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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?

#471

Post by kovac »

ccday wrote: post #444
kovac wrote: post #426

Not just you. Software development, especially web, is a very pretentious industry. I believe that itll be one of the first programming jobs that'll fall to AI if it happens someday (no, systen architecture is not some special, difficult skill only some of us can have as they'd have you believe). Embedded, OS, scientific programming, they do real work there. Take a magazine like POC||GTFO and see what real engineerin…

Binary palindromes are real engineering, Google Search is not? Pretension indeed.

Are you saying that Google search is representative of most of the Web applications/rest APIs developed today?

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

#472

Post by wpietri »

fijiaarone wrote: post #449
wpietri wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this case, not so much. Most of the early Agile people I've had the chance to talk with are a bit horrified by what it's become.

Isn’t that the definition of reactionary?

No? Reactionaries want to return to the previous status quo. The early Agile people I know instead would like to see a revolution actually happen.

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

#473

Post by roland35 »

madeofpalk wrote: post #343
itake wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve worked at 3-4 small companies (less than 30 employees) and I’ve never been happy. There is always 1 person that makes my life miserable (constantly rejecting my ideas, ego is larger than their experience level, etc). I’ve worked at a 100, and two 1,000 engineer count companies and I never met any “coding princesses” in those roles. I think part of the problem that triggers this is in small companies, one enginee…

> I’ve worked at 3-4 small companies (less than 30 employees) What I vastly prefer is the 500-ish size. You can realistically at least know of every other developer (and find those you prefer working with and can learn with), there's more resources than just a 30 person company, and you're just not a tiny insignificant cog in the machine at a 100k mega corp.

It really depends what team you're on! My little corner of megacorp is fast, pretty lean, and I definitely feel like I am able to make an impact on our product (which is a smaller product in the company). I feel much better here than at some of the mid size companies where I felt there was a low ceiling on growth opportunities.

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

#474

Post by cjcenizal »

emadabdulrahim wrote: post #439
lo_zamoyski wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is currently culturally fashionable to construe things in this manner, so unsurprising. It is humorless and lacks common sense. Reasonably intelligent people understand context. They do not flatten all of reality and reduce everything to their favorite pet paradigm, projecting uncharitably all sorts of weird baggage onto the most innocuous of statements. So now you can't make a quip about wives unless you also mak…

Common sense is dead. Certain groups of people lack self and/or social awareness to notice that they've replaced religion with ideology. For example, we criticize religion for shaming many parts of our sexuality "Welcome to church, you're a sexual being and you should be ashamed". Now that's been replaced with "You're a man, you should feel guilty because you're from the oppressor group." etc. Welcome to Western soci…

I think recognizing one’s privilege is uncoupled from how you choose to feel about it.

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

#476

Post by [deleted] »

icedchai wrote: post #259
xiphias2 wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read this all the time and see that software engineers don't even read the agile manifesto: ,,Individuals and interactions over processes and tools'' What you are describing is the opposite of agile

The truth is that the manifesto may as well be fiction. I'm talking about reality... what the industry actually practices as "Agile." That's why you read it all the time: because it's true.

[deleted]

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

#477

Post by Tcepsa »

themitigating wrote: post #372
jonas21 wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At large companies no one feels like they own 100% of the code, and each change is very collaborative. That's how you end up with endless process, design by committee, and having a dozen meetings with all "stakeholders" before actually writing any code. I'd much rather work at a place where individuals or small groups have a strong vision on the code and product and are capable on executing independently on that. I…

"I'd much rather work at a place where individuals or small groups have a strong vision on the code and product and are capable on executing independently on that" Isn't that dependent on whether you are the person guiding the code though?

Honestly, not necessarily--there are often many ways to solve a given software problem. If someone else has a vision for the software and a plan to achieve it as a team, as long as I can see that it is looks like a viable alternative I'm generally happy to go along with it. Far better than flapping in the breeze with nobody providing clear guidance or input, in my opinion!

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

#478

Post by nktrnk »

I haven’t spent much time thinking about the full extent of the metaphor I’m about to propose. But what you’re saying sounds to me something like “do you hate being in a relationship but love making love?” Yes, many people would prefer one without the other. But that’s not how it works in real life most of the time.

And not only engineering vs programming or relationships vs love making. If you pay attention, many other aspects of life are like this too: — do you like learning but hate school? — do you like hiking but hate waking up early, driving, and sweating? — do you like seeing new places but hate planning and getting there?

Granted, sometimes some people manage to arrange their circumstances such that there’s no dichotomy there. But most of the time, on average, this is what it is. There are two ways of dealing with it: accept it as a fact and learn to deal with it or try to change your circumstances with the understanding that there’s a high chance it’s going to be the same at another place.

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

#479

Post by xiphias2 »

icedchai wrote: post #326
xiphias2 wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it's true at some companies, but it has nothing to do with agile / scrum, but letting non-tech people who love confrontation take over engineering leadership from engineers who are afraid of confrontation (which sounds like the disaster it is). Robert Martin (one of the creators of the agile manifesto) explains it quite well in ,,Clean Code'' presentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EmboKQH8lM The whole p…

I'd be interested to know what percentage of companies are "true" agile. Based on my personal experience, it must be very low.

It's not rare in my experience.

It's basically a bunch of experienced engineers getting together for a weekend warning inexperienced engineers about newbie mistakes, like obsessing too much about new shiny tools / frameworks / processes created by people from the past, or leaving mess behind.

At Google we were doing mostly agile actually (didn't really have any complex process, but had quarterly goals to check ourselfs and get feedback, also weekly check if we are going in the right direction).

,,this week'' snippets about what we're going to do this week.

All light stuff to make sure that it doesn't hinder real coding work.

Cross team work was much more messy of course, but inside teams this worked fine.

At another small company I worked it was almost the same, we just didn't call it agile.

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

#480

Post by randomdata »

torben-friis wrote: post #448
randomdata wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Waterfall vs agile is not really about how much effort you put into design, it’s about how long the plan-code-reassess cycle is. Read the Manifesto again. You will notice that is actually about the considerations you should take into account if you want to run a software team without managers. Each point is there to ensure that the necessary functions a manager would traditionally take care of still get done. Water…

> Read the Manifesto again. I did, and here's the direct quotes: > Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale. As I said, the cycle length is shortened, yet... > Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility. ...design is not removed from the process, but kept as a cornerstone. > Simplicity--the art of m…

Now read it again as the entire document that it is. While I can see where you are coming from, your theme doesn't carry into the points you conveniently left out.

Once you put it together, you'll realize that the message is:

1. Deliver software. You won't have a manager hounding you to do so.

2. Do good work. You won't have a manager questioning what you've done.

3. Don't spend more time programming than you need to. You need time for managerial tasks.

4. Meet with your teammates. You won't have a manager to act as the go-between.

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