CRUD.
How can you not be romantic about programming? (2020)
151–160 of 373 posts
Re: How can you not be romantic about programming? (2020)
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
No. This is such a small issue who honestly cares if it gets fixed? I guarantee you this is not the most important thing anyone involved could be working on. Too many perfectionists on this website.
This is a total failure to follow any sort of standard. A 504 is a gateway timeout due to the server failing to complete the action, hell, a 400-level for "you fucked up" would be preferable.
4xx would be what you want anyway, no?
Re: How can you not be romantic about programming? (2020)
#153"After a while, more and more, you’ll find yourself in moments of awe, stunned by the size and fragility of it all; the mountains of work and talent and creativity and foresight and intelligence and luck that went into it. And you’ll reach for the word “magic” because you won’t know how else to describe it and then you lean back and smile, wondering how someone could not." I guess I wish I felt like that about progra…
Awe and contempt are basically the same feeling, but with the charge flipped. The author is amazed that it works to the degree that it does, you're amazed a how things don't work the way you want them to. Such is the power of framing, I guess.
The glass is half full.
Re: How can you not be romantic about programming? (2020)
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
This has not been my experience. It seems that it's a young person's game, and us older folks are not particularly encouraged to participate. Frankly, I've been stunned by the way in which I was treated, in the short period of time I spent looking for work, after leaving my last company. Thankfully, I am not required to work, and have been having the best time I could imagine, since giving up on working for others. I…
Companies look for expertise in older software engineers. They want senior level to help them maintain legacy systems or lead the upgrade to latest tech stack. If backend is your specialty, market oneself as expert in backed solutions using latest stack. The fundamental CS principles never change. Learn the basics of cloud, containers, orchestration, micro services, and inform recruiters about experiences delivering…
Actually, frontend is my strength. I've written (and shipped) dozens of apps. I'm quite good at "closing" the app development process. I've been shipping (as opposed to just "coding") applications for over thirty years.
The backend was just a more challenging project. I won't go into all the reasons that I wrote it, but it works a charm. A dedicated backend engineer could probably do better (actually a dedicated backend team. I'm fairly productive). I'm just glad I have a use for it. I was assuming it would never be used. I wrote it on a lark. Took seven months, but it was fun. I do stuff like that. A number of years ago, I taught myself to program Android, but decided I didn't like it, and never followed through.
As far as recruiters...They do rush to my profile. I have a lot of nice buzzwords.
As soon as they find out how old I am, though, the call suddenly has "connection problems," and I never hear from them again.
I've taken to making sure that my age is clear upfront, just to save time. It's amusing how quickly they start discouraging me. They start by lowballing me, and when I make it clear that I would have no problem working for low wages (I do it for fun, and I don't really need the work), they start trying to find other reasons I wouldn't want the job.
Like I said, I bailed on the rat race. It was just making me grumpy.
Re: How can you not be romantic about programming? (2020)
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
> But answering the question literally, I am not representative of everyone in the industry, I am deeply /deeply/ romantic about programming, but industry is dreck. Unimaginative, low potential, sapping, low-ambition, filled with endless middle- & low-roads & compromises. Countless stakeholders, endless non-technical-personals to "reason" with. Plans & designs & endless corporate aligning & planning. All for middling…
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I don't understand this. You make it sound as if other trades and professions are about getting invited to parties.
Re: How can you not be romantic about programming? (2020)
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
But it doesn't seem that way. I'm not unhappy, or suicidal, or gloomy about the future. I just don't find that anything really feels "new" and therefore nothing really seems exciting. It's like if I got that cliche question "what are you passionate about" in an interview, my answer would be "nothing."
I think it's fair to not be passionate about programming. As long as you have some sort of creative/passion outlet.
Ma, the passion police is at the door again.
Re: How can you not be romantic about programming? (2020)
#157"After a while, more and more, you’ll find yourself in moments of awe, stunned by the size and fragility of it all; the mountains of work and talent and creativity and foresight and intelligence and luck that went into it. And you’ll reach for the word “magic” because you won’t know how else to describe it and then you lean back and smile, wondering how someone could not." I guess I wish I felt like that about progra…
I don't know about most people but devs should have their own personal knowledge management system ( do it on any tool, notion, evernote..) but it's an absolute must. These facts you talk about are fleeting and in the moment the revelations of the learnings seem so clear, but 4 weeks and all the little details go out the window. Save all your little Linux command pipe chains. Config values that worked and few sentenc…
Can I get a raise of hands for folks who think "Dream Machines" is the #1 book on software? How about for those who believe that Engelbart's Augmenting Human Intellect is a driving force for humanity? And that software is a radical embodiment of that all? I think we can get a modest show of hands; I've seen enough confirming points of view from about. (Would that I have a memex to highlight all the mentions I've seen, all the other endorsements!)
Elsewhere I've talked a bit about whether we are romantically engaged in software development. Or whether we are justifying ourselves, merely up to fun.
And I think this comment hones in a lot on what the real chase of this all is, on where we can be radically romantic & hopeful & builders of enduring meaning. It's good advice, for just trying to get better. But this act of enhancing ourselves, learning, cobbling together pools of wisdom: it's the meta-act, it's what software development enables, for software & for other areas. A push for excellence. Software both requires us to improve ourselves, to learn, but it's also a tool for learning, for augmenting ourselves, for becoming more than what limited things we might otherwise be constrained to develop into.
Working not just with but on personal information systems, is, in my view, a nearly sacrosanct act. I see developers like Karli Coss[1] as vanguards of humanity, a bringer about of higher orders & new ranks of human development, via software. Don't merely just use a knowledge management system, develop them! This is the core point, the core enablement of software, and it's not automation or products or ai that has ultimate relevance: it's this human development, this getting better at getting better. Invest yourself into knowledge management systems, build them to further reaches. Pick up really good open source tools like Foam (built as a vscode extension!) & build plugins, expand, grow! Excel! Keep expanding the reach that your mind can travel, by actively engaging yourself in building better bicycles of the mind.
Re: How can you not be romantic about programming? (2020)
#158"After a while, more and more, you’ll find yourself in moments of awe, stunned by the size and fragility of it all; the mountains of work and talent and creativity and foresight and intelligence and luck that went into it. And you’ll reach for the word “magic” because you won’t know how else to describe it and then you lean back and smile, wondering how someone could not." I guess I wish I felt like that about progra…
The longer I am in this profession (and it's been over 20 years) the less I see my peers as "dicks and idiots" but more as victims of the same broken game. I work with very smart people, to be honest. It's the technology and the employers and the culture of development that's the problem. Retiring sounds good right about now.
Retirement sounds amazing.
What really gets me is my employers hiring engineers for $500k per seat and they can memorize their way through Leetcode interviews but can't even structure small programs in a modular, easy to understand way, and when it comes to larger pieces of software, it's complete chaos.
Re: How can you not be romantic about programming? (2020)
#159Re: How can you not be romantic about programming? (2020)
#160"After a while, more and more, you’ll find yourself in moments of awe, stunned by the size and fragility of it all; the mountains of work and talent and creativity and foresight and intelligence and luck that went into it. And you’ll reach for the word “magic” because you won’t know how else to describe it and then you lean back and smile, wondering how someone could not." I guess I wish I felt like that about progra…
Write more code - solve fewer problems. Engineers solve problems. We use our expertise to take stressful and difficult problems and reduce them into simpler ones. You cut through bureaucracy and a healthy amount of talky bullshit to solve problems. The better you are at this, the more you're rewarded as an engineer. But this is a taxing process. Writing code is creative. You find your own problems, and solve the ones…
> Read a book about Lisp games programming
Any recommendations?