Whatever happened to programming?
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Whatever happened to programming?
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Re: Whatever happened to programming?
#2the current trend of plugging together frameworks and libraries does lead to some pretty boring, frustrating work. And the unfortunate thing is that in many cases they don't even reduce the complexity of the solution. (They certainly don't simplify the /problem/)
There's a fascination with shiny new things and it's tempting to think that the latest and greatest download from some smart guy solves the problem you are solving. But after a couple years working in that manner I'm not so sure.
I think it's tempting to view frameworks and/or libraries as an implementation of software patterns, and also as a way to avoid learning your trade. That's probably not concious thought behind it, but you see it in so many things... if you just learn this framework or use this library, you won't have to learn html, or css, or sockets, or synchronisation, or searching and sorting, or...
Re: Whatever happened to programming?
#3What happened is the we finally hit "the dream" of building software out of large building blocks instead of having to reinvent screws and bolts for every project.
The lack of fun is, in my opinion, a side effect of using weak languages that force us to write boilerplate and ceremony along with using half-baked non-Turning complete XML languages (don't forget the "L" in "XML" stands for "language").
Re: Whatever happened to programming?
#4Cool stuff isn't operating systems and compilers, cool stuff is getting your computer to do your job for you.
Why don't you use the knowledge you gained of prolog and lisp and metaprogram the tasks you're given to get your work done even faster.
This talk about crud is boring, libraries are boring, is almost ludicrous. There are 200 million jobs in the united states alone that can be automated by software. Try to automate those jobs - that's cool and lucrative stuff.
Re: Whatever happened to programming?
#5Javaschools, PHBs, and other failed attempts at the commoditization/regularization of the software engineer brought this about.
There are as many interesting problems today as there were in 1960 or 1985 or 1998. There will be demand for new languages (and new compilers for those languages). Operating systems may or may not be "solved" for now, but VMs are going to be of interest in the next 10 years.
The problem is that, outside of high-risk startups and possibly academia, it's very rare to get permission, resources, and support to attack the interesting problems. Blue-sky research is gone. This is because of the next-quarter mentality; there's a significant likelihood of failure if you're doing something interesting, and interesting projects cannot easily be done to deadline. And everyone wants to be on those projects. So a first-year programmer at an average company is not very likely to get to do an AI research project that may or may not lead to anything.
"Gluing" projects, on the other hand, can usually be completed in a predictable amount of time and have a high likelihood of achieving success for sufficiently mediocre definitions of "success".
Re: Whatever happened to programming?
#6Cool stuff isn't operating systems and compilers, cool stuff is getting your computer to do your job for you. Why don't you use the knowledge you gained of prolog and lisp and metaprogram the tasks you're given to get your work done even faster. This talk about crud is boring, libraries are boring, is almost ludicrous. There are 200 million jobs in the united states alone that can be automated by software. Try to aut…
Grabbing libraries isn't fun when you first start out programming you really don't learn much and really can't do anything and I think that seems to be where everything is headed.
If you are programming for work sure its going to be easier to grab a library to do a certain task for you even if you have to mangle your task a little bit to use it but when you are learning or even when you are programming for fun that is dull and really really not fun.
Re: Whatever happened to programming?
#7Everyone is tainted by their own experience, I suppose, but I feel like I get to work on plenty of interesting problems. What bothers me (and this author it seems) is having to spend your time learning arbitrary things, such as an XML format for a configuration file, or nuances of how different browsers handle different conditions.
However, we (web developers at least) are writing software that is supposed to run on just about any hardware / OS / browser combination, and making that happen and doing complex and interesting things in that context is going to involve lots of arbitrary details.
That being said, if I think back 10 years, this type of work has become dramatically more pleasant thanks to a lot of open source software that has matured in that time.
If the complaint is that we can't all write our own virtual memory system or our own b-tree, I suppose I can't disagree that that is becoming less of a reality. However, solving interesting problems still requires an understanding of these things, and using existing libraries in my experience saves me time and allows me to have a bigger-picture view and solve larger problems. It is still very satisfying. If this article is written from the perspective of someone automating simple and mundane business processes, putting together forms, etc, then I believe the complaints are misdirected.
Re: Whatever happened to programming?
#8I weep for the software industry.
Our lives are going to suck in 10 years.
Re: Whatever happened to programming?
#9I weep for the software industry. Our lives are going to suck in 10 years.
I'm pretty sure this complaint has existed as long as there have been programmers.
If you want to program as they did in 1985, go work for a game company. Or find an investment bank looking for C++ developers; they're out there.
Re: Whatever happened to programming?
#10Internet happened. Internet has made sharing code extremely easy, and promotes code reuse which has led to current situation.
On the other hand, nobody is forcing you to follow this "glue libraries together" -method. Disconnect from the internet and just start coding. As a bonus you'll get rid of a lot of distractions (email/IM/twitter/whateva). It can be quite refreshing, and who knows, maybe you'll even create something new and awesome.