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Confessions of a Software Developer: No More Self-Censorship

kerrick.blog

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Re: Confessions of a Software Developer: No More Self-Censorship

#131

Post by anonzzzies »

spaqin wrote: post #93
anonzzzies wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or work with a random programmer at a random company for a bit. We had to do some audit/estimate for a company with huge tech issues (race conditions causing data corruption, huge slowdowns with just small usage spikes etc) costing them clients/money. The company runs around $50m/year or so selling software to enterprises. Anyway; software backend written with Java/Spring, deployed/updated on EC2 manually, no automat…

That sounds amazing, what you can get away with while still shipping a product and getting paid. In some way probably the engineers there are unwilling to do any automation in fear of becoming redundant, and the company is still fine with that. Also, I am not sure how not touching computers after work is a bad thing; people can have families and other hobbies?

> computers after work is a bad thing; people can have families and other hobbies?

No not bad per se, but it did clearly show that, without on the job courses, why all of them are stuck in the early 2000s tech wise.

Some people start with a company and get lucky with early success and then get restricted because of that success: get new clients via existing, everyone likes it and asks for new features and without noticing it you might find yourself 15 years down the road with ancient tech and no one understanding anything current. Then you can still thrive if your clients like it... we have similar clients: a 1980s factory, another 1980s factory, a logistics app from the 1990s etc. Things deeply ingrained in some vertical, expensive but better priced than the SAPs etc of this world so it keeps going and going.

Re: Confessions of a Software Developer: No More Self-Censorship

#132

Post by canyp »

> I Didn’t Understand Polymorphism For a Decade

> And yet, my lack of awareness of polymorphism showed me I’ve been writing little more than structured programs. That I could replace conditionals and case staments with specialized classes had never crossed my mind.

> Polymorphism is covered in every college OO course.

Consider yourself blessed then because you're in for one hell of a ride if you pursue that path to its extreme. For me, it was the opposite: been taught OOP, I had to unlearn most of it to be able to better structure my mind and how I think about programs.

You should know what polymorphism is (also, there's static, dynamic, ad hoc, single dispatch, multiple dispatch), but I don't think it's a weakness if you have not been using it that much (the real weakness is over-using it and making a clusterfuck out of your code.)

Which is a long-winded way of saying that you could be doing much worse, if that makes you feel any better, lol.

Re: Confessions of a Software Developer: No More Self-Censorship

#133

Post by pickpuck »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #106
threecheese wrote: post #102

What does it say about me, that I was SURE his article was going to be admitting out loud that we are engineering ourselves into obsolescence, a lot of us are really enjoying it, and nobody is seriously discussing how afraid we should be for our families and future. I’m afraid to mention it professionally, given we have a literal policy around “AI doomers” (not the exact term) that has the word “separation” in it. Wo…

> I’m afraid to mention it professionally, given we have a literal policy around “AI doomers” (not the exact term) that has the word “separation” in it. Dude, your employer is toxic AF. Look for a new job starting today.

The joy of US "at-will" employment is that every company's Code of Conduct reserves the right to "separate" you for undermining mission alignment. The whole system is toxic.

Re: Confessions of a Software Developer: No More Self-Censorship

#134

Post by bigiain »

card_zero wrote: post #125
satvikpendem wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds akin to like body doubling, a method used by those who have ADHD.

Is there also an opposite effect? I concentrate best in solitude, preferably somewhere like an abandoned lighthouse.

I'm not sure that's necessarily "opposite"?

I feel much the same as the article author in that

"this place is for doing this thing, now you do it too"

Is somehow powerfully motivating. But at least for me it's about the place, not the other people in the place.

I had the same covid-related journey from an office worker to unexpectedly fully remote. But I'm also lucky/privileged enough to be able to dedicate a room in my house that's quite separate from the rest of the house, and for me that's "where I work". I had coworkers who started out having to work from their kitchen table, some with housemates or children around - pretty sure that would have completely killed my productivity.

I do sometimes resent losing that room, effectively subsidising my boss by relieving his office rent costs. It used to be my "workshop" where I used my 3D printers, built drones, tinkered with electronics, and repaired stuff that broke - and I just don't do those things much any more because going into that room now feels way to much like "work" not "hobby or play".

Re: Confessions of a Software Developer: No More Self-Censorship

#135

Post by HDThoreaun »

_ea1k wrote: post #86
seneca wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Somehow we were better at using remote tools while literally in the same office than some teams are at using them now while fully remote. This is sort of the point. Remote tools work great when you have spent a lot of time building relationships and rapport with the people involved. That's hard to do in professional settings, and extremely hard to do in remote professional settings. Letting teams that know each oth…

IDK, some of the remote teams that I've worked on were only able to meet in person once per year, if that. They were very communicative on the tools that we had though.

No one is saying it’s impossible to build fully remote teams from scratch, it’s just very hard and requires strong leadership. Most companies have crappy management so they can’t pull it off.

Re: Confessions of a Software Developer: No More Self-Censorship

#136

Post by taurath »

card_zero wrote: post #125
satvikpendem wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds akin to like body doubling, a method used by those who have ADHD.

Is there also an opposite effect? I concentrate best in solitude, preferably somewhere like an abandoned lighthouse.

Some folks just socialize internally, or have enough little self loops to approach a task in multiple ways

Re: Confessions of a Software Developer: No More Self-Censorship

#137

Post by HDThoreaun »

anonymous908213 wrote: post #44
Kerrick wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose I included the last section as a "confession" because I spent years pre-pandemic wishing I could go remote, talking loudly about how open office spaces were bad, etc. That, plus it's embarrassing to admit that I dislike remote work even though I am a remote worker. And not just a remote worker, but an enfranchised remote worker living 3 hours away from the nearest city with an international airport. I made…

Awfully nice, isn't it? You get all the privileges of being a remote worker, while "confessing" that remote work sucks to upper management who read your blog, giving them justification to deny other people the same opportunity you have. If you genuinely believe remote work sucks, you should own up to it, sell your property, and move to a city rather than reaping the benefits of it to the extent of your entire life be…

I think that eating meat is immoral, I still do it most days. Remote work sucks mostly for the employer, not the employee.

Re: Confessions of a Software Developer: No More Self-Censorship

#138

Post by HDThoreaun »

MarcelOlsz wrote: post #92
el_benhameen wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not exactly your main point, but where’d you go to learn calculus? I did the usual classes in high school but none since, and I’d love to develop a better appreciation for it.

No offence to everyone else in this thread but the holy grail is truly The Art Of Problem Solving textbooks + mathacademy [0]. [0] https://www.mathacademy.com/

Learning stuff that doesn’t help in work(calculus is not helpful for 99% of software engineering) is really hard if you don’t base it in reality I find. Maybe it’s just me but I would never read a text book for fun so suggesting learning by reading a text book seems crazy. Calculus can be fun and interesting but the teacher has to actively try to make it so. The learning will take longer but you’re more likely to see it through and I think it’s more likely to stick long term too.

I learned way more reading crafting interpreters than I did in my compiler class for example.

Re: Confessions of a Software Developer: No More Self-Censorship

#139

Post by WalterBright »

bigiain wrote: post #134
card_zero wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there also an opposite effect? I concentrate best in solitude, preferably somewhere like an abandoned lighthouse.

I'm not sure that's necessarily "opposite"? I feel much the same as the article author in that "this place is for doing this thing, now you do it too" Is somehow powerfully motivating. But at least for me it's about the place, not the other people in the place. I had the same covid-related journey from an office worker to unexpectedly fully remote. But I'm also lucky/privileged enough to be able to dedicate a room in…

We have the Dlang conference once a year where we all meet in person. It's amazingly productive. And yes, we do video chatting frequently. It just isn't the same.

Re: Confessions of a Software Developer: No More Self-Censorship

#140

Post by [deleted] »

satvikpendem wrote: post #124
nirui wrote: post #120

> You lose ambient awareness of coworkers’ problems, and asking for help is a bigger burden. When I was in school, I discovered that I studied more effectively and efficiently when I'm surrounded by other students who's also studying. Then at work, I found I worked much more productively if my coworkers are all doing their work. It's not just simply peer pressure, it's an atmosphere effect, it tell you "hey, this pla…

That sounds akin to like body doubling, a method used by those who have ADHD.

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