Substantial software engineering jobs tend not to do "sprints" and no or limited "agile". You still want to always be learning.
Ask HN: Do you hate software engineering but love programming?
11–20 of 733 posts
Re: Ask HN: Do you hate software engineering but love programming?
#12I love taking existing code and making it better while adding functionality.
Re: Ask HN: Do you hate software engineering but love programming?
#13An attitude recalibration may be helpful in this case. Software engineering is merely your "profession", and you perform it in exchange for other people providing you with clean water, cheap goods, security, etc. (Whether that's a fair trade is a different discussion).
Unless you're an owner or a shareholder you're essentially a skilled laborer. Clock in, ply your trade, clock out. If they're jerking you around on hours get a better job or "quiet quit". Do things you like and feel fulfilled about in your free time, it's better to take joy and meaning in the society that you theoretically are working for the privilege of living in rather than looking for that satisfaction in your work.
A quote I often think about from an article titled Smart Guy Productivity--"Son, I don't go to a place called fun, I go to a place called work."
Re: Ask HN: Do you hate software engineering but love programming?
#14> Refactoring, rewriting, sprint, agile, rearchitecting things etc aren't that fun.
Speak for yourself. Lots of those things are fun. Sprint and agile have more to do with the workplace, sure. But refactoring, rewriting and rearchitecting things can be really fun. The first implementation of anything is going to be burdened by complexity and wrong assumptions. It's only on the second time through that you have clarity. The joy of having the solution work pales in comparison to knowing that the underlying code is a thing of beauty. Like a jacket with a beautiful lining, paying attention to the details that nobody sees makes your product inherently better.
> Finding and fixing bugs is a lot of fun.
Refactoring is a part of this process. Squashing bugs and edge cases is fun like playing whack-a-mole, but it's also fun to see the bugs and edge cases as a chance to question your assumptions, is this really a one-off, or could I prevent all bugs of this kind in some way?
Re: Ask HN: Do you hate software engineering but love programming?
#15Sounds like most of us you like developing but dont like working in other people's code and design. Corporate work has a bad reputation but lots of upsides. I work in a small team of 5 people on a system that has about 40 users. Its amazingly better when you can talk to everyone, know what all the users want, dont have to worry about constant uptime or scalability. Flexibility and budget to pay for good platforms. Ju…
>> 5 people on a system that has about 40 users Gosh, that is expensive software!
You can't tell that from the data provided.
Re: Ask HN: Do you hate software engineering but love programming?
#16Sounds like most of us you like developing but dont like working in other people's code and design. Corporate work has a bad reputation but lots of upsides. I work in a small team of 5 people on a system that has about 40 users. Its amazingly better when you can talk to everyone, know what all the users want, dont have to worry about constant uptime or scalability. Flexibility and budget to pay for good platforms. Ju…
>> 5 people on a system that has about 40 users Gosh, that is expensive software!
I mean you're right but also; what does a manager do if not producing "software" to a small group of individuals. Or a designer for that matter.
Anyone who produces direct output to a small group of people is expensive in a similar way.
Re: Ask HN: Do you hate software engineering but love programming?
#17What exactly is your definition and/or interpretation of software engineering? And how exactly, in your eyes, is it different from programming?
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again :D
A programmer is a person who writes program code.
A software engineer applies engineering principles when designing and/or implementing programs.
A computer scientist uses scientific methods and rigor when solving problems relating to computing.
Re: Ask HN: Do you hate software engineering but love programming?
#18RE: Finding and fixing bugs is a lot of fun In that case I suggest finding a commercially-backed, open source project which you are passionate about. You can have best of both worlds - plenty of bugs and community interaction, all while also making a living out of it.
[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: Do you hate software engineering but love programming?
#19> I have come to a realization that I don't really enjoy Software Engineering(& the processes that it comes with) but I do love programming & solving problems. I can almost guarantee that you’re just at the wrong company. Some software companies can turn even the simplest tasks into a grueling series of processes, endless meetings, and joint work across a big number of “stakeholders”. These companies will take the jo…
1000x times this. It's a weird thing our profession. There's a horrible but apt (misogynistic even) saying. Happily married men are happy husbands - Unhappily married men are great philosophers. I really feel agile has killed the happiness of our industry because it's met with a lot of back and forth, meetings, rituals, and meta-work and not actual productivity (If agile is done well though it can be amazing but that's another topic to me)
Re: Ask HN: Do you hate software engineering but love programming?
#20Refactoring is super fun, that's the part where I learn the most:
after writing many features, adding the next one gets harder and complicated in my head, that's when I know that the code needs to be much cleaner so that adding the next feature becomes easy.
It often means that I delete code / completely skip a code base that went in the wrong direction and overcomplicated some part unnecesarily. And that's when my code gets much more elegant by achieving more and being simpler at the same time. I love it.