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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?

#671

Post by lelanthran »

t43562 wrote: post #638
fabioborellini wrote: post #563

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a great piece. My software engineering training just held the assumption that the world runs on agile processes by now. Waterfall-like processes were a historical reference and a failure. Since external customers and non-swe stakeholders expect binding contracts and even waterfall, I would consider it essential to learn how to interface agile processes with the said contract-driven stakeholders. Telling them…

It's why contracted-for software is so awful - contractors do absolutely anything to meet the conditions and then they're gone and not responsible anymore.

> It's why contracted-for software is so awful - contractors do absolutely anything to meet the conditions and then they're gone and not responsible anymore.

What's the alternative? Never have contracted-for software? Only accept contractors who are prepared to do Agile?

How does the procurer then put out bids, without having requirements up front?

How do they evaluate bids from various suppliers without knowing what the final bill is? How do they shortlist the three "best" bids with no costing information? How do they even know if they can afford it?

How are the suppliers supposed to submit bids without knowing what they are going to bill for?

How does audit make sure that the process was fair?

Once you start supplying/developing software for companies that are large enough to have a procurement department, you better believe that the process all runs on paper[1].

[1] Or the digital equivalent.

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

#672

Post by lelanthran »

t43562 wrote: post #639
LAC-Tech wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's like you reached inside my head, pulled out my crudely formulated thoughts and feelings on why it struck me as ill-advised, and refined and explained everything perfectly. Internal teams! My work these days is directly with people paying for the thing. That's why Agile gives me the shivers.

It's unfortunate that you haven't understood any of the problems of writing software or buying on contract despite having it laid out for you. In reality people change their minds - especially when they see the software - so there's a lot to be said for building it incrementally and showing it to them. The fact that contracts don't suit this behavior might explain why contracts are such an awful way to get software a…

> It's unfortunate that you haven't understood any of the problems of writing software or buying on contract despite having it laid out for you.

> In reality people change their minds - especially when they see the software - so there's a lot to be said for building it incrementally and showing it to them.

Doesn't matter - the people paying for the software are not the ones that are going to be using it, so showing it to them is pointless (they just want their bullet points/requirements checked off).

Showing the software to the users is equally pointless, because they don't have the authority to request changes (any change is a bill that has to be approved).

See my other reply to you: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=lelanthran#34381865

> The fact that contracts don't suit this behavior might explain why contracts are such an awful way to get software and why they so often go wrong.

Maybe, but unless you have an alternative that addresses the problems in not having contracts, there's little point in telling other people that they don't understand the problem.

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

#673

Post by tjrDL6MjB2Zwwa »

fijiaarone wrote: post #453
tjrDL6MjB2Zwwa wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Happily married men are happy husbands - Unhappily married men are great philosophers. I'm not sure I understand what this means, can someone clarify for me?

You’ll have to get married and grow old to understand.

[flagged]

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

#674

Post by tjrDL6MjB2Zwwa »

alexvoda wrote: post #629
tjrDL6MjB2Zwwa wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Happily married men are happy husbands - Unhappily married men are great philosophers. I'm not sure I understand what this means, can someone clarify for me?

I have detailed that and linked an even more comprehensive explanation in this sibling (cousin?) comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34380697

[flagged]

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

#675

Post by tjrDL6MjB2Zwwa »

rerdavies wrote: post #567
tjrDL6MjB2Zwwa wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Happily married men are happy husbands - Unhappily married men are great philosophers. I'm not sure I understand what this means, can someone clarify for me?

Philosophy is for unhappy people.

[flagged]

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

#676

Post by alexvoda »

tjrDL6MjB2Zwwa wrote: post #309
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…

> Happily married men are happy husbands - Unhappily married men are great philosophers. I'm not sure I understand what this means, can someone clarify for me?

My point was that the saying itself is wrong and a bad meme (the ethics of it were secondary to my argument) and I linked to where it originated to show that it wasn't even a thing in the first place.

Explaining the meaning of a bad meme is not interesting but if you are still asking what it is supposed to mean then here goes:

The first half is obvious because it is a tautology. It states that "An X is an X."

The second half implies that unhappiness pushes one to become a philosopher because they start thinking about how they became unhappy. Why? Who knows. Most unhappy people do not become philosophers, but some might. Also, not all philosophers are unhappy. Also, gender and being married or not have nothing to do with becoming a philosopher.

You are correct that it's confusing why the implication should go without saying. It's because it doesn't. It's a simplified rewording and further generalization of a misattributed misquote meme that is itself a generalization and mischaracterization of a dialogue line of a philosopher describing his own situation and his own choices.

As for why happiness is less productive then unhappiness, there is this gem of an explainer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWkq7btSQvs

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

#677

Post by tjrDL6MjB2Zwwa »

alexvoda wrote: post #676
tjrDL6MjB2Zwwa wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Happily married men are happy husbands - Unhappily married men are great philosophers. I'm not sure I understand what this means, can someone clarify for me?

My point was that the saying itself is wrong and a bad meme (the ethics of it were secondary to my argument) and I linked to where it originated to show that it wasn't even a thing in the first place. Explaining the meaning of a bad meme is not interesting but if you are still asking what it is supposed to mean then here goes: The first half is obvious because it is a tautology. It states that "An X is an X." The sec…

> implies that unhappiness pushes one to become a philosopher because they start thinking about how they became unhappy.

I see, thank you for the explanation.

That's definitely not how I view philosophy or the motivations of those who think deeply about such things, hence my confusion.

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

#678

Post by brippalcharrid »

antonfire wrote: post #414
brippalcharrid wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The [perceived] consequences of ending a marriage seem to provide more of a disincentive to men, so they are more likely to persist in a marriage that they feel they would be unable to leave (and then have to support multiple households, etc.). The fact that women (in the USA) are more than twice as likely to initiate a divorce seems to bear this out.

"Women divorce men more often than the other way around; this seems to bear out that men are more dissatisfied in marriage" seems like a stretch to me. At any rate, it reminds me of the classic physics joke: > An experimental physicist comes running excitedly to a theorist's office, waving a graph taken off his latest experiment. "Hmmm", says the theorist, "that's exactly where you'd expect to see that peak. Here is…

That's an interesting thesis, but it wasn't one that I was putting forward; rather I was saying that the reality of divorce for men tends to be such that they are significantly less likely to seek divorce when their marriage is unhappy compared to women at a similar level of unhappiness.

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

#679

Post by xiphias2 »

015a wrote: post #366
tsunamifury wrote: post #321

Every few months or so we get these really circle jerky posts by engineers who believe the world of business is them just pumping out code and somehow getting paid. 1) that’s the difference between a job and a hobby. You do the hard parts you’re paid to do sometimes. 2) decisions you don’t like by stakeholders you don’t like aren’t always wrong just because you see some way to “code it”. A product is not just its cod…

And every time these posts come around, someone immediately jumps in and plays a character in Office Space, saying "oh the engineers don't like talking to people, that's why I'm valuable". Look at all the recent layoffs; get the data and ask around "how many Engineers with 1+ years of seniority were impacted by the layoffs". The number is dwarfed by literally every other business function. Dwarfed. Your probability o…

While I agree with you, I think sales is the most important job category besides engineering, and the usual problem is with the people who put themselves between sales and engineering.

To know how important sales is, just see what is the most important talent to be paired with a programmer in a 2-person startup.

The ratio of sales to engineering at the same time depends on the required growth / burn rate of the company, which depends on the interest rates.

When interest rates go up, growth has to be sacrified to focus on survival / short term revenue generation without significant sales/marketing spend.

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

#680

Post by theamk »

itake wrote: post #669
slaymaker1907 wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, I've definitely met princesses at large companies, though you are spot on about the ownership issues. The problem really isn't the size of the company but how siloed the code is.

Yeah, one of the 1000-person companies had a dev whole-own a critical microservice. Changing it was always a battle, because the owner was very critical of anyone touching 'his' service. Large companies aren't immune, but due to eng specs and collaboration baked into development, its less likely for this to happen.

It looks management was a problem too, as "wholly owned" is a double-edged sword, especially if it's a microservice.

Make sure you have solid metrics on your side to record problems with that microservice, document any delays caused my missing features, and eventually even non-technical management should get your point and start to apply pressure.

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