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The cloudy layers of modern-day programming

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Re: The cloudy layers of modern-day programming

#151

Post by overbytecode »

tester756 wrote: post #78
dinosaurdynasty wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capability trap. Not everyone is capable of effectively working 2 jobs at once, and generally speaking no matter how big that $big_salary is you aren't going to have more money or time. Also there are lots of way for a company to say they are doing interesting/meaningful things or whatever and effectively not be. And no matter how great the work you may be doing, you don't want to be doing it if it doesn't pay enough…

So the only way is to complain whole life?

Lets not reduce this article to "complaining", it didn't just say "modern software development sucks" and be done with it. The author gave an overview on what she thinks is wrong about the field, with a fairly detailed example and references. Even if you disagree with her take, these kinds of articles force us to reflect on the state of the industry. There is nothing wrong with that.

Should we be mindlessly churning away taking no issue with the state we're in?

Re: The cloudy layers of modern-day programming

#152

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

somrand0 wrote: post #4

oh yea. using a software framework like django for "rapid application development" gives me a feeling closer to writing configuration files rather than actually "programming" (where "programming" is writing hardcore algorithms). but don't get me wrong, I liked doing that, I got paid to do it. But let's call it for what it is: that python code (django app) was really django framework config. this is a simlar phenomeno…

I think there was a survey, fairly recently, that found that a top language in source code was YAML.

That says something.

Re: The cloudy layers of modern-day programming

#153

Post by mythhouse »

tester756 wrote: post #54
mythhouse wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Like what prevents you from putting effort for year? two? and switching from X to Y? I don't think it only takes 1 yr to switch to something interesting. Any R&D lab wants you have a phd with published papers.

The first step you can do is: actually start working with this on daily basis Maybe over years you'll gain an expertise to work in research, idk.

for sure. beats complaining having to write crud.

Re: The cloudy layers of modern-day programming

#154

Post by kubanczyk »

spoils19 wrote: post #136
jesse__ wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Going one step further, challenge yourself to _not_ use stdlib, just raw language constructs. Need a hashtable? Write one. You won't come out with a celebrity HN presence, but you may gain enlightened samurai monk status.

Going one step further, challenge yourself not to use raw language constructs, but dive deep into assembly. Need a conditional? Time to jump around. I wrote a web server that scales to over 1 million requests per second, and I found out it's much more maintainable, scalable and environmentally friendly for our company.

> not to use raw language constructs

Nit: assembly is a language. The phrase you are looking for is probably "structured programming".

Re: The cloudy layers of modern-day programming

#155

Post by pif »

havercosine wrote: post #124

I agree that most of the routine software work feels like, umm, filling forms? The way I've made peace with it is to accept that the work that pays the bills is going to be boring. After considering ourselves to be special as software developers for many years, maybe we accept that it is not so special after all, like flipping burgers. Two ways to out from the existential dread: one startup on a problem statement tha…

> like flipping burgers.

Programming an information system is like flipping burgers; developing industrial software is not.

Re: The cloudy layers of modern-day programming

#156

Post by myth_drannon »

aprdm wrote: post #140
throwandpatch wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have exactly the same problem.. got sucked into "the cloud" 4-5 years ago at my current employer. Now I desperately want to get another job. Something with preferably no or minimal cloud involved. The trouble is that the jobs that sound interesting don't reflect my expertise.. Now should I try to start from 0 with a junior salary? Does not make sense with a family. I don't really have an idea yet.. but I urgently n…

Try to find work in visual effects, lots of interesting work and they’re on prems. Anyone with software background can get in !

Right, but the hours are long and the pay is low. VFX is even worse than games from career perspective

Re: The cloudy layers of modern-day programming

#157

Post by rramadass »

gptadmirer wrote: post #56

I am a fullstack web dev, for about 8 years now. These days I am learning Arduino and thinking of learning AVR programming. Is there a career path for this kind of intersection?

Absolutely! But pay may vary because of "market reasons" (whatever that may mean).

Some suggestions for your study;

1) Use C/C++ only and nothing else. See my past posts for books full of example code. This will allow you to carry your knowledge across MCU families.

2) Starting with Arduino and moving on to direct AVR programming is a great approach. Get Elliot Williams' book Make: AVR Programming for the latter.

3) Arduino programming is deceptively easy but extremely powerful if mastered properly. Do your sample programs first on Arduino and then redo it using straight AVR-C. This will teach you how to prototype something quickly using Arduino and then when you have strict cycle/memory/power/latency requirements how to drop down to the metal and program exactly what is needed.

Finally from the career pov, you will become one of the few who can do and understand everything from bare metal all the way to processing in the "Cloud". As an example; read sensor data using Arduino, send it over the Internet to the "Cloud", Apply ML algorithms and do "Predictive Analytics". This is Industry 4.0/IIOT etc.

Re: The cloudy layers of modern-day programming

#159

Post by artificialLimbs »

Hermitian909 wrote: post #104
uoaei wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the main crux of the issue IMO: feature output velocity. With the enforcement of sprint-scale development scope, you really don't have time to iterate on a wide-reaching and supportive base layer of software infrastructure so you reach for tools that will get you what you need within the timeframe demanded by whoever hired you.

As someone who's been fortunate enough to work on and lead these kinds of projects (and watch coworkers work on them) I've come to a near opposite conclusion which is that sprints reveal how bad the ROI on this work tends to be. The way many of these projects go is someone very smart works with subject matter experts to map out the problem space. The smart person (or people) then go and begin building this set of pri…

So what is the way (are optimal ways) from the beginning?

Re: The cloudy layers of modern-day programming

#160

Post by Conscat »

aliqot wrote: post #83
Dave_Rosenthal wrote: post #45

Like many other commenters (of a certain age?), I too have this unsatisfied feeling about a particular kind of modern software development. The kind where you never really dig down and design anything, you just plumb a bunch of stuff together with best practices you find on stack overflow. Many commenters are attributing this problem to the modern high-level tools we now have access to. But I don't think this is the…

Challenge yourself to use stdlib only for a while, or the future. It sounds unrealistic and I'm going to get flamed, but hear me out. It works. Most of my development these days is in reasonably complete languages like go, rust, zig, and various scripting languages, so your mileage may vary if you're writing in something like rune, hare or carbon that is still taking shape. If you think I'm crazy but have a lingering…

Challenge yourself to not even use stdlib once in awhile. There are some interesting insights to glean about how much room for improvement we have even at the very bottom. https://youtu.be/BrBb0mqoIAc
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