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Help I don't want to be a programmer anymore

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Re: Help I don't want to be a programmer anymore

#51

Post by drewmck »

seivan wrote: post #15

I feel like that occasionally. I wish I did some different decisions when I was younger. I always look with envy at lawyers, sociologist, political science major and other bullshitters. Especially the ones who work for the government No work effort, very little pressure to come with results. Even product managers or "UX" people... I know it's arrogant of me to say so, but the more I observe them, the little they seem…

UX guy and former management consultant here. I can tell you the grass is always greener...

As a management consultant I was expected to grind out pointless "decks" (powerpoints) all day long. And all night long? Grind out RFP's for new business (which are usually more decks).

UX designers generally have a higher job satisfaction if they are with the right team. However, these jobs are difficult to get and easy to lose. Many of the UX designers I graduated with from HCI school are now looking into front-end dev, visual design and business strategy. Why? Because UX designers can easily become marginalized, and if all you can do is sketch and put together a few basic wireframes, you can quickly find yourself on the periphery of the team. You should see some of the bored/desperate emails I get from colleagues who either have 1) nothing to do or 2) don't get the respect they 'deserve'.

Re: Help I don't want to be a programmer anymore

#52

Post by xradionut »

Much of my work related programming is SSDD tasks. (Same Shit, Different Day/Data) Occasionally I get to do something creative at the office, but the real joy comes from the side work and the hobby programming. Instead of dealing with Yet Another Pile Of PCrappy Data, I get to deal with microcontrollers, radios and antennas.

Re: Help I don't want to be a programmer anymore

#53

Post by Scotchy »

jug6ernaut wrote: post #28
mmcconnell1618 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doctors have to go to medical school and then have a residency and the AMA closely controls the total supply of physicians. Lawyers have to go to an accredited school and then pass the bar (in some states the school part is optional). A computer science degree is the closest thing the tribe of programmers has to a professional certification. There are some organizations that have attempted to bring the tribe together…

Those licenses are not to protect the Doctors/Lawyers, they are to protect their clients. Having such a system for programmers would make no since and would make the situation much worse. A college degree means a lot but you can be a very good/success programmer without one. I would NEVER go to a doctor/lawyer who did not have the correct credentials to practice. As such you "practice" medicine and you "practice" law…

Altough I agree with you, I still definitely think we are heading towards a future where in order for your code to ship, you will need to be a certified programmer, or have it validated by a certified programmer, at least in some industries.

Do you think it is safe, for say, a non certified (read: a guy with no CS degree) programmer to design and code software that runs on an MRI machine ? Or the one which controls airplaines ? If airplaines start crashing because of a software fault, do you think we could and should blame the programmer for not having made the required tests ?

Software _development_ is a very young discipline, and as such has not yet been regulated. But I believe the day will come where it will.

Re: Help I don't want to be a programmer anymore

#55

Post by darkxanthos »

jordan_clark wrote: post #42
darkxanthos wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I forgot to add, this is also the reason I've shifted towards "data science". Still get to code but I also add immensely more value to the business as I experiment to grow profits.

Good point. Everyone wants to be respected and wants to feel like they're able to contribute to the company moving forward.

Actually that's a really great point. :D

That's really what's happening here. There are all these programmers who desperately want to do something the business highly values. Maybe some of them haven't figured out the optimal intersection between their interests and their businesses.

Not everyone cares about this, but HN has a different class of programmer. ;)

Re: Help I don't want to be a programmer anymore

#56

Post by fallous »

Most of the time my bouts of "screw this, I hate programming" has more to do with myself and losing sight of what value I'm providing than anything else. Sure, I'd love to have a job where I am constantly in a state of intellectually-stimulating ecstasy tackling new and daunting challenges... so would every other person on the planet, but such jobs don't exist.

Programming is a service business. You're solving people's problems so they can spend more time doing work that is more productive/fun/challenging/etc (hey wait a minute, that's what _I_ wanted!) When you lose site of who's receiving the benefit of your work, you start focusing instead only on your own needs and down the rabbit-hole you go.

I freely admit that I make this mistake regularly due to distance from those who are using the results of my efforts, but I also tend to burn myself out because I don't segregate work and life well enough. In Dream Job(tm) where I am always being challenged with problems that involve deep thinking, I can guarantee that I would burn out much faster due to this. Hard problem? I'll just work it until I've solved it to the detriment of all other activities. But that's how I work, and I know it so it's up to me to try and short-circuit that when it ceases to be healthy.

I would say that finding a hobby where you're working with your hands or engaged in the physical realm tends to help balance things out. All software is temporary and contemplating the months and years spent building something that will most likely be tossed in a decade or less is demotivating. So build some furniture, restore a motorcycle, paint a picture, anything that has a chance for permanence. It helps me, a lot.

Re: Help I don't want to be a programmer anymore

#57

Post by michaelochurch »

arethuza wrote: post #45
jug6ernaut wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those licenses are not to protect the Doctors/Lawyers, they are to protect their clients. Having such a system for programmers would make no since and would make the situation much worse. A college degree means a lot but you can be a very good/success programmer without one. I would NEVER go to a doctor/lawyer who did not have the correct credentials to practice. As such you "practice" medicine and you "practice" law…

Also worth noting that, at least in some places, lawyers share quite a lot of liability for their work - direct personal liability or as part of a partnership (and limited liability partnerships might not protect you as much as you would think). If a lawyer screws up badly enough then they can have their credentials taken away and they can't do their job anymore - that's arguably the main difference between a profess…

The #1 defining trait of a profession is that there are ethical obligations that supersede managerial authority. You don't have the "I was following orders" excuse if you do something wrong or unethical. You answer to the profession, not a manager. At least, that's the theory. In practice, there's a lot of variation. Law is technically a profession, but "white-shoe" law (aka biglaw) is pretty horrid, culturally speaking.

This is a benefit, in the sense that the profession goes out of its way to prevent you from being beholden to a single boss, but a drawback in the sense that if you do screw up in a bad way (or get unlucky) you can find yourself in a really bad situation when you lose your license.

I don't know how well that can be applied to technology where there are so many moving parts that 100% bug-free software is impossible.

Re: Help I don't want to be a programmer anymore

#58

Post by rthomas6 »

mmcconnell1618 wrote: post #9
michaelochurch wrote: post #3

I like programming a lot. If I'm away from it for more than a couple weeks, I start to miss it. The software industry deserves to choke on a dick and die, however. Fuck bad code, micromanagers, dopey "startups" that expect 14-hour days on the assumption that 0.0x equity slices represent real "ownership", closed allocation, and regimes in which programmers don't choose their tools. All of that can go to hell. As softw…

Doctors have to go to medical school and then have a residency and the AMA closely controls the total supply of physicians. Lawyers have to go to an accredited school and then pass the bar (in some states the school part is optional). A computer science degree is the closest thing the tribe of programmers has to a professional certification. There are some organizations that have attempted to bring the tribe together…

This is a bad idea. Those certifications are meant to be there to protect the consumers, not the practitioners. Some engineering disciplines need professional certifications because of liability reasons, and some don't. I'm an electrical engineer working in a hardware design position in a safety-critical field, and I don't have a professional certification. I'm just competent, and we do an insane amount of testing.

One of the best things about programming is its low barrier to entry. Requirements for being a successful programmer: be good at programming. Having certifications isn't necessarily bad, but I feel that requiring certifications on a legal level the same way law and medicine are required is a horrible idea.

Re: Help I don't want to be a programmer anymore

#59

Post by seivan »

drewmck wrote: post #51
seivan wrote: post #15

I feel like that occasionally. I wish I did some different decisions when I was younger. I always look with envy at lawyers, sociologist, political science major and other bullshitters. Especially the ones who work for the government No work effort, very little pressure to come with results. Even product managers or "UX" people... I know it's arrogant of me to say so, but the more I observe them, the little they seem…

UX guy and former management consultant here. I can tell you the grass is always greener... As a management consultant I was expected to grind out pointless "decks" (powerpoints) all day long. And all night long? Grind out RFP's for new business (which are usually more decks). UX designers generally have a higher job satisfaction if they are with the right team. However, these jobs are difficult to get and easy to lo…

Snake oil. That's UX. A good iOS developer can do both mobile design as well as the code required.

Don't need some photoshop slinger calling him/herself "Mobile iOS designer".

Code it or gtfo.

Re: Help I don't want to be a programmer anymore

#60

Post by vonmoltke »

msvan wrote: post #17

I think many of those of us who get into programming in the first place do it because of some kind of intellectual curiosity and because we get a thrill out of building things with tangible results. Which is probably why you'll find lots of programmers also interested in playing musical instruments, learning foreign languages, writing fiction and so on. It's a certain kind of mindset. I've been thinking about what jo…

Any engineering discipline would fit this bill. Its what attracted me to it to begin with. I wanted to build things. I started building things from kits (Lego, plastic models, etc) but soon graduated to doing my own thing. Engineering was a natural choice, and electrical engineering specifically because of my interest in electronics.
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