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Programming is a Terrible Job

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Re: Programming is a Terrible Job

#51

Post by mithras »

pawelk wrote: post #21
taeric wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not quite as cynical as your last line, but I fully agree with the outlook growing up. And honestly, does any of this sound unique to programming? Do you think carpenters are all happy just making what people will buy from them? Do you think musicians all just want to make music people will buy? Mathematicians of old just being glad they could reliably hit ships with a cannon? Electricians constantly just pluggin…

> Do you think carpenters are all happy just making what people will buy from them? An anecdote to highlight your point. I'm a web developer, but I've built furniture four our new house last year. It was fun, I've learned some new things and, most importantly, it's still there once the electricity goes out. It provides, in my opinion, a lot more value than nth iteration of some corporate website re-design. I thought…

The grass is greener...

Re: Programming is a Terrible Job

#52

Post by BillyMaize »

rfnslyr wrote: post #46

It's an absolute luxury to be able to get paid exorbitant amounts and not having to break a sweat. Oh wow I had to parse CSV files for four hours, poor me. What if you had to break your back on a farm 10 hours a day with the constant uncertainty of whether you'll make a dime or survive until next year? Your job is what you make of it. Bring some awesome music, change your desktop background, install a new theme, read…

I really hate the attitude in the first few sentences. The "your life is better than others so be grateful" idea never really applies, its like saying "your neighbor gets beaten three times a day, so don't complain when you only get beat once!". Just because someone else's life is worse than yours doesn't mean your own is so great. Also, the person breaking their back on a farm might be doing that because they made choices in life which lead them to have a poor future.

As for your job being what you make it, I totally agree. There are lots of ways I have made my work life better recently even when I hate my job (for example I got a keurig) and until you do everything you can in that aspect you can't be sure you won't be happy. When you do all of these and THEN still aren't happy, find a new job.

Re: Programming is a Terrible Job

#53

Post by Volpe »

garethadams wrote: post #35
nicpottier wrote: post #32

There's a reason it is called work and not play. If work was always enjoyable, then they wouldn't need to pay you to do it. I think the author is delusional if he thinks any programming anywhere doesn't have large swaths of time that are a bit mind numbing. And my experience has been the programmers who think themselves 'above that' are the ones that provide the least value. Our job is not to program, our job is to c…

> If work was always enjoyable, then they wouldn't need to pay you to do it. I can't pay my bills with enjoyable.

what bills do you have if you are permanently joyful?

Re: Programming is a Terrible Job

#54

Post by loup-vaillant »

nicpottier wrote: post #32

There's a reason it is called work and not play. If work was always enjoyable, then they wouldn't need to pay you to do it. I think the author is delusional if he thinks any programming anywhere doesn't have large swaths of time that are a bit mind numbing. And my experience has been the programmers who think themselves 'above that' are the ones that provide the least value. Our job is not to program, our job is to c…

There' a difference between having "large swaths of time that are a bit mind numbing", and having those swaths taking most, possibly all your working time. OP said:

> I don't think I ever caught myself writing code for my employer and thinking "hey, I really enjoy this"

-----

> Our job is not to program, our job is to create value.

It's supposed to be the job of every worker out there. Even janitors (believe me, clean toilets are quite valuable). Or maybe you think our job is to think about what creates value, then do it (or have it done)? That part is not programming, it's business analysis. The OP was a junior programmer, and as such likely had no say on BA. Heck, in general, junior programmers don't even get to chose their programming language, nor their build system, nor the high-level architecture of the programs they write. Genuinely thinking of creating value? That's a pretty good way to get fired. Just do what you're told, and watch (edit: and learn from) the consequences as they unfold.

-----

> You should be getting your jollies off of making cool shit happen, solving real problems, not necessarily that you just invented some sophisticated new algorithm.

True. However, the OP said:

> Imagine coming to work to spend hours googling, wiring together unbelievably shitty, amazingly poor documented frameworks and battling Javscript and CSS.

This is not making cool shit happens. It's loosing untold amount of time battling accidental difficulties. Solving "real problems" is precisely what the OP would have liked to do:

> There were a lot of really hard problems that programmers had to solve that didn't exactly involve javascript hacks to make internet explorer users happy

Working around a problem (such as IE6) that could in principle have been avoided in the first place, is not the same as solving real problems. Computers were supposed to augment the damn human intellect, and now they're mainly used to extract money from other people. This emphasises the short term and zero-sum aspects of our economy, both of which are poor at advancing humanity forward.

Re: Programming is a Terrible Job

#55

Post by antocv »

nicpottier wrote: post #32

There's a reason it is called work and not play. If work was always enjoyable, then they wouldn't need to pay you to do it. I think the author is delusional if he thinks any programming anywhere doesn't have large swaths of time that are a bit mind numbing. And my experience has been the programmers who think themselves 'above that' are the ones that provide the least value. Our job is not to program, our job is to c…

> If work was always enjoyable, then they wouldn't need to pay you to do it.

Why do football players, musicians and movie actors get payed 1000x as much as the software engineers who made the technology to make possible their success? TV, Internet, radio, now all HD quality. So that some people can enjoy their work and earn millions while we who invent and produce the infrastructure should suck it up and call it work?

Does our society really encourage people to do stuff they dont really want to do, stuff they dont find enjoyable?

Just my twist on this.

Re: Programming is a Terrible Job

#56

Post by MrBuddyCasino »

I think most of the disappointment comes from not being able to work as you'd like to, and with colleagues that just don't care. The solution to that is freelancing or changing jobs.

Or, as jwz has done, open a bar and sell beer instead.

Re: Programming is a Terrible Job

#57

Post by rfnslyr »

BillyMaize wrote: post #52
rfnslyr wrote: post #46

It's an absolute luxury to be able to get paid exorbitant amounts and not having to break a sweat. Oh wow I had to parse CSV files for four hours, poor me. What if you had to break your back on a farm 10 hours a day with the constant uncertainty of whether you'll make a dime or survive until next year? Your job is what you make of it. Bring some awesome music, change your desktop background, install a new theme, read…

I really hate the attitude in the first few sentences. The "your life is better than others so be grateful" idea never really applies, its like saying "your neighbor gets beaten three times a day, so don't complain when you only get beat once!". Just because someone else's life is worse than yours doesn't mean your own is so great. Also, the person breaking their back on a farm might be doing that because they made c…

That's not the same at all. Comparing getting beaten vs getting beaten more is not the same as working in an air conditioned office vs a farm.

To make any job "fun", I always have IRC and messages going so I can talk to people a lot of the time. Keeps the day exciting.

Re: Programming is a Terrible Job

#58

Post by AznHisoka »

pilif wrote: post #47

Of course the day job isn't always fun. That's why it's a job and that's what we get paid for. But: I f'ing love my job as a programmer. There is nothing in this world that I'd rather do. There's nothing that constantly fills me with as much joy as programming does. I admit that I might be a bit lucky here, having founded the company I'm working for; that allows me to pick my battles and find a good balance between s…

Not to say your opinion doesn't count but theres a huge difference between being the founder of your own company and following orders from a pointy haired boss.

True being a boss is not all roses but your problems shift to a higher order, such as how can I build something customers would love... Versus how can I fix this trivial bug because my boss told me to?

Re: Programming is a Terrible Job

#60

Post by AznHisoka »

loup-vaillant wrote: post #54
nicpottier wrote: post #32

There's a reason it is called work and not play. If work was always enjoyable, then they wouldn't need to pay you to do it. I think the author is delusional if he thinks any programming anywhere doesn't have large swaths of time that are a bit mind numbing. And my experience has been the programmers who think themselves 'above that' are the ones that provide the least value. Our job is not to program, our job is to c…

There' a difference between having "large swaths of time that are a bit mind numbing", and having those swaths taking most, possibly all your working time. OP said: > I don't think I ever caught myself writing code for my employer and thinking "hey, I really enjoy this" ----- > Our job is not to program, our job is to create value. It's supposed to be the job of every worker out there. Even janitors (believe me, clea…

Seconded. It's not our job to create value.. Well it is but in a perverse way. It's our job to follow a boss' order and do what he thinks has value to his life, his salary, and him not getting in trouble with higher management
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