What is the best part about being a Software Engineer? • Hacker News Board

Re: What is the best part about being a Software Engineer?

#121

Post by crispyambulance » Thu, Apr 28, 2016, 1:26 PM UTC

fridek wrote: post #81

crispyambulance wrote: post #63

I think "CRUD" applications are getting an undeserved bad rap. There's always interesting challenges involved, which sadly gets dismissed as "business logic". If CRUD apps were really so brainless, there would have been a race-to-the-bottom plethora of platforms/tools by now that allow domain experts to create their own applications. Another way to look at is that CRUD apps put food on the table for you guys. Be grat…

CRUD apps are 90% brainless. The only challenge not solved by phpMyAdmin or others alike is UI and nice connections between the data. There were already attempts at generating this 90% just to decorate with UI and additional logic, but I feel it will take some time to do it well. People got burned by GWT and other backend + frontend solutions. Also "CRUD apps put food on the table for you guys. Be grateful!" is a rea…

Yet here we are, many of us do in fact work on what could be called "CRUD" apps but no one is actually forced to do it.

When you say "90% brainless" you're neglecting that fact that there are arbitrarily complex rules/requirements behind each of the letters in the acronym "CRUD". Moreover UI and "nice connections between the data" are incredibly rich problems especially when you consider scale, market-- and let's not forget the fact that the fruit of this labor has to make money at some point.

Re: What is the best part about being a Software Engineer?

#122

Post by zootar » Thu, Apr 28, 2016, 1:27 PM UTC

sudeepj wrote: post #96

The best part about being SE are: 1) Iteration: We get to practice our stuff on real entities (language, OS, databases, etc). Do architects get to "practice" actual work at their home? Do new doctors get to try experimental surgeries? Do amateur civil engineers get to build those iconic bridges? They can do computer simulation ... but it is actually a software. 2) Hackathon: Can't imagine this happening in say medica…

1) Civil engineers and architects can design any bridge they want (though not build it). True, SEs can actually "build" any software they want, but without users it can be hard to tell how good it is.

2) What's the medical / engineering / legal equivalent of a hackathon that those professions aren't doing? Doctors and lawyers can always choose an interesting or deserving client (possibly pro bono), or do a research project.

3) If it's hard to explain, is it possible software isn't changing the world all that much?

4) Imagine Google sharing its Search code. It won't, but as lawyers get to learn from the best lawyers in any area of the law by reading their briefs and watching their trials (all public).

Re: What is the best part about being a Software Engineer?

#123

Post by codygman » Thu, Apr 28, 2016, 1:27 PM UTC

lostcolony wrote: post #117

vitno wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, you get payed far more. A steelworker in 1975 made on average $7.11.[1] This is about $31.47 in 2016 dollars. Not bad at all, but I'm still guessing you make more. [1] http://articles.mcall.com/1985-07-19/news/2489404_1_steel-in...

Really? 31.47 * 52 (weeks) * 5 (days a week) * 24 (hours a day) = $196,372. In some place other than San Francisco (so pretty much guaranteed lower cost of living). Plus benefits, overtime, much lower likelihood of losing one's job, a pension...

Who works 24 hours a day? Also most work 40 weeks per year iirc.

Re: What is the best part about being a Software Engineer?

#124

Post by mdellabitta » Thu, Apr 28, 2016, 1:30 PM UTC

k-mcgrady wrote: post #58

cheez wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never been a coal miner, but there is some sort of satisfaction in working with your hands that you don't quite get being a corporate coder.

There's also the black lung that you don't quite get being a corporate coder. I think it's very easy for people who aren't working with their hands every day to sit back and talk about the 'satisfaction' you get. You may get that if you go and do it for a day. When you're doing it every day you're destroying your back, knees, your hands end up cut and calloused, and you're exhausted. And the 'satisfaction' probably d…

Don't forget about the threats of cave ins and poisonous gas...

Re: What is the best part about being a Software Engineer?

#125

Post by OpenDrapery » Thu, Apr 28, 2016, 1:30 PM UTC

humanrebar wrote: post #72

crispyambulance wrote: post #63

I think "CRUD" applications are getting an undeserved bad rap. There's always interesting challenges involved, which sadly gets dismissed as "business logic". If CRUD apps were really so brainless, there would have been a race-to-the-bottom plethora of platforms/tools by now that allow domain experts to create their own applications. Another way to look at is that CRUD apps put food on the table for you guys. Be grat…

CRUD applications are developed brainlessly. They're more challenging than it seems. It's interesting that people develop CRUD applications in garbage-collected languages because manual memory management is a pain, but they'll gladly expose manual data management to the end user without worrying about analogous data bugs. If data bugs are important, you need your data management system to have some qualities of a gar…

Interesting. Would love to learn more about these kinds of ideas. Is this something you've been kicking around in your own mind? Or has someone put a more formal framework around these concepts? Where can I read more about it?

Re: What is the best part about being a Software Engineer?

#126

Post by epalmer » Thu, Apr 28, 2016, 1:32 PM UTC

ak39 wrote: post #116

epalmer wrote: post #88

I don't develop more than 30% of my time but I love it none-the-less. I'm 62 years old. I find software architecting, developing, and operational troubleshooting to be fun, requires a holistic view of a problem set, requires creative problem solving and more. I find development an outlet to create (make) stuff. I work at a university on the east coast of the USA and am on a high performing team that has not lost a me…

That's super! I'm 43, but when I grow up, I want to be just like you. What languages and technologies do you use?

I ran a few small development shops a long time ago and then went into ecommerce in a bank. Eventually I was a bank compliance advisor (business side) for the bank. No hands on IT and I was miserable. I was good at what I did, remediate systems and processes to make the bank examiners happy but 70+ hr work weeks were killing me. Hence I decided I wanted to get back to web development as the job I am doing now that I grew up. I've been at the University 9.5 years. Almost as long as my longest job.

I run the development shop for backend and the cms and I am the scrum coach for all development work. I am by far the oldest and we joke that I am the resident curmudgeon, but in reality I am a pretty positive person.

I do mostly backend development in the order of priority:

- java 1.8 (love hate) - python (love) - bash (necessary) - php (meh, only as demos for people that don't know how to do something)

We use cloudfront as a cdn and our web is php based. But we have UI developers for 99+% of the pho work.

I wrote a java middleware system 5 years ago that is old and very hard to extend. We are replacing it with spring based apache camel code and routes. Love, love, love apache camel)

Db is Oracle because we have a site license. I occasionally write sql for others that don't know or need to know SQL.

Our CMS is cascade by Hannon Hill. A publish only CMS and we love it. We are 100% in control of all the code that runs in our web. ~140 web sites, ~129 are branded for our university.

Web Servers are RHEL, load balanced by F5 load balancer. Backend XML database is Exist-db (love this as well). Exist-db uses xquery but I don't do any xquery. Apache httpd (love for sites out size of traffic) with Zend Server (love hate but necessary for Oracle connectivity from apache httpd). Yes I could compile our own apache httpd with oracle libraries but that is strongly discouraged by our data center staff.

Of course we use git. HipChat, BitBucket (free private repos for non-profits). I do development on Mac OSX mostly and port. We never have porting problems.

Others use javascript with jquery and angular. No node.js in our shop. SAAS CSS compiler.

I'm sure I'm missing something that that is most of it.

Re: What is the best part about being a Software Engineer?

#127

Post by lucaspiller » Thu, Apr 28, 2016, 1:34 PM UTC

Flashuk100 wrote: post #29

jon-wood wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like people overstate just how massive the divide between SF unicorns and everywhere else is. While I admit I'm not on the 100k+ salaries of the big five, I'm definitely not struggling and pulling all nighters - I work 8 hours a day, 90% of the time from home, with the odd evening of working on something if I'm particularly into it. For that I get paid a decent salary for my area, get to do a job I find intere…

As a comp sci student up north, are the salaries in London worth the hassle of living in London? Don't get me wrong I like visiting London, but I wouldn't want to live there unless the incentive is too good to pass up.

After I graduated I moved there (from the South West), and yes I would say it's worth it. Although I left London after three years (it's not really my thing either), the experience and networking I gained have paid off. I have a friend who stayed in his home town, he is doing similar work to me, and gets paid around 60% what I get - which is a good wage for that area. Even without the salary, I feel that I've had the opportunity to work in more interesting jobs as well.

Re: What is the best part about being a Software Engineer?

#128

Post by TheCoelacanth » Thu, Apr 28, 2016, 1:35 PM UTC

lostcolony wrote: post #117

vitno wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, you get payed far more. A steelworker in 1975 made on average $7.11.[1] This is about $31.47 in 2016 dollars. Not bad at all, but I'm still guessing you make more. [1] http://articles.mcall.com/1985-07-19/news/2489404_1_steel-in...

Really? 31.47 * 52 (weeks) * 5 (days a week) * 24 (hours a day) = $196,372. In some place other than San Francisco (so pretty much guaranteed lower cost of living). Plus benefits, overtime, much lower likelihood of losing one's job, a pension...

What the fuck kind of job do you work for 24 hours a day? A third of that or $65457 is a much more realistic estimate, which is peanuts for a software developer.

Re: What is the best part about being a Software Engineer?

#129

Post by joepour » Thu, Apr 28, 2016, 1:38 PM UTC

In my mind, there are three really standout things about being a software engineer:

1. The multitude of small wins that you get throughout the day as you solve problem after problem, all from the comfort of your chair while you drink coffee and listen to music.

2. Creating something from nothing, not unique to software engineering but it is super satisfying to see something that didn't exist before start to form in front of you.

3. Whenever I see some one do data entry or some other laborious task, that I can automate in under 15 minutes, it makes you appreciate the fact that I know how to solve this problem in a more efficient way. People dismiss this because they don't understand that it takes me 15 minutes to write a program that inserts 1 row or 1 million rows, the work stays the same, this is not true for manual labour.

Re: What is the best part about being a Software Engineer?

#130

Post by naivepiano » Thu, Apr 28, 2016, 1:44 PM UTC

dkopi wrote: post #120

naivepiano wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OMG I remember interviewing for a company asking all the right questions and talking about nice tech stacks and whatnot. People were nice too. Then I got an offer and I accepted it. First day in the job I figure that their main tech/language was TCL (of course they never mentioned it in the interviews). Stayed 2 weeks and went off running. The possibility of being stuck with some backwater tech killing off your futur…

"First day in the job I figure that their main tech/language was TCL (of course they never mentioned it in the interviews)." And you've never asked?

Of course I did. They lied with "java".