try being a full time mom !!!
Programming is a Terrible Job
251–260 of 296 posts
Re: Programming is a Terrible Job
#252I 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…
interestingly, in some corporate places, the inefficiency is so built into the politics that if you tried to automate someone's job away, they might be scared of you! I had a friend who worked at a bank, and in one week, automated the manual process that used to take the "team" months to do (mostly excel manual data entry and cleanup). I was told they were scared of being made redundant...
Re: Programming is a Terrible Job
#253This really should be titled: "Programming is not computer science."
Maybe the problem is that people get educated as computer scientists, and get hired as software programmers. While the area of expertise has a large overlap, they value very different qualities in the way you work.
Unfortunately there isn't a standard computer science curriculum out there. So one school may focus on pure computer science (i.e. that actual science of computation) and another may be teaching students how to write C# programs.
Software plays such a critical role in today's society that I almost (almost) think computer scientists and software developers need to be licensed like civil engineers, which would then create some standards. Of course there are a lot of reason why this would be a bad idea, but bottom line issue is the lack of consistency between schools.
Re: Programming is a Terrible Job
#254I love programming, it makes me a good living, but I hate working for other people.
My main issue is a manager or a boss that can't manage a project properly and it crashes and burns (and I just have to watch and smile) or I am forced to work weekends or extra hours because of it.
This has happened at nearly every development job I have ever had. So, I started my own company and now work for myself.
Re: Programming is a Terrible Job
#255I'm a first-year computer science student, and I've been programming for about 3 years (self-taught). I find the field to be overwhelmingly expansive, and while that's partly what I find so alluring about it, I sometimes feel like exploring a bunch of subfields is taking away from the time I should be using to specialize.
I really enjoy making games and simulations, but I have trouble picturing myself working in the industry, as I really want to work on technology that solves problems. And if I were to "specialize" as a game programmer, I would probably be a generalist in that subfield.
One area that I find extremely interesting is the realm of real-time, embedded software. My dream job would be at Tesla Motors, writing software for autonomous cars. Unfortunately, it's not as easy to get experience with embedded systems as it is to get game programming or web development experience. And, for the same reason, it's not as easy (or cheap) to amass a portfolio of, erm... UAVs, robots, elevators -- what have you.
I also enjoy making web applications, doing system administration, and everything in between. And I can't deny that I've had my "start x website in dorm room like Zuck and be rich" entrepreneurial fantasies.
Does anyone have advice or words of wisdom? If I had to choose one area to specialize in, it would be embedded software, but I feel like I could get a ton of great experience as a game programmer on my own, for free, while getting a cursory glimpse at embedded systems would require more than just time as an investment.
How might I pursue a career in embedded software? I think the real-time nature of game programming would be a nice complement to real-time embedded software development. Should I pursue both?
Sorry about the essay, but this dilemma has been bugging me incessantly lately.
Re: Programming is a Terrible Job
#256I'm a first-year computer science student, and I've been programming for about 3 years (self-taught). I find the field to be overwhelmingly expansive, and while that's partly what I find so alluring about it, I sometimes feel like exploring a bunch of subfields is taking away from the time I should be using to specialize. I really enjoy making games and simulations, but I have trouble picturing myself working in the…
>How might I pursue a career in embedded software? I think the real-time nature of game programming would be a nice complement to real-time embedded software development. Should I pursue both?
You should contact some of the research professors at your institution and see what's going on at the school in those fields. Look up the robotics/AI professor and go knock on his door. Ask him what he's working on and if he needs any undergrad programming help. Usually these professors will be glad to take on a student to a team if there's room at all.
Of course you'll likely need some decent to good C/C++ skills, and arm/x64/x86 Assembly may help too.
Re: Programming is a Terrible Job
#257I'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…
7 years.
KILL ME
Re: Programming is a Terrible Job
#258Earlier 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.
Even in India startups are not putting any such restrictions. Right after my graduation I joined a startup where we used to play UNO cards, access facebook, hear songs, play guitar etc. But I guess it is just the opposite in software MNCs like TCS, CTS, Infosys etc.
Re: Programming is a Terrible Job
#259> Ariel T. Glenn (née Laura A. Nickel) with Landon Curt Noll discovered on October 30, 1978 that 221701 − 1 was the 25th Mersenne prime. This made international news because Noll and Nickel were still high school students. For the verification of this number alone, the pair used almost eight hours of time on a CDC Cyber 174 at California State University [1]. They consumed over 4000 hours of computer time in their se…
Turns out it's not her - I asked.
Re: Programming is a Terrible Job
#260Quick response to whoever put this on pastebin:
If you don't like what you are working on, isn't it naive to assume that the entire field is like what you are doing?
Get some passion. If you show up to work, close tickets, do enough to get by, then not think about programming until the next morning when you show up to work you are not going to learn, you are not going to level up, and you are not going to impress anyone. Maybe you can gladhand your way into management, but you won't be any good at it and you've risen to the level of your own incompetence. I can't imagine that is very pleasant either.
Meanwhile people all over the place are working on hard problems of their own choosing and love every minute of it. I think they earned that. They earned it by taking the risk of success or failure on themselves, or by working hard and learning and working hard and learning until they had the freedom to choose what they would work on, because the decision makers trusted them to deliver if it was possible to deliver.
You can't shit shovel your way out of being a shit shoveler.