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“Code was never the hard part” is an insult to all programmers

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Re: “Code was never the hard part” is an insult to all programmers

#261

Post by ozgrakkurt »

mrkeen wrote: post #13

The answer to all these "if coding is easy" questions is that coding isn't programming (to put it in Lamport's terms). Encoding your ideas into a programming language is easy. Understanding that your ideas are bad is hard. You have clients with multiple devices connecting to your backend simultaneously, while you mediate their interactions with your partner systems. Their versions might not be up to date. It's a dist…

> Encoding your ideas into a programming language is easy.

This is still difficult. Sometimes the programming language or the programming methods you want to use effect how you desing the system on an abstract level.

Re: “Code was never the hard part” is an insult to all programmers

#262

Post by skydhash »

jdw64 wrote: post #130
skydhash wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you’re struggling at formal thinking, coding will be hard for you. I’m not talking about designing software with higher concepts, like thread, network IPC, web application routing, gui,… but more simpler one like basic data structures (list, tree, maps, graphs,…), algorithms (search, sort, balancing trees,…), and paradigms (procedural, functional, oop, relational,…). I’ve met a lot of programmers where those conce…

I resonate with much of what you have pointed out, but I have a different perspective on certain parts. Software consists of various layers, and everyone has their own specific areas of strength. For instance, because I am an application programmer, I often need to write code that prevents the program from halting—aligning with recent programming trends that involve preserving the computation context using monads. In…

Moving up and down the layer of abstraction is an orthogonal skill. The skill I’m talking is taking some axiomatic concepts (can be opcodes or functions from a high level DSL) and then build something using the given rules. I took basic algorithms as an example because they are trivial in the grand scheme of things while learning something like flask or Laravel involves too many concepts.

At the core, both involve the same formal thinking, but it’s easier with higher level concepts to have tangible results (it helps with the rote learning) than purely abstract ones.

Re: “Code was never the hard part” is an insult to all programmers

#263

Post by IshKebab »

tombert wrote: post #218
maxrev17 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one seems to mind the quality drop though. The buyers of this stuff could never discern.

I suspect the massive shitshow of Windows 11 and all of its failings is a result of large quantities of vibe code being merged into the OS. People are noticing.

Windows 11 was released before vibe coding was viable. And the shit show seems to be that they push ads and bloatware on people, not that it doesn't work reliably. Windows 11 IoT LTSC has been absolutely rock solid for me on both machines I have it on. Waaay more stable and reliable than Linux, and even a bit better than Mac (which is also way better than Linux).

If they are vibe coding anything, it hasn't had any bad consequences yet. The ads and bloat are human decisions!

Re: “Code was never the hard part” is an insult to all programmers

#264

Post by zero_shift »

ivanjermakov wrote: post #244
prinny_ wrote: post #72

I believe there are some programming jobs in which the code is absolutely the easier part. Not all of us work in signal processing, integrated systems or have to push upstream to Linux kernel because the company we work for really needs a memory allocation optimization for its data centers. Navigating customer requirements and building something that satisfies both market's needs and company strategy can be an incred…

I'm yet to work on an enterprise project where programming is beyond simple validation, simple SQL, simple sheduling, simple mapping, simple error handling. Might be more about web backend than the whole field, but the challenge always comes from formulating requirements in a rigid form with all edge cases considered. This might be the reason why many personal projects are so technical and impressive - it's the itch…

It depends what you mean by enterprise project?

If you just mean a large company, I would say they do exist - though it may take some looking for them.

You can find them in companies that have to deal with "real" things (hardware, factories, production lines), or where there is an interest in taking advantage of emerging technology (advertising, e-commerce)

I would call my current project relatively systems-level too, as it's a network proxy. Not quite kernel level but definitely not trivial "if this then that" style coding.

My perspective is that application programming - CRUD, forms, IO orchestration - was always vulnerable, even before AI. Think about APIs for payments, APIs for subscriptions. E-commerce in a box type solutions.

That's why I always pushed to do more systems level work, on more exotic or weird technologies. It's not because I think I'm a better programmer, than someone slinging Spring code or React forms. But because in this industry it's better to be a goat than a cow.

Re: “Code was never the hard part” is an insult to all programmers

#265

Post by jibal »

a2ff6eeb0 wrote: post #129
ethin wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but we aren't talking about me here. You were the one who made the claim that AI pretty much makes making software trivial nowadays. Specifically, you wrote: > Making software is no longer very hard. It's becoming a few steps up from burger flipping. Maybe somewhere around line chef. You did acknowledge that "some" skill was required: > There's still some skill involved, but the skill is mostly in manual testi…

Oh. So, because I said I work in software you assumed I worked in safety critical systems? Interesting. A little unhinged, but interesting. Anyways, as I said elsewhere, I don't code for fun, and my employer would be unhappy if I sent you their proprietary code. You can decide to do some experiments yourself, or you can decide that you don't want to hear it. No skin off my back either way.

They simply asked you to support your claims, as an ethical person would. Without that, your words are just noise.

And I see that this isn't the only comment you made where someone asked to provide supporting evidence and you dodged.

Re: “Code was never the hard part” is an insult to all programmers

#266

Post by Izkata »

mempko wrote: post #205
prinny_ wrote: post #72

I believe there are some programming jobs in which the code is absolutely the easier part. Not all of us work in signal processing, integrated systems or have to push upstream to Linux kernel because the company we work for really needs a memory allocation optimization for its data centers. Navigating customer requirements and building something that satisfies both market's needs and company strategy can be an incred…

I've been programming for 30 years and "Code was never the hard part" does not offend me. It's something i've been saying for a long time. You can teach anyone the mechanics of coding well in like 6 months. Programming is the hard part! I want to make this distinction because to me programming is about solving problems and coding is a way to express the solution. Designing algorithms, architectures, etc can be done w…

Sometime in the past 10-20 years there was a prestige shift where people started using the term "developer" for what you're describing as "programmer", relegating "programmer" to what you're describing as "coder", and "coder" to "hobbyist programmer/developer" (while weirdly "coding" remained colloquially the thing programmers do).

Advice to job seekers I remember in the 2010s was to not call yourself a programmer because that was where the bad "code monkey" jobs were, but it hadn't yet been much of a thing when I first started looking at the end of the 2000s.

Re: “Code was never the hard part” is an insult to all programmers

#267

Post by crazysim »

tayo42 wrote: post #236
rockemsockem wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IDK, a sufficiently complex consumer or enterprise app winds up having big performance problems if people don't know what they're doing w.r.t. the code they write and how they connect systems together with that code. Those performance problems start out not mattering much, first it impacts one seldom-used part of the site, then another, but that chips away at users and can eventually tank the product. That doesn't ev…

You've really seen a web software product die because of performance issues?

Wave waves at you from the grave.

Re: “Code was never the hard part” is an insult to all programmers

#268

Post by qurren »

prinny_ wrote: post #72

I believe there are some programming jobs in which the code is absolutely the easier part. Not all of us work in signal processing, integrated systems or have to push upstream to Linux kernel because the company we work for really needs a memory allocation optimization for its data centers. Navigating customer requirements and building something that satisfies both market's needs and company strategy can be an incred…

> In large corporate environments with multiple international customers, code is most of the time not the hardest problem.

This is true, and this is the thing that makes me want to not be part of this dumb system anymore. If leadership on the same company can't align, that shouldn't be my problem, and I hope they get replaced by AIs that can.

Humans suck.

Re: “Code was never the hard part” is an insult to all programmers

#269

Post by truncate »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #167
unfitted2545 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://media.ccc.de/v/36c3-11241-from_managerial_feudalism_... Timestamp is: 36:42-39:55 I believe Graeber perfectly predicts the problems, in 2019, with vibe coding creating immediate "value" from production, but failing to produce true value through maintaining the system (like one continually washes a cup to give it value over time).

> (like one continually washes a cup to give it value over time). But it doesn't give value, it prevents value loss . I don't know why people are telling themselves maintenance work is virtuous. It's waste. It's necessary waste, and doing the work may be virtuous, but the work itself is pure waste. Fighting entropy. EDIT: I wish we talked more about the need for low-maintenance patterns and products. In this industry…

> But it doesn't give value, it prevents value loss.

It keeps thing operational. Software changes because requirements changes, the context it is used it changes, or just the iterative nature of it where features are rolled out over time so that users can immediately start getting some functionality if not all that was originally planned (MVP).

Maintenance work is neither virtuous nor waste. Its just nature of the things we build.

I agree however with the part on more talk about low-maintenance patterns and products. IMO its often the trade-off between velocity vs quality/technical debt. So it happens, industry is favoring more and more towards velocity for delivering features that often add little value to the users, just because $$$, competition and maybe the grind culture.

Re: “Code was never the hard part” is an insult to all programmers

#270

Post by nemothekid »

This feels like post-LLM coding romanticization. Before LLMs, people would regularly say stuff like "I could build this in a weekend" under a "Show HN" post. How many times have people said "I could build Twitter in a weekend". I've even found in a post-LLM world, that kind of language has only increased.

When you are looking at something that already exists, where all the requirements are defined, when all the edge cases have been decided, then coding was the easy part. People didn't "burn out" because it was difficult to figure out how to write SQL. People "burned out" because the requirements constantly changed, demand was ever increasing, and edge cases were constantly being triggered.

>If deciding what to build is the hard part, why do so many product managers seem clueless?Why aren't there rigorous 10-step interviews for them?

Classic engineer type opinion where every else is dumb, except for him. So many people have come to see leetcoding as an intellectual badge of honor, when most of us know its cultural rigamarole and the code written on the job will rarely reflect the type of work that will done.

I'm not saying coding is easy, plenty of people struggle with it. But as far as the job goes, unless you are a junior just grinding through JIRA tickets, coding was the easiest (and arguably the most rewarding) part of the job.

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