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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?

#701

Post by that_guy_iain »

JohnBooty wrote: post #584
that_guy_iain wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This was surprising to read. Generally I feel like engineers want to do the right thing, but are pressured into short term kludges by management. I would say many of the time engineers don't want to do something it's a better solution but they'll claim some technical reason why their way is better. A good example of this is, I was working on a geo search api endpoint that had to work with the TPEG specs. The system…

That was an interesting story to read. I would say it sounds more like "they didn't have the chops/experience to do it" and less like "they didn't want to do it?" In situations like that my instinct as a developer is to figure out the hard part first. Some sort of prototype to prove that hey, this design works and can serve X requests per second. In other words some basic prototyping and research... a "spike" in scru…

If they had tried and failed I would agree it wasn’t that they had the chops. They wouldn’t even try. That was avoiding doing hard things in my book. And honestly, I fully believe they could have done it. And really, it wasn‘t actually hard, it’s change a data structure and do some data mapping. Hence avoiding actual work.

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

#704

Post by shetill »

arcturus17 wrote: post #365
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…

I have my own solo consulting business. I outsource a lot of implementation so I don’t code boring bits in production and don’t have to touch technologies that I don’t like. I code a little kata every morning, and do hobby projects as means of research, promotion, and to keep my skills sharp. On rare occasion I make individual contributions to production, but mostly when I choose to. This could all be fun for OP. But…

I find this type of business very interesting, could I ask more details on how you begin and what you need to know to start this type of business?

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

#705

Post by gloosx »

If you're competent enough, you should be heading towards a founding engineer kind of job. "Refactoring, rewriting, sprint, agile, rearchitecting things etc aren't that fun" - exactly this, but at the same time, it generates insane amounts of experience, so your situation sounds like you learned everything you want about the bad processes and you're ready to implement your own good processes.

The things we don't enjoy most of the time carry stress and fear factors within, fear can be eliminated with knowledge, stress can be toned down with simplicity, if you already know all this you can turn any process into joy if you are having such responsibilities, or you can make your own from scratch

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

#706

Post by krageon »

I have never found a job that maximises the fun parts of being a software developer. To my mind, anything but programming is what you're being paid to do - nobody wants to do that and it sucks. The programming itself is the art, the fun. You hope it makes up for your colleagues and possibly the incredibly unethical company you work for.

After I've written this I realise it sounds super depressing. I would honestly not mind if there was an answer to this :)

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

#707

Post by krageon »

Aeolun wrote: post #519
davidw wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one said 'roller coaster'. Part of quality software is saying 'no' to stuff, or having a coherent vision, not 'software by committee'.

Only if you have a quality engineer at the wheel though. Otherwise you just end up with horrible software. I guess that’s why large enterprises hate it, since they’re all about reducing risk. If they get middling software every time then that’s preferable to the two extremes.

Enterprise software isn't middling, it's usually only barely functional and falls just short of what it should do (i.e. it's shit). Everyone is just so pathologically used to it they think it can't be better. Probably due to the allergy to risk that you mentioned. Ironically risk is eliminated, but in doing so you've just ensured you have consistent problems that can never get better.

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

#708

Post by krageon »

ricardobayes wrote: post #572
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…

Are you ideas normally implementable in the next month or something far-fetched? Try to come up with ideas that are low hanging fruits, easy to do but have a high value. I don't think any company/management in their right mind would constantly reject "good" ideas that ultimately result in more revenue. The ideas I see being rejected are either too far out there or some "dev utopia"-kind of ideas that don't bring in m…

> I don't think any company/management in their right mind would constantly reject "good" ideas that ultimately result in more revenue.

This happens extremely frequently and is in fact entirely normal.

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

#709

Post by krageon »

cutemonster wrote: post #651
TranquilMarmot wrote: post #646

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was going to say the same thing. Worked at a mid-sized startup, great culture, amazing coworkers that I'm still friends with today. We did great work and got bought out by a large company who had promised not to mess with our culture too much. That didn't last very long haha

> mess with our culture What did they change/do? If I may ask

At a guess, having seen this before:

- Paperwork - Extra managers - Lots of "stakeholder management"

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

#710

Post by krageon »

lo_zamoyski wrote: post #434
massinstall wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is this saying misogynistic? Because it’s a statement about men or because of the implied possibility they could be unhappy in their marriage? Also, why is it horrible? It appears this world has become manically trigger-happy to label something as -ist or -istic, when it contains even only a hint of something someone could possibly understand the wrong way. It would be curious to examine in a psychological study…

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…

Black and white thinking is not correlated with intelligence, just with being human (and perhaps breadth of experience).
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