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

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

#221
It's a little unclear what you actually "hate" here. To me, refactoring, rewriting, and rearchitecting are very different things than sprints, agile, and all that process.

If you hate the process, then it's probably easiest to find another job with process you can tolerate - especially if the current process is working for your company. If enough people are frustrated by it you may have some luck getting the company to introduce a new process, but I'd expect an uphill battle.

If it's really software engineering and architecture that bothers you, though, I'd strongly suggest giving it another try. "Making something that just works" now, is awesome when you're writing the code in the first place, but it's an absolute maintenance nightmare, and it won't be long before you're drowning in tech debt.

A whole team where everybody says "lets just do the first thing that works" may work for a treehouse or a shed, but you'll never build a skyscraper or big project that way.

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

#223

The strangest thing is that I love refactoring, and I sort of assume that it's another one of those things that programmers love to do, but managers keep pushing us to limit our time and move on to things that are visible to customers. But now I'm wondering if that's not the case. Or maybe it's just the sort of programmer who loves abstractions and is cast as a "perfectionist". I'm currently getting my footing now as…

> is there an angle for me to pitch myself as "The guy who will clean up your code base"?

You sort of answer your own question unfortunately.

> managers keep pushing us to limit our time and move on to things that are visible to customers.

So if a manager only values things visible to a customer, why would they hire an expensive consultant work on things that aren't valuable to them?

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

#224

> 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…

I dislike working just as a "software engineer" in a team where my part in decision making on the product progression isn't very significant. I like programming and tinkering with everything in the computer science domain because it's so very thrilling and rewarding.

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

#225

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…

Early in my career I started out just writing code for every problem. Now I loathe the prospect of writing a line of code unless I’m sure it’s not a waste of time. It can be exploratory code, but I need to know in advance exactly what questions I want it to answer, so even if I throw it away it definitively tells me a path I should not go down. I think this is a pretty common career progression. Coding can be fun and…

Agreed. These days every time I'm writing code I can't help but feel it's because I didn't know enough to be able to avoid writing it.

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

#227
Yes, I have never seen a working agile process. Only development where developers can either sleep the majority of the day or need to finish some death march for a feature management suddenly decided was needed yesterday to keep the company alive. Everything everyone is doing is theater, smoke and mirrors and clownery, kept alive by some implementation-champions and the super rare competent business people that burn themselves out.

Software Engineering is disgusting.

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

#228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Things were better before agile / scrum I don’t necessarily agree that things were better - but “agile” was supposed to fix the things that were bad back then but has since somehow managed to morph into exactly the same problems that it was originally purported to solve.

I always found it funny that where I worked we were doing Agile (without knowing it by that name) until the "Agile" Kool-aid was drank, at which time processes started to trump people.

Yep, when I first saw it, it was called "XP" (Extreme Programming). When I read the manifesto, I breathed a sigh of relief: finally, somebody with some authority has some clue about realistic software development! Then the Agile coaches started coming in: "the biggest benefit of Agile development is delivery of software on schedule and with budget!" Ok, new boss, same as the old boss. Gotcha.

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

#230

> 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…

Would the opposite of what you describe here be : program all the time and ship things as fast as possible?

I've found that in many cases, that generally makes return on investment hard to keep track of, and I think that most companies want profit. Balance is the key though and balancing what you describe as bad with fast shipping, I think is the best of both worlds

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