Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Do you hate software engineering but love programming?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 733 posts

Re: Ask HN: Do you hate software engineering but love programming?

#141

Post by lifeplusplus »

pdntspa wrote: post #55

I love most of the things around writing code but absolutely despise all the people that have popped up around it. Software engineering feels like a jobs program where we let nontechnical freeloaders figure out how to insert themselves into our process. I think that part of the reason that software sucks so much now is that the people designing it don't love software and technology the way we do, and it shows. I thin…

Precisely my feeling on this topic. We don't need scrum Masters, product managers and even most managers who are not technical. Too many people trying to have a say in something they have no expertise in. Basically software engineers are treated like a coding monkey.

Re: Ask HN: Do you hate software engineering but love programming?

#142

Post by bcrosby95 »

If you don't refactor, as you program new features the code will rot. The best time to refactor is when you add a new feature the codebase didn't anticipate - this is how we do it at my job. Do you not consider this refactoring? Or do you just bolt on things as you go?

Or do you consider refactoring something like "OK, we have 2 weeks to refactor the codebase" - because IMHO that's not a great way to do it. Instead, at work we follow the scout rule: make the code a little better each time you touch it. This is still refactoring.

And we don't do sprints either. We just have a priority list and however long the next thing takes is however long it takes. We do rough estimates but don't hold people's feet to the fire. Rarely we have deadlines and things DO need to be done by a certain time for that, but that is due to external marketing/etc. This usually only happens a couple times per year.

Re: Ask HN: Do you hate software engineering but love programming?

#143

Post by busterarm »

torben-friis wrote: post #25

I am the exact opposite. I mean, I don’t like processes and meetings, but I do like the planning and architecture part much more than I like actually writing code. Usually, if your mind is decently organized, I find that the problem is solved before writing a single line of code. If that happens, then the actual part of writing becomes dull and mechanical - the problem has already been solved. I’ve never understood p…

I'm with you too here. I always chafe and find minor conflict with the types of engineers that just want to head down, headphones on and write code all day long.

Planning is like 80% of the work to me.

Re: Ask HN: Do you hate software engineering but love programming?

#144

Post by gedy »

nerdile wrote: post #133
rco8786 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m really confused. What was the motivation of the hiring company here?

More context at https://news.ycombinator.com/context?id=29969359

I'm still kinda confused - did you have no work to do at all? Or you just were expecting some collaborative team work that's not there? I agree lack of communication seems extreme, but if you are working that's not exactly bench warming.

Re: Ask HN: Do you hate software engineering but love programming?

#146

Post by ta94455 »

Maybe try an operations teams at a <200-300 employee company? Been on a few platform operations teams/systems operations teams where most people are working in yaml or one-off cli tools. Those teams are usually a mix of people who can code and can't. If you can code you get a lot of freedom to work on whatever you want without sprints/strict design docs/required tests. Just need to make sure a potential team has enough people that not everyone is fire fighting all the time. Pay is good at the right company.

Re: Ask HN: Do you hate software engineering but love programming?

#147

Post by elil17 »

xwdv wrote: post #128
schrodinger wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a slight implication because it only covers men that women are the source of unhappiness (e.g. the nagging wife trope), but I agree it's trivial and likely unintentional. Agree with sibling, just as applicable as "happy married people are happy partners, unhappily married people are great philosophers".

[flagged]

>most people stuck in unhappy marriages are men

That is wildly untrue. The research on whether men or women are more satisfied in their marriages shows that they have about the same levels of satisfaction.

For example: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jomf.12077

Not really sure why the demographics of philosophers effects the impact of the statement. Most philosophers are white, would it have been more impactful if the statement had brought race into it?

Re: Ask HN: Do you hate software engineering but love programming?

#148

Post by PixelForg »

As a junior software engineer, I think the same but perhaps I have come to the conclusion too early. What I know is that I want work to always be easy or maybe with slight difficulty, and keep the hard stuff for personal projects. That way I wouldn't feel much stress.

Re: Ask HN: Do you hate software engineering but love programming?

#149

Post by pjlegato »

pydry wrote: post #76
kraig911 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>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) All that stuff you hate isnt unique to software. It's just capitalism.

All that stuff is actually _even worse_ under alternative economic systems. Spend a few hours talking with someone -- anyone -- who comes from a Communist country and ask them about this.

Re: Ask HN: Do you hate software engineering but love programming?

#150

Post by mpweiher »

kraig911 wrote: post #19
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #6

> 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…

> agile has killed the happiness...meetings...rituals...meta-work...not actual productivity.

All of that isn't actual agile. It's Fauxgile and has nothing to do with what agile is about, which is about removing impediments to productivity, removing meetings (why were there standups? Because they shouldn't exist in the first place, and if you absolutely positively can't avoid them then at least make them as short as possible by making everyone as uncomfortable as they should be) and laser-focusing on actual productivity.

> (If agile is done well though it can be amazing but that's another topic to me)

Yes. I would phrase it as: if agile is actually done.

Post reply on HN