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Ask HN: Have we screwed ourselves as software engineers?

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Re: Ask HN: Have we screwed ourselves as software engineers?

#201

Post by dec0dedab0de »

ushakov wrote: post #131
dec0dedab0de wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regardless of how you're deploying things, having unrelated projects in the same git repository might be simpler (maybe?) but certainly seems worse at the same time. Sure, if they're actually unrelated, or being managed by separate teams then split it up. Though I think the default should be to have one, and split it when there is an actual reason to, especially if it's for the same project. The example I gave wasn't…

i'm wondering what engineering decisions drove the project to be split in 14 parts? is it like micro-services thing or what?

Yes it was mostly micro services, with a separate frontend repo, and a separate repo for deploy scripts, some separate libraries that were shared between the microservices, there may have even been a separate repo for documentation, I don't remember exactly.

I think it really just came down to dividing the repos into chunks that the deployment scripts could use/trigger off of. Instead of developing in a way that makes sense for developers and bending the deployment to fit. Since it was all in one directory on his computer, it was basically a mono repo from his perspective. Committing from the IDE just committed to whichever repo was changed, and since he was the only developer he never saw the downside. When I had to take it over ghorg[0] really came in handy. It's a script to clone all repos from a user/organization on gitlab, github, and others. Then once I opened up all the repos as one pycharm project I was able to get some stuff done, but at that point I might as well just had one repo with a separate directory for each.

[0]https://github.com/gabrie30/ghorg

EDIT: I also just remembered that gitlab is much better than github if you are going to go the route of multiple repos for one project. Gitlab lets you create namespaces to group your repos, so if they're all in the same namespace, you could have documentation to just tell people to clone all of them.

Re: Ask HN: Have we screwed ourselves as software engineers?

#202

Post by birthday »

The question to ask is has software gotten better? I say yes, cloud, mobile and web have exploded and are if much higher quality than they were in the past.

So I wouldn't say we've screwed ourselves.

Would we be better of if we took a different path? No one can or will ever know

Re: Ask HN: Have we screwed ourselves as software engineers?

#204

Post by clawlor »

Bancakes wrote: post #103
ggariepy wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The purpose of a union is to create a labor cartel which tends to standardize the price of labor above the rate at which the market would likely set it. IP clauses and non-competes are a small part of the issues plaguing our industry. Putting constraints on the labor supply is probably not a good thing; it leads to the market for labor relocating to less union-friendly climes. Ask anyone from Detroit how well that wo…

'Labor market' is a purely American concept. You shouldn't be switching jobs constantly and relocating. It takes a toll on personal life and makes no sense anyway.

It's still a "market" so long as there are supply and demand, regardless of how frequently a given participant is conducting transactions in that market.

The housing market is probably a good example. Many participants probably only purchase property once or twice in their lives (less even if you consider the case of a married couple buying a house, that's 0.5 purchases per person).

Re: Ask HN: Have we screwed ourselves as software engineers?

#205

Post by rvz »

dimgl wrote: post #172
rvz wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That one can go die on the trash heap of history. As long as there are Rust jobs or blockchain related jobs there, you're going to have to cope and wait for a very very long time until that is ever going to 'die on the trash heap of history' to happen.

I'm not sure you realize just how quickly that can all go away (and does). Blockchain companies are a dime a dozen. They don't all last forever.

> I'm not sure you realize just how quickly that can all go away (and does).

So why hasn't it died quicker than it should have years ago as many have incorrectly predicted then?

> Blockchain companies are a dime a dozen. They don't all last forever.

And who said that the 'companies' did last forever? Why do you think I said as long as?

I'm just wondering if the whole thing is guaranteed to totally go away 100% and to be absolutely used by no-one since clearly someone also thinks so. That is my question.

Re: Ask HN: Have we screwed ourselves as software engineers?

#206

Post by AaronM »

oneplane wrote: post #188
i_like_waiting wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Promotion based architecture is self fulfilling prophecy at least in BI/ data world. I see everybody around me moving to cloud, without really good explanation why. Only reasonable thing I can see as an pattern is that cloud experience on top of data things gets paid 30% more. It made me consider cloud a lot. I was considering switching to cloud, just so I can put in my CV "experience with migration to cloud". For ne…

It makes sense when you aren't a datacenter hosting company as your core business. Once you're done with your DRP and BCP it's highly unlikely that your server-under-the-desk (as it usually is) is worth the risk. By the way, moving 'to the cloud' never means a specific thing because people have made words (intentionally?) vague to the point where you have to explicitly specify all the factors you take into account wi…

And its easy to compare the cost of the cloud running your hardware to the cost of physical hardware. However, its much more difficult to compare the indirect costs between the two, and that's where I think many people go sideways.

Re: Ask HN: Have we screwed ourselves as software engineers?

#207

Post by jscheel »

tomc1985 wrote: post #181
i_like_waiting wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Promotion based architecture is self fulfilling prophecy at least in BI/ data world. I see everybody around me moving to cloud, without really good explanation why. Only reasonable thing I can see as an pattern is that cloud experience on top of data things gets paid 30% more. It made me consider cloud a lot. I was considering switching to cloud, just so I can put in my CV "experience with migration to cloud". For ne…

There's a finance angle behind cloud stuff too that's irrestible for the bean counters: cloud stuff is operations expense, on-prem is a capital expense. Unfortunately these folks are heavily incentivized to favor OpEx I'm not a bean counter, all I know is those guys at my last job would rattle off about it like zombies. IIRC its a tax thing

Opex is fully deductible each year the expense occurs, wheras capex requires amortized depreciation over the life of the purchased item. Makes it harder to calculate taxes.

Re: Ask HN: Have we screwed ourselves as software engineers?

#208

Post by seydor »

I laugh when these "brave new age" practices find their way to academia, where they actively interfere with every step of the intentionally perpetually-unfinished, half-assed, single-use software that they make.

But why are s/w developers worried? As long as tons of advertising money find their way into glorified blogs, they will get paid, no matter how much complexity they invent to justify their workload.

Re: Ask HN: Have we screwed ourselves as software engineers?

#209

Post by davzie »

dimgl wrote: post #162

I think you're overreacting (and I think the comments here are overly negative). Web tooling is better than ever. I can very quickly spin up a full-fledged production grade app with very little investment. I don't worry about blockchain or NoSQL or any of that. I just use tools that make me a productive engineer and that's ultimately what companies are interested in. If you're worried about recruiters asking you if y…

Even as a British person, I am not sure if this is sarcasm and a wonderful example of a satirical take or not.
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