Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Be nice to programmers

edu.mkrecny.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 178 posts

Re: Be nice to programmers

#111

Post by dsr_ »

jerf wrote: post #33

The punches are pulled in this piece. Not only is the compiler continuously complaining, once you ship code, your customers call in to complain about every conceivable bug and a great deal that weren't conceivable. You can have thousands of happy customers, but you as the developer will hear from the three guys with obscure configurations and bizarre setups encountering bugs. Shipping software is ten seconds of "Hoor…

Ha. I'm a sysadmin.

Do you know when your sysadmins are doing the job right? When you don't notice.

The only possible way for a sysadmin to get noticed is to screw up.

Re: Be nice to programmers

#112

Post by Sakes »

wam wrote: post #107
Sakes wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I may have misrepresented myself. I have not avoided the buggy hell described above. I have lived through it. My point is, his problems are temporary and expected for anyone that cares to better themselves. So it is perfectly natural for him to be upset about it, and his emotions are valid. What is dangerous is he is currently leaning towards the idea that to be a good programmer you must be pessimistic, alwa…

I know, but I think the way you were talking about it brought "what it means to be a programmer" into line with working as a programmer generally. He's talking about how a pessimistic feeling about being a programmer arises. But I think you're essentially saying: just avoid that problem and it'll work out. That train has left the station. You say "no need to be a pessimist" but I don't think that's what's going on at…

You have really made me think with this comment. I will have to come back later to address it properly.

Re: Be nice to programmers

#113

Post by jaggederest »

indiecore wrote: post #90
jaggederest wrote: post #63

For me, this cycle is a different one: (Step 0 is possibly 'get a bug report') 1. Write a test 2. Watch the test fail 3. Write code 4. Watch the test pass (if fail, goto 3) 5. Make the code pretty 6. Watch the test pass 7. Repeat Instead of negatives, you're looking for positives. At the end you're rewarded with nicer code than you started with and green lights all the way down. It's all about how you frame it - why…

>6. Watch the test pass 7. Send it to QA. 8. Everything is wrong and this isn't what they asked for (it is but that's not what they MEANT) 9. Goto 3

No, you GOTO 1, and write new tests that match better. Just because you have a dysfunctional organization that doesn't let QA and development talk doesn't mean that's how it has to be.

Re: Be nice to programmers

#114

Post by dasil003 »

greenyoda wrote: post #110
efuquen wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think this: "Developers have very little positive to go off of, and few professions have customers as discerning and grumpy as compilers." Yet you mentioned this example: "A doctor sees someone walk back in for their checkup who couldn't walk a week ago." Is not seeing a product in action, one that possibly effects millions of lives (to be more realistic lets say 1000s, hell even a few dozen should be satisfying)…

Unfortunately, many developers don't get a lot of opportunities to see their product in action. If you work on some public-facing service like Google or Facebook, you'll get to see your code being used. But if you work on a product that big companies deploy on their internal networks to improve their productivity, you won't see much of it.

You can walk over to someone else's cubicle can't you?

Re: Be nice to programmers

#117

Post by mamoswined »

irishcoffee wrote: post #59
Sakes wrote: post #34

This guy has not discovered what it means to be a programmer, he is simply in a phase of his programming life. Chasing down bugs all the time? Why? I don't do this, and when I run across a bug it is usually a quick fix and not a big deal. The goal is not to write it perfectly without bugs. The goal is to release it perfectly without bugs, and to do this all you have to do is test your code often as you make changes t…

Sounds like you've never been tasked with working on a huge base of code you'd never seen before. If all I ever did was work on code I wrote, I could see myself thinking like you do. This is not the case for a lot of people. Maybe in this HN startup bubble, but not in the "real world" of software engineering.

One of my first jobs was just debugging some awful legacy software. Let's just say I got a lot of negative feedback.

Re: Be nice to programmers

#118

Post by rm999 »

wam wrote: post #95
greenyoda wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That reminds me of an old story about how different people can look at the same job in different ways: A man came across three masons who were working at chipping chunks of granite from large blocks. The first seemed unhappy at his job, chipping away and frequently looking at his watch. When the man asked what it was that he was doing, the first mason responded, rather curtly, "I’m hammering this stupid rock, and I c…

But this isn't what the piece describes. The author is talking about the _feedback_ one receives while doing work. Take the 3rd mason and start giving him a list of what's wrong with the work he's doing every day until the cathedral is built, and see what happens. This stonemason example, while touching and certainly applicable to some situations, is just too far removed from the reality of what many programmers expe…

>Take the 3rd mason and start giving him a list of what's wrong with the work he's doing every day until the cathedral is built, and see what happens

Even the smartest people I know write imperfect/buggy code, especially the first time around. If you don't take it personally - as you shouldn't - I don't see the issue.

Re: Be nice to programmers

#119

Post by dasil003 »

jerf wrote: post #58
AerieC wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But this is true of any "producing" profession. Any time you're creating something and "putting it out there", there's going to be a huge stream of criticism from every direction. Artists, writers, musicians, engineers, carpenters, etc.--all of their work is constantly under scrutiny by "the customer" and/or "the boss". Even non-producing professions have to deal with constant scrutiny of their performance and negati…

Salespeople make the sale sometimes. A doctor sees someone walk back in for their checkup who couldn't walk a week ago. A technical support person often says goodbye to a cheerful happy customer. Musicians may have to deal with criticism in the papers, but if they delist their phone number it's because of the fans , generally, not the critics. Actually that goes for almost all the creative industries. Developers have…

I couldn't disagree with you more, it seems to come from a pervasive cynicism that is day in day out grind of defect-finding in the programming industry.

How you can you casually claim technical support person has a more positive work environment than a programmer because sometimes a customer is happy when their problem is solved? What about all the customers who are irrationally angry even when you do your best to solve their problem? What about the problems you have no power to solve but have to take the heat for? What about the general prevailing attitude of frustration and discontent that characterizes the average person reaching out to support?

I don't understand how anyone could for one second say this is preferable to seeing a compiler error. There's no negative emotion inherent in a bug you discover. The fact that you are looking for flaws and fixing them is "negative" in a technical sense, but I find it bizarre to compare it so unfavorably to real negative human emotion directed at you. Even when other people are critiquing your work or sending you bug reports, there tends to be less emotion and more constructive feedback than you get in a service industry.

And what of citing "creative industries" and then drawing a sharp contrast to developers. Software engineering is extremely creative. The positive feedback from development is primarily the joy of creating working software. I've been doing this 20 years and it's still a thrill. Furthermore, I get plenty of positive feedback for my work. Obviously it's not on the scale of the insane hours I've spent in the trenches obsessing over minute details, but that's fine, I can take a compliment and find it gratifying even if it's shallow and uninformed of the true scope of my work.

I think there is definitely something about programming that leads to a pedantic mindset that could be offputting to others, but I think it's nonsense that it leads you to be inherently negative. Programming for me is empowering, attention to detail is just how I hone that power.

Re: Be nice to programmers

#120

Post by krenel »

dasil003 wrote: post #114
greenyoda wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, many developers don't get a lot of opportunities to see their product in action. If you work on some public-facing service like Google or Facebook, you'll get to see your code being used. But if you work on a product that big companies deploy on their internal networks to improve their productivity, you won't see much of it.

You can walk over to someone else's cubicle can't you?

Not really. I have been developer of VoIP application for about one an a half year and our clients only call us when they have a problem. Conectivity problems, delays in the audio when doing calls (due codec errors), problems with NAT, problems with the voice mails, etc... If everything is fine you just see no errors on logs and a beautiful graph expressing the increase of number of calls every month. Anything else.

Same when I was working generating telephonic bills for the clients. You will only have feedback if something went wrong.

Is that satisfaying? For my its enough; if the work have been done fine and the clients are reporting (almost) any error, I'm happy with that.

Post reply on HN