Programming is a Terrible Job • Hacker News Board

Re: Programming is a Terrible Job

#211

Post by gfodor » Mon, Sep 30, 2013, 7:32 PM UTC

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…

At it's core, what is programming? It's the skill of being able to leverage turing machines, symbol manipulators, to an end.

In a world being eaten by software, in a world where information is on its way to becoming the most atomic unit of value, it's hard to imagine a more profound and useful skill.

Re: Programming is a Terrible Job

#212

Post by ghostdiver » Mon, Sep 30, 2013, 7:37 PM UTC

jrobbins wrote: post #134

If you're going to be a pro athlete, you need to love to practice, drill, and train, not just play. If you're going to be a race car driver, you have to love to hear the sound of the engine and feel the vibration as you go down the road, not just the thrill of winning. If you're going to be a musician, you need to love the feel of the instrument in your hand. If you're going to be a writer, you need to love words, gr…

actually race car driver need to love the gym

Re: Programming is a Terrible Job

#213

Post by BWStearns » Mon, Sep 30, 2013, 7:43 PM UTC

I may be in the minority, being that I came to programming from a desire to kill the boring shit that constituted most of my old job, but I really enjoy killing boring shit. It might be a psychological tic, but even if I have under 10 users for a given script I love seeing them ask "Wait that's all I have to do?" when you show them that their computers are now doing their mindless bullshit almost instantly. Sure the given business logic might be trivial, but I've always gotten a relatively bigger kick out of user satisfaction than a fascinating problem with little user impact. (not to say that fascinating problems are either useless or uninteresting, I rather enjoy playing around with hard problems, it's just preferences of rewards).

Re: Programming is a Terrible Job

#214

Post by wicknicks » Mon, Sep 30, 2013, 7:57 PM UTC

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…

> The world is wide open to you.

In the United States probably. The author doesn't sound too old, and says that he/she got access to the internet much later. Which means the author is probably from the Middle east or China or South Asia. The work culture there is not as open as in the west. Daily job means monotonous routine work. What excited him about the prime numbers problem was the novel aspect of it, and the fact that he was in control. Later, in his/her day job, that was no longer the case -- someone else was making the decisions. Until these nuances trickle into daily jobs, most people will sooner than later burnout.

Re: Programming is a Terrible Job

#215

Post by michaelwww » Mon, Sep 30, 2013, 8:00 PM UTC

"You've got to serve somebody" -- Bob Dylan. The author doesn't say what is preventing him/her from finding a programming task that he/she is passionate about and pays enough to live on. I've been around awhile and let me tell you, there are so many more interesting programming challenges now because hardware has made incredible advances. There's only so much you can do in what used to be called 3M (one megabyte of random access memory, a megapixel display and megaflop performance.) Oh, and no internet to speak of.

Re: Programming is a Terrible Job

#216

Post by joelthelion » Mon, Sep 30, 2013, 8:00 PM UTC

Don't be a programmer. Be an "X" who programs.

Instead of spending 99% of your time bullet-proofing your software for idiot users who can't use a computer, write software as a tool to automate your own job.

Re: Programming is a Terrible Job

#217

Post by ivanhoe » Mon, Sep 30, 2013, 8:10 PM UTC

Any job is boring if you are not motivated by something, whether it's money or career or building something cool or learning new stuff or whatever works for you... without that it doesn't really matter if you are a programmer or banker or cab driver, you'll hate it...

Re: Programming is a Terrible Job

#218

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Sep 30, 2013, 8:12 PM UTC

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…

[deleted]

Re: Programming is a Terrible Job

#219

Post by monkeynotes » Mon, Sep 30, 2013, 8:29 PM UTC

What annoys me is the author has grown up surrounded by amazing tools and support allowing him/her to get into programming and is complaining that his/her particular choices have disappointed.

The world doesn't owe anyone satisfaction. It's up to the individual to find what makes them happy. Maybe some jobs aren't all that satisfying, in that case at least you now know this and can do something about it. Want to be a NASA computer scientist? Guess what, you can!

Lamenting about the 'golden days' of software where it was all tucked away in labs is short sighted. There are SO many more opportunities to do SO many more exciting things. Software is in its infancy, the real world changing tools are still to be discovered. Apply yourself.

Re: Programming is a Terrible Job

#220

Post by sirmarksalot » Mon, Sep 30, 2013, 8:29 PM UTC

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…

The "challenge" strategy can be intensely satisfying, but can also be very frustrating if that challenge is not shared by everyone on your team.

I've approached problems with goals like trying to do everything in a declarative functional style, and not passing nulls to avoid having to check for null. It's worked great, until we hand the code off to somebody else, with a new requirement, and that person breaks all the rules not because it's a particularly hard problem to solve, but just because they don't care.

It's an issue I'm currently working through right now, and I'm not sure if it's something to write a style guide/manifesto for, or if there's a better way to enforce it, or if it's just not a battle I should be fighting when dealing with an outside vendor.