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Coding is boring, unless

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Re: Coding is boring, unless

#101

Post by JustSomeNobody »

digi_owl wrote: post #59
binwiederhier wrote: post #37

> You can rewrite it from scratch, using a different language or technology. This way, you learn something new rather than patching legacy code. And if your architecture doesn’t allow this yet, you can take steps to improve it, and learn some devops skills in the process. In a professional environment, we develop software not because it's fun, but because it supports the business and/or because it is the business. Th…

quite. It seems to be the curse of the era that the techies are constantly chasing the "shiny". It seems that the web, through the likes of PHP and JS, has turned "programming" into a form of self expression. That the language used etc is supposed to say something about the programmer as a person.

Because developers are usually "let go" before management or sales, they have to keep their skills up to date in order to get their next gig. That's where the shiny comes in. Shiny gets hired. Dull doesn't.

The problem is when those developers _only_ want to work on shiny. Developers need to understand that they need to work on maintenance projects as well.

Re: Coding is boring, unless

#102

Post by Drdrdrq »

throwaway999888 wrote: post #83
walshemj wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And doing serious development on lap tops realy! you need some decent 2 or 3 monitor set ups with a nice i7 workstations with some nicer mechanical keyboards and mice. Yes I know you can get docks etc for laptops but its far more expensive for the same performance.

Just for ergonomics alone you should use a desktop setup over a laptop setup for any prolonged periods. It's as good as impossible to use a laptop and not be hunched over.

Or you could use a docking station with proper keyboard, mouse and monitor(s). Works great if you also need to attend some meetings or conferences from time to time.

Also, as a developer I don't need i7. SSD, great monitor, keyboard and mouse, and lots of RAM, yes - but CPU? Depends on domain I guess.

Re: Coding is boring, unless

#103

Post by nodamage »

lubonay wrote: post #18
sohcahtoa wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there are two ways to view what the job most programmers do is. IMO it isn't to write code, it's to solve business problems. Code just happens to be the tool that you use to do that, most of the time. Anyone who tries to solve a problem by staring hard at a blank piece of paper instead of just googling the answer is not making effective use of their time.

You are missing the forest for the trees. Reaching for Google and SO as your first impulse when confronted with a problem will deteriorate your ability to find your own solutions in the long run. Use it or lose it, as they say. And besides, any non-trivial problem can't be solved by copying code from SO alone.

Disagree. My time is valuable, and I already have enough difficult problems to solve that I'm not interested in creating extra work for myself. If a quick 2-second Google/StackOverflow search reveals the solution to my problem, I'll happily take it and move on.

I don't understand why anyone wouldn't start with that. Pride?

Re: Coding is boring, unless

#104

Post by khaannn »

anonyfox wrote: post #20

I switched jobs a year ago: from a low paid startup job to a company that does project-to-project grunt work for local banks. I (@Hisako1337) learned a lot during the past years, absorbed the whole mindset of Lean Startup, Customer Development and truly agile software development. I taught myself the complete fullstack, from User interviews to SPA frontend dev with advanced SEO, backend development with imperative, O…

This is my life. The ancient codebase that doesn't use Objects because "They didn't see the point" with no unit tests. The pay is more than I could possibly hope to achieve at another employer in this area and, accounting for the cost of living, more than I could hope to get anywhere. I'm attempting to improve the place from within, but the long-term employees are resisting change.

Re: Coding is boring, unless

#105

Post by throwaway999888 »

Drdrdrq wrote: post #102
throwaway999888 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just for ergonomics alone you should use a desktop setup over a laptop setup for any prolonged periods. It's as good as impossible to use a laptop and not be hunched over.

Or you could use a docking station with proper keyboard, mouse and monitor(s). Works great if you also need to attend some meetings or conferences from time to time. Also, as a developer I don't need i7. SSD, great monitor, keyboard and mouse, and lots of RAM, yes - but CPU? Depends on domain I guess.

> Or you could use a docking station with proper keyboard, mouse and monitor(s).

Proper keyboard, mouse and monitor(s) setup is what I meant with "desktop setup". Of course whether the actual computer is inside a laptop, inside a desktop cabinet or inside a phone does not matter for ergonomics.

Re: Coding is boring, unless

#106

Post by sopooneo »

hibikir wrote: post #31

I've been programming professionally for 15 years. But I cannot say that I was ever bored programming. My favorite story about this comes from my first job, in 2000. We were working in C++, and we were turning a program designed to run in one machine into a client-server system, because nobody made machines big enough to run what we needed. The plan to do that involved replacing the old function calls with code that…

When you can afford it in terms of budget and timeline, I am a big fan of that sort of "race to the finish" between an elegant approach and a brute force one.

Re: Coding is boring, unless

#107

Post by [deleted] »

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #101
digi_owl wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

quite. It seems to be the curse of the era that the techies are constantly chasing the "shiny". It seems that the web, through the likes of PHP and JS, has turned "programming" into a form of self expression. That the language used etc is supposed to say something about the programmer as a person.

Because developers are usually "let go" before management or sales, they have to keep their skills up to date in order to get their next gig. That's where the shiny comes in. Shiny gets hired. Dull doesn't. The problem is when those developers _only_ want to work on shiny. Developers need to understand that they need to work on maintenance projects as well.

[deleted]

Re: Coding is boring, unless

#108

Post by laxatives »

hunvreus wrote: post #63
binwiederhier wrote: post #37

> You can rewrite it from scratch, using a different language or technology. This way, you learn something new rather than patching legacy code. And if your architecture doesn’t allow this yet, you can take steps to improve it, and learn some devops skills in the process. In a professional environment, we develop software not because it's fun, but because it supports the business and/or because it is the business. Th…

Most engineers take years to internalize this concept. Fresh out of school programmers will throw themselves at tough problems, get 80% of it done using the latest popular framework before they want to move on. The problem is, the remaining 20% is often what will drive success or failure. As a CTO/manager/team lead, your objective is to mitigate things; keep things interesting enough while getting things done. This u…

Its very much the case that new engineers want to work on the hardest projects and prove that they are capable and deserve lots of money and/or responsibility. But management typically doesn't care if you completed 99% of the hardest project on the block if it doesn't yield a usable result (nor should they). Its generally better to solve a simpler problem well enough to at least claim success. The downside is that if everyone feels that way, the quality of the framework for future tasks is not robust and technical debt racks up. Without a sound framework, there isn't reliable infrastructure and navigating previously written tools can't be trusted by glancing at a method or package name. It turns a depth 1 BFS into an unbounded DFS and eventually it becomes extremely time consuming to get anything done. The problem gets compounded if there is a lengthy review process and the reviewer is safer doing nothing, letting the change languish until a manager pushes for it.

Re: Coding is boring, unless

#109

Post by scotty79 »

binwiederhier wrote: post #37

> You can rewrite it from scratch, using a different language or technology. This way, you learn something new rather than patching legacy code. And if your architecture doesn’t allow this yet, you can take steps to improve it, and learn some devops skills in the process. In a professional environment, we develop software not because it's fun, but because it supports the business and/or because it is the business. Th…

> In a professional environment, we develop software not because it's fun, but because it supports the business and/or because it is the business.

Software is created, knowledgeable developers get bored if you don't take their needs into account, they quit, software dies, sometimes slowly enough for the business to not even notice, sometimes fast enough for business to die too.

I don't see how ignoring the problem, of developing software not being fun, does anything but harm the business.

Re: Coding is boring, unless

#110

Post by scotty79 »

mannykannot wrote: post #76
binwiederhier wrote: post #37

> You can rewrite it from scratch, using a different language or technology. This way, you learn something new rather than patching legacy code. And if your architecture doesn’t allow this yet, you can take steps to improve it, and learn some devops skills in the process. In a professional environment, we develop software not because it's fun, but because it supports the business and/or because it is the business. Th…

I am bemused simply by the author's idea that rewrites are interesting. It is probably a good sign if a developer is irritated by cruft in existing code, but to feel compelled to redo the whole thing 'properly' strikes me as borderline OCD (full disclosure: it happens to me occasionally, but I quickly get over it.)

> it happens to me occasionally, but I quickly get over it

By realizing that you'll make even bigger of a mess the next time around?

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