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The self-hating web developer

joequery.me

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Re: The self-hating web developer

#12

Post by skrebbel »

For all of those who, like the OP, believe web dev isn't real programming:

    - it is
    - uploading WordPress isn't web development
I worked in embedded systems for a few years, and let me tell you, the quality of people is exactly the same as in web dev. They do pointer arithmetic all the time (way too much), we pass functions to functions all the time (way too much). They use ancient compilers and tools, we invent a new frontend build pipeline every week. They build systems that are so badly structured that they take a night to compile if you change one line. We willingly make WordPress plugins. And the list goes on.

I walked away there because I strongly prefer learning a new frontend build pipeline every week over using ancient compilers on piles of legacy code. In many ways, web dev is where the edge cuts. But neither is better or worse, and there's fools and geniuses everywhere.

Re: The self-hating web developer

#13

Post by kisstheblade »

Most often the technology isn't the most important thing in "web development". Understanding the customers needs (often better than the customer) and implementing them is the point.

Of course technology is important but just using sane (and proven) technologies that all on the team understand is often the best way forward. Wery seldom the problem with custom business apps is the technology or "webscale" issues etc which get all the attention on eg. HN. When creating apps which will be usen for maybe 10+ years using the most hip language or framework isn't so smart when considering maintainability. Eg. Java/PHP/mysql are all etremely well understood and work wery well.

I've been doing this kind of development for about 15 years and not once has an application eg. needed to be clustered in any way for performance reasons (for HA reasons maybe).

Re: The self-hating web developer

#15

Post by timvp »

Good article. Web development is not the same as embedded development of course but it is also not just 'generating' CRUD applications with some js/css to make it nice.

Hope to see him succeed in his reinvention of his career :)

Re: The self-hating web developer

#16

Post by dandrews »

In re: the vast number of available programming languages... not really a new problem. I've always been amused by the "Tower of Babel" illustration on the cover of Jean Sammet's 1969 book, Programming Languages: History and Fundamentals.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51jYiKlauWL._SX330_BO1...

Re: The self-hating web developer

#17

Post by prophet_ »

austenallred wrote: post #9

The "language hate" in programming is truly cancerous. I know several people who started programming only to get twisted and turned around by experienced developers saying, "Don't learn PHP" then "Rails is a joke and doesn't scale well." I talk to them a week later, and they're trying to build a simple web app in functional Haskell, and their environment is all messed up because they are using a zsh configuration the…

"Just do stuff."

Along the years I have come to admire more and more those who take what they do know and put the effort into just that: building something.

The idea of purpose is key here.

Once you have a purpose, a goal, finding the right tool for the job is no longer that difficult and you will suddenly realise that a lot the languages/frameworks people have been evangelising to you may make no sense at all.

"If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there." - Lewis Carroll

Re: The self-hating web developer

#18

Post by enobrev »

I've always been a fan of collecting money for solving problems and letting others worry about whether what I'm doing qualifies as "real" programming. Knowing how to listen to potential clients has gotten me a lot further than worrying whether PHP is a real programming language.

Re: The self-hating web developer

#19

Post by [deleted] »

sombremesa wrote: post #5

Web development is real software development. The people who say or think otherwise usually just don't know any better. That being said, there are different tiers of software development (including web development) in general. Most developers are actually abysmal at architecting good software. This might be down to a number of things - time pressure, lack of experience, lack of skill, apathy, "life happens" etc. Anyw…

[deleted]

Re: The self-hating web developer

#20

Post by patio11 »

There are few things in life more important than choosing one's peer group well. The Internet gives you many more options than we had available prior to the existence of it. Choose wisely and re-evaluate that choice periodically to see whether your peer group continues to represent your goals and values.

Why? Your peer group literally gets arbitrary code execution on your brain. (It's a flaw in MonkeyBrainOS 1.01 which we haven't patched yet.) You'll tend to find yourself valuing what they value. You will tend to find yourself achieving outcomes strikingly similar to their outcomes.

Given this, picking a peer group whose values are not your values and whose outcomes are terrible is a poor choice.

There is some cognizable peer group of "the most misanthropic 10% of commenters on Internet threads about programming languages." The majority are not professional programmers. Most are not very happy people. You can generally tell a lot about what a person values by what they spend their time doing; someone who professes to value the great intellectual challenge that is Real Programming but actually ships comments which make other people feel bad probably, to a first approximation, values making other people feel bad.

If you do not also want to grow into a values system where making other people feel bad is the highlight of your day, consider choosing a better peer group, where e.g. feeding one's family through honest labor is valued and having very loud opinions about NodeJS not so much.

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