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After 14 years in the industry, I still find programming difficult

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Re: After 14 years in the industry, I still find programming difficult

#161

Post by temporallobe »

23 years of solid experience in programming. The hardest parts for me have been: - integrating with other systems, often APIs. The difficult part is the constantly changing API contracts, which break integrations in often unpredictable ways - Leaning new libraries or frameworks that often reinvent the wheel for no good reason - Understanding the deep layers of abstraction in some systems (be it a DSL, a transpiled language, pipelines, etc.) - Training or mentoring incompetent engineers who probably choose the wrong profession. This can be exhausting and time-consuming. - Learning the soft skills required in some types of environments or contracts. Programmers often don’t have the best skills for interacting with stakeholders or leadership, and I have learned this the hard way on many occasions. I have worked very hard on developing my soft skills and it has paid off, but it took a lot of time and effort. - Context switching. I can context switch like a boss now, but it took me about 10 years to master this.

If I had a few hours to spare I could come up with much more.

Re: After 14 years in the industry, I still find programming difficult

#162

Post by icedchai »

cyrialize wrote: post #121

I think the hard part of programming, or programming related things, is environment setup. Even with things like Docker, you can still run into SO many issues. Programming by myself is always easy. Programming within a company can be difficult because of this. There are definitely places out there that make environment setup super simple. Even then, you can still run into something that hasn't been encountered before…

It's worse when you get heavily invested in 3rd party APIs or some forms of "serverless." If you don't think about having a local environment ahead of time, you may never have one. Productivity drops like a rock. I've seen guys editing AWS Lambdas in the console. It's incredibly unproductive.

Re: After 14 years in the industry, I still find programming difficult

#163

Post by samatman »

ericmcer wrote: post #51
cortesoft wrote: post #17

Been programming over 30 years, since I was 8 years old and my dad’s coworker gave me his old BASIC programming books and I was hooked. I have always found programming easy, and still do. It is just fun, and I still love learning new languages and tools and paradigms. It is still my favorite hobby. However, WORK is hard. Dealing with office politics and changing priorities and bad leadership and meetings and TPS repo…

If you are finding programming easy doesn't that just mean you aren't trying hard enough? There are tons of unsolved problems, tools that aren't optimal, and products that don't work as well as they should. If fixing those things were easy for you, you would be a billionaire.

It's a profession. For some of us it's more than that, for some it's just a hobby, but for many it's exactly that, neither more nor less.

Getting to the point where one can deliver value and find it easy, and setting the cruise control, is a reasonable thing to do. Frees time and mental attention for the rest of life.

I don't happen to be wired up that way, but there are times when I wish I was.

Re: After 14 years in the industry, I still find programming difficult

#164

Post by beezlewax »

temporallobe wrote: post #161

23 years of solid experience in programming. The hardest parts for me have been: - integrating with other systems, often APIs. The difficult part is the constantly changing API contracts, which break integrations in often unpredictable ways - Leaning new libraries or frameworks that often reinvent the wheel for no good reason - Understanding the deep layers of abstraction in some systems (be it a DSL, a transpiled la…

Painfully aware that my soft skills need improving but I'm not sure where to even start. I've started prepping more before important meetings but I'm easily so lost in code that I forget meetings are even happening sometimes.

Re: After 14 years in the industry, I still find programming difficult

#165

Post by eska »

master-lincoln wrote: post #18
simonw wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I mean software development. I don't find the semantic distinction between that and programming particularly interesting myself - why write code if you're not doing that do develop software?

Because you might have architects specifying exactly what needs to be programmed, so the software development part is mostly done.

The idea that you can dream up architectures but not implement them and expect anything worthwhile to come out reeks of inexperience.

Re: After 14 years in the industry, I still find programming difficult

#166

Post by eska »

beezlewax wrote: post #164
temporallobe wrote: post #161

23 years of solid experience in programming. The hardest parts for me have been: - integrating with other systems, often APIs. The difficult part is the constantly changing API contracts, which break integrations in often unpredictable ways - Leaning new libraries or frameworks that often reinvent the wheel for no good reason - Understanding the deep layers of abstraction in some systems (be it a DSL, a transpiled la…

Painfully aware that my soft skills need improving but I'm not sure where to even start. I've started prepping more before important meetings but I'm easily so lost in code that I forget meetings are even happening sometimes.

The simple answer is that you need to ask yourself why somebody would pay for what you create. This leads to thinking about market demands, user experience, etc., and you will learn to argue from the customer’s and user’s POV. Then again you’ll ask yourself why you’re not self-employed because you’ll realize most of your managers aren’t good at this stuff either.

Re: After 14 years in the industry, I still find programming difficult

#167

Post by eska »

kevmo314 wrote: post #142
arrowleaf wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always hated this saying, and I think the reason applies here too. If you take up running and it never gets easier, that means you're never managing your pace and you're always going full throttle. That's a straight shot towards injury if not chronic disability. Most aerobic benefits happen at zone 2, where your heart rate is just above 'easy effort'. When you start out, this might just be walking, so it makes s…

Lemond's statement is in reference to racing. The race isn't won in zone 2. Same with programming. Nothing wrong with a lot of zone 2 programming, in fact it's quite important to maintain balance like you describe, but the race isn't won with comfortable work.

I’ve seen my share of programmers who showed off all-nighters and productive weekends, only to realize they compensate but not actually working productively their entire 40 hours, not even half. Programming is not a race, it’s a marathon.

Re: After 14 years in the industry, I still find programming difficult

#168

Post by lawgimenez »

I also have been programming for 14 years, whole career is spent on Android and iOS development, with a sprinkle of small web and API projects in between experiences. The difficult part is the annual deprecation and introduction of new features, APIs, phone, tablet, and OS versions. The early years this might be exciting but in my 14 years of Google IO and WWDC, it’s just hard to keep up with all the shiny stuffs.

Re: After 14 years in the industry, I still find programming difficult

#169

Post by financltravsty »

zackmorris wrote: post #140
cortesoft wrote: post #17

Been programming over 30 years, since I was 8 years old and my dad’s coworker gave me his old BASIC programming books and I was hooked. I have always found programming easy, and still do. It is just fun, and I still love learning new languages and tools and paradigms. It is still my favorite hobby. However, WORK is hard. Dealing with office politics and changing priorities and bad leadership and meetings and TPS repo…

Same here, 30+ years experience, programming's always been easy for me. The hard part is suspending disbelief to ignore how bad nearly everything has gotten. Every language, every framework, every operating system, every hardware platform, every paradigm like the web/mobile/AI is so riddled with obvious mistakes and missed opportunities that it takes nearly everything I have each morning to start working. I've reache…

It’s all shit. Always has been. Always will be.

The luxury of thinking otherwise is a post-war economic boom phenomenon. We’re now reverting to what has always been: people screwing one another over scrambling to get their piece of the pie.

I used to think about living a well-balanced life — the middle class life — but that’s akin to thinking you can make a long career out of just being a dev for the rest of your life during ZIRP: naive.

All the market inefficiencies that allowed tech to boom have been snuffed out. All the market inefficiencies that allowed people to live simple, fulfilling lives are gone. You now have to actually play the game, or one day you’ll find you’re a replaceable commodity that’s past its warranty.

Rally together people that share your values and go grab your piece to build something that actually enlivens you. To do otherwise is just shirking responsibility.

Re: After 14 years in the industry, I still find programming difficult

#170

Post by imtringued »

master-lincoln wrote: post #18
simonw wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I mean software development. I don't find the semantic distinction between that and programming particularly interesting myself - why write code if you're not doing that do develop software?

Because you might have architects specifying exactly what needs to be programmed, so the software development part is mostly done.

Waterfall is dead.
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