Man spends entire career mastering crappy codebase • Hacker News Board

Re: Man spends entire career mastering crappy codebase

#361

Post by sys_prog » Thu, Aug 03, 2023, 2:15 PM UTC

intelVISA wrote: post #138

armitron wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you left a job that paid 2x and exposed you to hard problems that require reliable solutions for a job inside the horror clusterfuck that's the modern web where nothing really "works" and there's no real engineering to speak of besides monkeys throwing crap in a shared pile and shovelling it out the door ASAP. Good for you I guess?

Most people I know, inc. myself, would call this a "bruh moment". I can't fathom willingly entering the web mines if you've already sunk in the hours to master high perf native code, OSdev, dist systems etc. People usually enter web to avoid having to learn such things. To discard that knowledge and instead compete with an endless stream of fresh grads, boot camp grinders and LLMs for less money? A madness if I've se…

Fun fact: I'm actually a bootcamp grad in web dev doing the opposite. I agree.

Re: Man spends entire career mastering crappy codebase

#362

Post by bagacrap » Thu, Aug 03, 2023, 2:15 PM UTC

2-718-281-828 wrote: post #204

FrustratedMonky wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe dumpster diving is extreme, to drive home a point. But, there are a lot of old people that are hungry, and work as Wal-Mart greeters. If you didn't save/plan well enough, and 30 years of cool software development ends as being a Wal-Mart greeter, that can seem equivalent to dumpster diving.

guys from that generation (with its past financial opportunities and real estate prices) and of a character required to even work like that - humbly and diligently maintaining a complex legacy code base, very rarely fall victim to financial issues when they retire. those men (and women) are usually very zen and collected. loneliness and suffering from a feeling like no longer being needed is probably the biggest (men…

If you are the kind of person who thinks the future of IT looks bleak right now, imagine what it must have looked like in 2002 when NASDAQ was in a three year death spiral and down 80%, which is an experience this guy lived... and then in 2009 when the stock market was down at levels previously seen in 1997...

If anything, the lesson should be not to worry about yourself because the only way this man could be forced to resort to dumpster diving is if he was given too much to worry about his retirement accounts.

Re: Man spends entire career mastering crappy codebase

#363

Post by WaitWaitWha » Thu, Aug 03, 2023, 2:15 PM UTC

kypro wrote: post #91

I swear this guy exists at every company I've ever worked. He's the guy you go to when you find some legacy code which you have no idea how the hell it works and end up getting a 2 hour history lesson into a decade of company politics and failed replatforming projects. They're hard not to love.

I recognize the parody about me. ;)

Do you know why I am giving you the two hour history?

First, I recognize that I need human interaction, but do not really like people.

Second, I am hoping that you will learn & understand instead of just memorize & regurgitate so in the future you can resolve it yourself instead of bothering me.

Now, go away; I had my week's fill of socializing.

/joking - or am I?

Re: Man spends entire career mastering crappy codebase

#364

Post by JackMorgan » Thu, Aug 03, 2023, 2:15 PM UTC

agentultra wrote: post #304

Man spends entire career convincing himself the reason he keeps job hopping is because everyone else is writing crappy code. Karl Hackerman shows up to each meeting complaining. He seems sour that he hasn’t been given the go ahead to rewrite the system in Rust. He knows a lot about bleeding edge frameworks and best practices and always seems annoyed that he can’t use them at work. He thinks it’s because everyone else…

I did not expect to wake up and be attacked like this. Not even a warning. Savage.

Good thing I'm not in my 40s yet, still time to recover from my wayward path.

Re: Man spends entire career mastering crappy codebase

#365

Post by baz00 » Thu, Aug 03, 2023, 2:18 PM UTC

smcameron wrote: post #359

baz00 wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah crazy money. My father used to import RAM when it was really really expensive in the 1980s. He used to take it on planes from Taiwan as hand luggage handcuffed to himself because it was that valuable.

I worked in a shop in the early 90s with a bunch of Suns, and we had hired this new sysadmin. One day we noticed that half the RAM was missing from a workstation, and few minutes later noticed half the RAM was missing from all the workstations. Turned out the new sysadmin was a cokehead and had stolen it.

Oh man that's funny. Only because something similar happened to us. Hired new cleaners circa 2001. Got into the office one morning and all the PC cases were open. All the RAM and CPUs had been stolen.

Re: Man spends entire career mastering crappy codebase

#366

Post by bagacrap » Thu, Aug 03, 2023, 2:19 PM UTC

overthemoon wrote: post #236

benoliver999 wrote: post #69

Howdy, that's almost me! AMA! I've spent 10 years as the lone dev at a small medical facility, writing database software and dealing with lab hardware etc. I guess I've touched 100% of the codebase because I wrote it all, but I always wonder if my skillset is so niche that I'll always be at small companies. Here's the deal though, work isn't everything and I'm at a job that recognises that.

You wrote it all? By yourself? That sounds ideal to me. The horrible part of this to me is that he inherited a mess and left without having done much to it, evidently being unable to do so for whatever reason. The headline says he "mastered" it, so clearly other forces were at work than his skill. That's the depressing part to me, pulling my hair out to try and understand someone else's antediluvian code base which w…

It also said he only wrote hundreds of lines in 35 years. So maybe one line a month. Either he's a wizard that spins gold from straw or "mastered" is being used ironically. Given that he could be replaced by two juniors I'll assume the latter.

Re: Man spends entire career mastering crappy codebase

#367

Post by JackMorgan » Thu, Aug 03, 2023, 2:19 PM UTC

mabbo wrote: post #157

whoisthemachine wrote: post #14

Funny, but there's nothing wrong with that if Arthur was/is happy (which isn't mentioned).

There is though. It's 2023 and today companies will quite happily lay you off the moment you aren't profitable to them. This fictional person made it all the way to retirement and good for him. But the guy who followed this strategy for 15 years and now is job hunting because the company needed to cut 18% of its staff? He's got a huge gap in useful skills and decades left before he can retire. That guy is in real tro…

This is the real reason I put moderate effort into staying current: I've interviewed too many guys with 15 years in the field who can't write actual code at all because they only have written a few dozen lines ever. They are a sad lot and it's embarrassing to even interview them.

If I could be guaranteed I'd have the same job forever with the same tech then who cares, but I've never met anyone for whom that was true. The people that don't learn either retire early or are forced to switch careers.

Re: Man spends entire career mastering crappy codebase

#368

Post by RajT88 » Thu, Aug 03, 2023, 2:19 PM UTC

throw0101b wrote: post #280

bayindirh wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Working on the hardware directly is more than half of the fun.

> Working on the hardware directly is more than half of the fun. It never really worked until you gave blood to the computing gods on a sharp edge of a metal case.

I have 6 stitches in my left hand from such an offering.

Re: Man spends entire career mastering crappy codebase

#369

Post by suslik » Thu, Aug 03, 2023, 2:20 PM UTC

oytis wrote: post #293

weregiraffe wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every moment without them is also unique.

You cannot fully appreciate your moments without kids until you have kids though.

Maybe - but I don't have to. I'm happy enough as it is to not have children. I don't need to loose a leg to enjoy going for a run either.

Re: Man spends entire career mastering crappy codebase

#370

Post by mrpound » Thu, Aug 03, 2023, 2:21 PM UTC

jjice wrote: post #335

dxuh wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hard to do if most of your life is work. I find it very hard to find space for an actual life after subtracting a full-time job, exercise, personal hygiene, nutrition, etc. from my waking hours. It's essentially ~2h a day + the weekend, which often also consists of getting stuff done you didn't manage during the week. I hate the thought of my life starting in retirement. Especially if I might be 67 by then, which is…

> Especially if I might be 67 by then, which is the legal retirement age, where I live. When you say "legal retirement age", what do you mean? Is this to receive some sort of retirement benefit like Social Security in the US? Or is it something else?

That, plus you'll pay penalties (10%) if you draw on a retirement account like an IRA/401k before retirement age.