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Software engineers hate code

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Re: Software engineers hate code

#121

Post by mrweasel »

soneca wrote: post #34
JohnFen wrote: post #8

> This is the best-kept secret of the software engineering profession: engineers hate code. Especially code written by other people. It's why they love working on greenfield projects so much. No code, no maintenance, no headaches! Except that I've met lots of engineers who were the opposite. They hate greenfield projects and prefer maintaining existing code. I noticed this broad division of personality early in my ca…

I am one of those who prefer working on existing code. I like making things better, understanding how a code works is thrill, adding new features on existing premises. I am also an amateur fiction writer, and I notice the same thing in it. I like planning, but the first draft writing is a chore to me. An effort to vomit all my ideas as words. Then, I love rewriting. Revisiting what I wrote and improving it, fixing it…

> I am one of those who prefer working on existing code.

Me too, mostly because I hate starting a project form scratch, it's something I'm not particularly good at. Like you, I love rewriting, I love improving things, making them better, faster, or easier to understand.

The notion that software engineers hate code is wrong, depending on who you consider a software engineer. SREs, systems administrators, operations people, they hate software with a passion. Developer (who in my mind are software engineers) freaking love code and will write more code to cover up problems which should have been address by revisiting designs and earlier assumption. I've meet with developers who's understanding of IT outside the realm of development have been so extremely poor that they frequently reinvent basic webserver or database feature, but badly.

Currently I'm working on a Django project, in the back of my mind I always have a notion that if something requires more than 20 - 30 lines of code, then it's either already a feature of the framework, or I'm doing something terribly wrong. That rules has yet to fail me.

Re: Software engineers hate code

#122

Post by B1FF_PSUVM »

gabereiser wrote: post #117
zer8k wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A follow up analogy is more typical in my experience. The foreman says that we should reinforce the walls. The PMP certified 6 sigma ninja Project Manager insists that the reinforced walls aren't necessary because no one is going to put anything on the wall. We will revisit the wall later when we the city tells us to enforce new wall codes. No more than 6 months later a contractor tried to add a shelf to the unenforc…

“All of this has happened before, and all of this will happen again” - Six, BSG.

Filching from Nietzsche, scriptwriters are lazy bums.

Re: Software engineers hate code

#123

Post by mrweasel »

jtxx wrote: post #46
soneca wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am one of those who prefer working on existing code. I like making things better, understanding how a code works is thrill, adding new features on existing premises. I am also an amateur fiction writer, and I notice the same thing in it. I like planning, but the first draft writing is a chore to me. An effort to vomit all my ideas as words. Then, I love rewriting. Revisiting what I wrote and improving it, fixing it…

hah humans are interesting! I'm the opposite. I love starting a codebase, I also make music and it's way easier for me to make 100 cool unique sketches live and improvised but not finish anything. it really takes all kinds

I would love to team up with someone like you. Having a person that can start a new code base and not be overwhelmed by the task is a godsend. I'm much more comfortable diving into an existing project and extending it or fixing bug than I am starting something new. Somehow it's just more natural for my brain.

Re: Software engineers hate code

#125

Post by jokethrowaway »

ranting-moth wrote: post #83

Using a house analogy, I don't hate other people's houses. I hate it when other people blow a hole in the side of my house to put in a new window. They blasted a hole through two walls because it was the quickest way. Then just taped some plastic over the second hole. The project manager said it's still summer and we don't really need that wall at the moment. I know who will have to fix the wall when the winter comes…

You don't hate other people's houses until you're forced to live in one of them.

Then, I agree on the point of someone else blasting a hole in your house.

Re: Software engineers hate code

#127

Post by klysm »

kodah wrote: post #88

Reading this article I realize how different I am from, I guess, some of my peers. I do like working on new things, but methodically shaping old software, bringing it up to date, and all the tactical thinking you need to employ to do so is very fun. Microservices are okay, and I use them mainly when I have a particular part of a codebase that's best suited to scale on its own. Outside of that, I'm a big fan of starti…

I hit a turning point at some point where I stopped being afraid to read library code and ctrl click through things. Not sure when exactly it happened but I think it was related to some imposter syndrome and holding the library code as “holy”.

Looking through library code instead googling can be incredibly productive and polishes your code reading skills which are very important.

Re: Software engineers hate code

#128

Post by zerodensity »

revskill wrote: post #18

Writing "unreadable code" is easy, just as too easy to make your room a mess. Writing "readable code" is so damm hard. Readable code leads to maintainable code, which reduces tech debts. Alright, many engineers just knows how to fix the bug and call it a day. It's a disaster thinking.

I have heard of this magical beast "readable code" but have not yet encountered it in the wild.

Re: Software engineers hate code

#129

Post by therealdrag0 »

riku_iki wrote: post #119
soneca wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am one of those who prefer working on existing code. I like making things better, understanding how a code works is thrill, adding new features on existing premises. I am also an amateur fiction writer, and I notice the same thing in it. I like planning, but the first draft writing is a chore to me. An effort to vomit all my ideas as words. Then, I love rewriting. Revisiting what I wrote and improving it, fixing it…

I think the reason to like working on existing code is that infra is usually very complex nowdays, and for greenfield project you need to do lots of boring tasks to bootstrap it, and for existing code it is already bootstrapped by someone.

Not just infra. It’s the tests, it’s the crud, its getting clients and config setup, it’s banal decisions around copying existing patterns or trying to refine them for next gen copy pasting.

It’s fun early in career, but gets boring fast IMO. These are good things to have junior and mid eng cut their teeth on.

Re: Software engineers hate code

#130

Post by klysm »

nathants wrote: post #96

sturgeon’s law applies. most of the time they are right to. put another way, 90% of code is a liability, 10% of code is an asset. i’m not sure any code ever moved from one group to the other, though good ideas may be stolen sans code. greenfield is the only way to grow that 10%. it’s the reason startups exist. it’s like all the failed rewrites. those engineers gained knowledge and fitness through that failure. if the…

Rewrites are a phenomenal way to sprint through an incredible number of Chestersons fences. That is one way to find out why they are there though it’s just a bit more expensive
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