Love, love, love this post. I'm not a hacker so to speak but I can totally relate. I've always had an entrepreneurial spirit and NEVER wanted to be a lifer who spent 20 years bored to death making someone else's dreams come true. And, I think that spirit is the trait that marks the startup generation and the reason posts such as this resonates with so many.
Life's too short to write shitty software
61–70 of 107 posts
Re: Life's too short to write shitty software
#62The gist of these kind of articles is that you have a choice! A job is just another kind of mutually agreed relationship and you have the power to change its parameters or end it. But I guess some kind of Stockholm syndrome starts developing and some people need to be reminded that. Not only that, but their skill is in high demand so the is little to no risk in switching -- something that also needs to be said out loud. It's basically a form of self-help which isn't bad but should be labeled as such.
The assumption that only large consumer-facing products are worth working on is wrong. There is a whole world out there you don't know about and it doesn't run software on iPhones. It depends on the person, but you shouldn't need external confirmation to be proud of your work -- either you did it well or you didn't.
Generally, the problem isn't the project per-se, it's just the management. A horrible boss, ie. a horrible person will wreck your day regardless of what are you working on. If you are hired to write internal reporting software, don't be surprised you will work on internal reporting software. Make the most of it!
Software is depressing because that's the best you can do sometimes. There is this type of corporate developer that's just at the edge towards a good developer but he just believes he's the greatest. He'll always be unhappy because the Man just won't let him try the latest fad and if he only would be allowed he would make such great software. But what does he do? Crappy software! A certain degree of modesty is required in software because not everybody before you was an idiot, and if you had free reign you would make an even crappier solution with the latest fad and all.
But essentially, the kind of people feeling bad are just unmotivated because the job is not a good fit. That's it! As the RSA video said, they need more autonomy or a "higher" purpose or just want to get better at something else (mastery). But sometimes what's missing is a degree of realism.
Re: Life's too short to write shitty software
#63Spring is in the air--it's resignation time. The abysmal enslavement of family life never appealed to me. For that reason I never got married and never had kids. (I have a cat though.) Worked for a decade supporting other people's research--tremendous error. A new non-technical VP was hired (he is an ABD in math, I have a Ph.D. in math--a source of tension between us). A year ago the non-technical VP hired a smug, platitudinous non-technical director, whom he installed over two directors. I was one of them. Since directors could not report to directors, our titles and job descriptions were downgraded. I abruptly resigned. During the exit interview, the head of HR wanted to know why I was leaving. I reminded her that she was cc'd on the restructuring memo, which stated that my title had changed from director to Zweiter Beauftragter für Administrative Fragen, that the position no longer reflected my education, interests and ability and that I had been immobilized under an incontinent rhinoceros. I jumped to what I thought was a research position...but I won't describe the often mutually undermining responsibilities the position actually entails. It's still superior to the Bolshevist ITIL-addled regime I left, though the article inspires aspiration to something greater...
Re: Life's too short to write shitty software
#64The "non-shitty" software the author works on is an ad-serving platform. Advertising is only one or two steps above TPS middleware.
Existing advertising solutions are, but it's a business that most good developers/designers/product people don't want to touch, so it continues to be shitty. I've been following Adzerk for a little while and wish my workplace could try them out, but I don't get to make those decisions. Still, I've long thought writing a non-shitty ad server is sort-of noble and interesting, so I'm hoping they continue to be successful.
Advertising is a mess and most of it is terrible and the problematic mindsets that have made it that way are pervasive... but what I see there is a ton of hard problems and it will be smart, entrepreneurial people that attack those problems.
Also: money
Re: Life's too short to write shitty software
#65For those of you now browsing Hacker News at his cubicle during his break under soul-sucking fluorescent lights : You can have it both ways (work for BigCo and build cool stuff), but it's not easy. You have to make it happen within the corporate systems and structure. I have many times. A few examples: - Boss to me: "Purchasing is complaining that the legacy system isn't doing what it should. Go find out what they ne…
"It is easier to ask forgiveness than permission".
"The nail which stands out gets hammered down."
Re: Life's too short to write shitty software
#66While I sympathize, my wife and kids need to eat now , not in 2 years when I pull equity out of an IPO. If you can avoid the TPS-report-factory-factory (wink), by all means do so. But don't look down on those who are doing what they have to. There's something to be said for knocking off after 8 hours, and going home to one's family as well. What I do is technically boring, but necessary, and doesn't consume my person…
If you are sure that you will be able to market yourself after years of working on some no name corporate stuff, by all means. I've been there and seen guys working 10 - 12 years at the same company, enjoying their 8 hours shift just finding out one day that they are not needed anymore - and with obsolete skills set (you get into comfort zone pretty easily in corp world), some of them having really difficult time to…
That is a danger, yes. So don't let it happen.
Like most people here, I'm often learning something new, or new aspects of the familiar. Despite the inertia, large comps need people to lead the way, whether it's training how to properly use source control, teaching new languages or platforms, setting up application standards to make troubleshooting possible and aid comprehension for maintenance.
The problem is actually having a large amount of existing code, and having to live with it for a few years, rather than a blank slate to be written with whatever Apache (or others) just released last week. Don't think that code won't feel old in 2 years.
DHH did a wonderful talk about "legacy code" a couple years back, I think it's on the IT Conversations site somewhere.
Re: Life's too short to write shitty software
#67Im sitting my in my cubical hating my job right this moment. I applied to ycombinator and I will escape cubical hell. If you've never held a corporate job, you are lucky. It sucks your soul and crushes your dream. The anti-ambition of people around me is discouraging and depressing. I work on software that is meaningless, and that just kills you inside. Its the feeling that you are spending days/months/years of your…
I'll have to express the opposite sentiment, I am sitting in my cubicle overlooking a river. I've got VS2010 and Eclipse open, and I've got 5 different browsers installed in my machine. I was previously working at a smaller company (closer to a startup), and while I enjoyed it, there was no career growth potential, at all. When I moved to Mega Corp, I found a place that actively encouraged career development. Also, o…
How old are you?
Re: Life's too short to write shitty software
#68This piece of article is definitely targeted :). Kind of like self-help but for geeks. Nice SEO though. That aside, I believe people can find a niche developing software targeting these soul-crushing jobs. Basically have a product that solve problems people hate to deal with. Java EJB 1.0 and Struts sucks? Write your own framework, call it Spring Framework: worth $400M. JDBC sucks? Make Hibernate. Dealing with Rails…
You so hit the nail on the head: being awesome by doing CRAP that nobody wants to do, and making it into something easy. Interesting book called "The E Myth" about entrepeneurship about 20+ years ago, talks about the myths of freedom to do more "worker" stuff, and the reality of building a business to provide a consistant user experience and a system to enable the workers to provide it. Seems along the same vein.
Re: Life's too short to write shitty software
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
And if you don't have the people to complete or maintain these projects? Or how about when you build out a prototype and then corporate IT policies end up having you generate hundreds of pages of documentation and a massive Java application, when your self-hosted 2k LOC Python project met all business requirements and specs? I'd rather be in a position that encouraged rapid, pragmatic development.
Out of curiosity, why the downvotes? When I worked at a corporation, I tried to do what Ed recommended here, and these are the problems that I encountered.
> Out of curiosity, why the downvotes?
Don't worry about downvotes until time has passed. Things usually balance out.
Re: Life's too short to write shitty software
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'll have to express the opposite sentiment, I am sitting in my cubicle overlooking a river. I've got VS2010 and Eclipse open, and I've got 5 different browsers installed in my machine. I was previously working at a smaller company (closer to a startup), and while I enjoyed it, there was no career growth potential, at all. When I moved to Mega Corp, I found a place that actively encouraged career development. Also, o…
I don't have a window near me, although that may give me a bit more Zen than I Have now. I get loud support people near me instead. We are stuck in the 90's with our technology and are a Microsoft shop. We do have "career growth" opportunities, but they are the standard tuition reimbursement kind (which are fine). There are great corporations to work for (Google, SAS, Facebook), but the majority of them are soul crus…
Saying that, "the majority of them are soul crushing boring with no care or love for the developers" is a pretty strong claim, for which you've provided no evidence. Certainly some corporate jobs are soul crushing, but the "majority"?
The wrong startup, for the wrong person, can be just as soul sucking as a large corporation. There's plenty of startups that I would never want to work for. This suggestion that corporations are inherently bad and startups are inherently good is overly simplified, and very naive. Google, Apple, and Facebook I'm sure all have employees working on their TPS reports as well. In fact, I'm sure they have security guards, lawyers, and janitors many of whom enjoy their jobs, and add value to the world, despite not being software developers.
I guess I just find the attitude that everyone should be a developer working 80 hours a week for a hot web 2.0 startup very troubling. I worry that some of us have some strange delusions of grandeur. Is the CEO of the next Instagram, working 80 hours a week, really living a better life than the guy next door? In the end, if you're living a life you enjoy, what differences does it make where you work?