyness ;)

Re: Times are great for programmers now. How does it end?

#468

Post by spzb » Mon, Feb 21, 2022, 2:49 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #441

matwood wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On this same site you can read all day about developers complaining about interruptions. Now a company has big issues if someone puts a task aside to do something else until the following day where they will avoid interrupting someone?

Somebody communicating about a blocking situation depending on your input (or output) is not an interruption. BS "can I pick your mind", chit/chat, questions that could be Googled, and of course, micromanagement BS are interruptions. DSUs themselves are also interruptions -- it's just that they're scheduled and not event-based. In other words, necessary communication is not interruption. Accidental communication is i…

Stand ups are the bane of my life, interruption wise. Not everyone wants to work the same hours but we all have to set aside a mutually inconvenient time to distract from what we're supposed to be doing. Before the stand up, your mind's not properly on your work 'cause you know you're about to be interrupted. After the stand up, you have to get back into your work but now with less time to do it.

Re: Times are great for programmers now. How does it end?

#469

Post by iSnow » Mon, Feb 21, 2022, 2:50 PM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #444

Dave3of5 wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest I would just throw SCRUM into the trash if I could I think it's garbage but following some not quite SCRUM method which is what most companies do is actually insane. The whole process becomes a micromanagers wet dream.

I have come to really like kanbahn methods. No two weeks sprints, no committing to work you will get done (thus needing to sandbag to ensure you meet them - management will measure this to ensure you hit your commitments 100% - though to be fair SCRUM itself says don't do this, but it happens anyway), just get take the more important story off the stack and work it, and repeat. If management changes priorities then r…

It's really weird. I have resorted to reducing my workload from sprint to sprint to avoid the drama when estimates aren't met. Management is much happier now, they see "work done" and equate it with better performance. And Scrum has always been like that for me whereas Kanban types of work create a much saner work environment.

Re: Times are great for programmers now. How does it end?

#470

Post by AitchEmArsey » Mon, Feb 21, 2022, 2:51 PM UTC

Kye wrote: post #447

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You better not look too closely at the rest of the economy then because most of it looks like that.

You mean we don't need 5 different grocery chains at every highway crossing selling the same 100 products under 500 different brands from 5 companies?

Competition between profitable businesses is one thing, loss-making startups paying 6-figure salaries for shitty tools is quite different - particularly when the latter company ends up with a billion-dollar valuation for reasons totally divorced from actual worth.