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I love programming but I hate the programming industry

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Re: I love programming but I hate the programming industry

#121

Post by tomByrer »

fuzzy2 wrote: post #41
halfmatthalfcat wrote: post #2

It’s not the “programming industry” that OP hates, it’s the “corporate world”. I’ve worked with (and have been) developers who have mismatched expectations on what “the real world” wants out of them. The corporate world doesn’t give a shit about finesse, abstractions, witty or beautiful code. They care about finding developers who will pump out features to the business requirements. Some human beings in that cog (man…

I think “industry” strongly implies “corporate world”. However > The corporate world doesn’t give a shit about finesse, abstractions, witty or beautiful code. Guess I’m the corporate world then! Listen here, dear colleagues: Before attempting any finesse, abstraction, wit or beauty, maybe first try to make it work to spec. Because otherwise it is entirely worthless . If you are reasonably good at making it work, you…

> you can then make it right and maybe even fast

IF there is budget for that very often. Otherwise they'll expect you to move on.

Re: I love programming but I hate the programming industry

#122

Post by withinboredom »

fuzzy2 wrote: post #41
halfmatthalfcat wrote: post #2

It’s not the “programming industry” that OP hates, it’s the “corporate world”. I’ve worked with (and have been) developers who have mismatched expectations on what “the real world” wants out of them. The corporate world doesn’t give a shit about finesse, abstractions, witty or beautiful code. They care about finding developers who will pump out features to the business requirements. Some human beings in that cog (man…

I think “industry” strongly implies “corporate world”. However > The corporate world doesn’t give a shit about finesse, abstractions, witty or beautiful code. Guess I’m the corporate world then! Listen here, dear colleagues: Before attempting any finesse, abstraction, wit or beauty, maybe first try to make it work to spec. Because otherwise it is entirely worthless . If you are reasonably good at making it work, you…

I live by three steps when writing software:

1. Get it working.

2. Get it working well.

3. Get it working fast.

Your last sentence reminded me of that.

Re: I love programming but I hate the programming industry

#123

Post by [deleted] »

tomByrer wrote: post #121
fuzzy2 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think “industry” strongly implies “corporate world”. However > The corporate world doesn’t give a shit about finesse, abstractions, witty or beautiful code. Guess I’m the corporate world then! Listen here, dear colleagues: Before attempting any finesse, abstraction, wit or beauty, maybe first try to make it work to spec. Because otherwise it is entirely worthless . If you are reasonably good at making it work, you…

> you can then make it right and maybe even fast IF there is budget for that very often. Otherwise they'll expect you to move on.

[deleted]

Re: I love programming but I hate the programming industry

#125

Post by jampekka »

pydry wrote: post #64
halfmatthalfcat wrote: post #2

It’s not the “programming industry” that OP hates, it’s the “corporate world”. I’ve worked with (and have been) developers who have mismatched expectations on what “the real world” wants out of them. The corporate world doesn’t give a shit about finesse, abstractions, witty or beautiful code. They care about finding developers who will pump out features to the business requirements. Some human beings in that cog (man…

It's not just the corporate world, it's capitalism in general. I could point out a million people who have made rhyming criticisms of this type before programming even existed. Until those criticisms are met with widespread solid agreement instead of outright hostility or even a resigned "well, it's better than all the alternatives" then nothing will change. Ive lost count of the number of times Ive seen programmers…

You're not supposed to connect the dots. That could lead to effective reform.

Re: I love programming but I hate the programming industry

#126

Post by graemep »

bumby wrote: post #60
graemep wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you aren’t moving the needle economically for the company, you’re a liability. I would add, moving the needle in the short term. A business taking a long term view would care more about quality (reliability, security maintainability).

Wouldn’t you think this would mean government-made code would be of higher quality (in theory, and ignoring when govt code is made by private contractors)? It seems to be the opposite

Governments are often sort termist too. For politicians next year's election is often what matters. They also have layers of management, in some countries they are frequently moved around so the long term (from any given manager's point of view) is someone else's problem.

From what I know academics in computing fields tend to write high quality software. Not all not Donald Knuth level, but they seem to mostly care about quality.

Re: I love programming but I hate the programming industry

#127

Post by tkdev2 »

cranberryturkey wrote: post #80
megadog3 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterpoint: The MVP is usually what ends up in production. If your code is a heap of garbage but chocolate-coated on the outside, you're gonna impress management and they'll want to push it live asap. Then the issues start exploding.

yes, a shitty foundation leads to shitty feature implementation. I've seen this everywhere from startups to Fortune 500 companies. Nobody cares about code quality, except maybe the one self-annointed gatekeeper who thinks he's making a difference and shitting on everyone's PRs delaying features. Get rid of that guy he serves no purpose

Spoken like a true MBA. Hope I never have to work with you.

Re: I love programming but I hate the programming industry

#128

Post by philipov »

ericjmorey wrote: post #100
rnewme wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not how you build big important, expensive things, though. It all depends on the context.

It seems that the biggest, most important, and most expensive things are built like that.

Like bridges and skyscrapers?

Re: I love programming but I hate the programming industry

#129

Post by swatcoder »

halfmatthalfcat wrote: post #2

It’s not the “programming industry” that OP hates, it’s the “corporate world”. I’ve worked with (and have been) developers who have mismatched expectations on what “the real world” wants out of them. The corporate world doesn’t give a shit about finesse, abstractions, witty or beautiful code. They care about finding developers who will pump out features to the business requirements. Some human beings in that cog (man…

> It’s not the “programming industry” that OP hates, it’s the “corporate world”.

To add to this, the "industry" is very big and fundamentally quite diverse in character.

But right now we're on the tail end of a big surge in growth, and those surges tend to introruce a lot of uniformity in their wake. Processes and practices of the orgs are taken as some part of the secret to their success and are adopted by competitors and newcomers, and after a while everybody-ish doing work adjacent to the booming sectors within the industry are approaching it similarly and procedurally. The focus is on outmaneuvering competing businesses for a slice of the growiing pie, and matters of concern of the craft itself or long-term engineering vision are generally deprioritized.

This is not a permanent condition or a universal one.

All along, there were still people and orgs and departments doing things differently, but they did become harder to spot amidst all the boom chasers.

And as the boom tapers or bursts, with competition having less at stake, even the homogenized orgs and departments start having the headroom to take a second look at their processes, procedures, and priorities and again start to diversify.

It's reasonable to get discouraged if you've only ever seen the kind of orgs you can't stomach anymore, but a little patience can find you with opportunities you're more comfortable with. Some dedicated pavement pounding and deep digging for the orgs that never hopped on the bandwagon can make it happen to.

Different kinds of orgs are out there now, and more will come to look different again in some coming years.

Re: I love programming but I hate the programming industry

#130

Post by heresie-dabord »

fuzzy2 wrote: post #41
halfmatthalfcat wrote: post #2

It’s not the “programming industry” that OP hates, it’s the “corporate world”. I’ve worked with (and have been) developers who have mismatched expectations on what “the real world” wants out of them. The corporate world doesn’t give a shit about finesse, abstractions, witty or beautiful code. They care about finding developers who will pump out features to the business requirements. Some human beings in that cog (man…

I think “industry” strongly implies “corporate world”. However > The corporate world doesn’t give a shit about finesse, abstractions, witty or beautiful code. Guess I’m the corporate world then! Listen here, dear colleagues: Before attempting any finesse, abstraction, wit or beauty, maybe first try to make it work to spec. Because otherwise it is entirely worthless . If you are reasonably good at making it work, you…

There ought to be a good spec (i.e. requirements). But it's hard to motivate people to excel without giving them opportunity to grow their talent.

This cartoon remains the best visual representation of an industry that seems incapable of doing requirements, testing, documentation, and security.

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/475/749/fd8...

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