Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Programming is a Terrible Job

pastebin.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 296 posts

Re: Programming is a Terrible Job

#201

Post by divoxx »

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

That's definitely not a software engineer routine. Engineers craft/architect solutions instead of "wiring shit together". Of course, being able to re-use existing stuff is part of the job but if your job is wiring things together, specially if you do not know how those things work, you're not a software engineer.

That said, there are different software engineering gigs with different level of difficulties and solving different kind of problems. I like the advice of specializing, getting into more computer science, but that's still software engineering.

Don't get fooled just because the market is full of shitty web development gigs, that's a small portion of "software engineering".

Re: Programming is a Terrible Job

#202

Post by siliconc0w »

I think there is a joel's on this but 90% of business software that isn't customer facing is boring CRUD bullshit that is shipped when it reaches 'barley works' stage so you can move on to the next project. This sucks. I think the answer is to go work for a company with more interesting problems to solve where software is a core competency rather than just a budget line item.

Re: Programming is a Terrible Job

#203

Post by SonicSoul »

ianstallings wrote: post #94

I'm approaching 20 years of doing this and I would love to have 20 years more. What this really sounds like, and the message gets muted by the complaints, is that the author wants you to find a part of software that interests you and follow that path. I agree 100%. Some people love front-end Javascript websites and all that entails. I find it painful. I still do it when called for but my true love is in low level pro…

10 years here, and loving it too!

the best part for me is, the more i learn the better it gets. And the longer i do it, the bigger the variety of solutions and ways to get things done.

Sure, will get stuck on a crappy project from time to time, which could last for 1-12 months, and it may not be a blast, but i know it's temporary, and the more senior i get, the more say i have in making it suck less.

It took me many years to learn this, but you don't always have to do what you're told (if you know you can do it better). If you're being pressed to get something done, you'll be inclined to cut corners and hack it. But in the end you can just do it the right way, and tell your boss afterwards. The trick is to do it in the same time it would take to hack it. If it means working nights and weekends? so be it.. in the end, it's your name and showing such ownership will eventually give you a bigger voice, and people around will know who produces quality stuff. And if you're working for someone that will not be happy about you doing it the right way just because they told you otherwise, you don't want to work for them in the first place.

Re: Programming is a Terrible Job

#204

Post by iSnow »

avenger123 wrote: post #106
iSnow wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I always have IRC and messages going so I can talk to people a lot of the time In a lot of software shops, you are not allowed to chat, use IM or even bring headphones (like here)

You know, I will give you that. My experience and I would venture to say most of the comments are based on people working in North America (or a similar place). I would say that likely you work for a company that is either based in India or another similar country. I can definitely see how they would treat software developers like a sweat shop. And its tough as "change your job" doesn't readily apply.

>I would say that likely you work for a company that is either based in India or another similar country

Actually Germany and the company has its strongest workforce in the US.

Re: Programming is a Terrible Job

#205

Post by kyllo »

joshlegs wrote: post #129
10098 wrote: post #126

Honestly, I can understand OP's frustration. I would be lying if I said I didn't think similar thoughts. But the truth is, you don't get do to what you want unless you're running your on company. Even if you are running your own company, you have to make sure you're doing the right thing in order to not go bankrupt. I think having hobby projects can help provide a nice balance between doing whatever the hell you want…

protip: every job is like this. I went into journalism because i LOVED reading and writing. Making it a career sapped the fun out of it. Now i'm coding professionally. It's much more fun than the pressures of journalism, but I do find myself sometimes thinking "this was more fun when I did it just for the heck of it"

protip: every job is like this.

True, and most of them also pay a lot less.

Re: Programming is a Terrible Job

#206

Post by iSnow »

jasonlotito wrote: post #81
iSnow wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think, as a founder you are missing the point that 99 out of 100 times you are told - explicitly or by work schedule "do not do it in an interesting, performant or elegant way, just get it working somehow and move on"

I've never been told that. I've been told to get something done. How I achieve that has never been an issue. Interesting, performant, or elegant does not mean it has to be slow. That's part of the challenge. Meeting the demands of the business while meeting the demands of a professional.

>How I achieve that has never been an issue.

Lucky you, I have been there too. But at my current position, trying to use more modern technologies (Angular.js for example instead of a 15-year old stack without clean separation between front-and backend) to be more efficient is met with stares.

And I venture to say this happens very often in a lot of shops. At least outside of California.

Re: Programming is a Terrible Job

#207

Post by kyllo »

jafaku wrote: post #198
stephencanon wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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? They don’t. The notion that they do is laughable. Let’s look at baseball. Baseball players are known for having huge multi-million dollar contracts, right? But that’s only major league players. The vast majority of professional baseball players play in the min…

> As for the couple hundred guys making multiple millions a year who you hear about all the time? Well, there’s even more engineers who have struck it rich with a startup, and no baseball player will ever come close to Zuckerberg-level wealth. You are comparing employees to a CEO and business owner (which doesn't have anything to do with technology, other than for the initial lines of code). Of course he has more wea…

CEO of a company with a single product, which is a web app that he wrote the first several versions of by himself, in his dorm room. Yeah, he did it in PHP, but that doesn't mean he wasn't an "engineer" working on "technology."

Re: Programming is a Terrible Job

#208

Post by Supermighty »

R_Edward wrote: post #152
Supermighty wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It took me a longer time than I liked to realize that the end user didn't care at all. To them it was magic and they just want it to work. And you're right, most shops don't care how it's coded either. Once I realized that it gave me some freedom to once again enjoy my work. I still get frustrated from time to time, but at least I know why and can shift my thinking when I realize I'm headed down a negative path.

Most users are as you describe, but I made it my mission to educate them on what they were asking for when requesting a software change, and why one change might take two or three days, while another takes a month or more. I'm not didactic about it, just providing good explanations in terms they can understand. This makes them better understand that I'm neither a wizard nor a plumber, but someone who uses the ability…

Well said.

I've done the same with the Account Executives where I work. Some get it more than others, but most only get it part of the time. Still it's better than nothing.

Re: Programming is a Terrible Job

#209

Post by srikrishnan »

I can imagine I would have said the same had I been doing "web development". The way some stuff works on one browser but doesn't on another drives me mad. It is as though web programming is not about logic, but about just knowing how to get stuff to work on the browsers.

I think the fact that we've all grown used to pretty UI and are design/experience conscious means there are more developers spending their energy in prettying up stuff, making it mobile friendly, etc. which not everyone enjoys - though looking at it after its done might still give some satisfaction.

On the other hand, I still enjoy writing scripts to help me with tasks, figuring out a nice algorithm to solve a problem, etc.

If you have a 60-40 mix of stuff you don't enjoy and stuff you enjoy, I think that is OK. If that 60 grows to 70/80, makes it really tough to stay motivated.

Re: Programming is a Terrible Job

#210

Post by lelandbatey »

blar wrote: post #200

I very much want to come up with a coherent and inspirational repudiation of the OPs thesis. This is the second essay I've seen recently that seems to completely miss the magic of our trade, and I feel like we need some strong cheerleaders to counter this stuff. How does a programmer NOT wake up every morning with a head full of inspired, flaming joy at the thought of what we do for a living? I've been at this for 5…

I'm in total agreement. I find programming just so fascinating and beautiful in a way that's like nothing I've ever seen or imagined. I find everything so sublime, and I'd still say that at 2am at the end of an 8 hour solid programming session.

I'm much newer to this (one year and still studying) but I really hope I can feel this way for the rest of my life.

Post reply on HN