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On Coding, Ego and Attention

josebrowne.com

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Re: On Coding, Ego and Attention

#161

Post by napicella »

camgunz wrote: post #66

I get and agree with what the author is saying here, but I also think a big part of this is that in software engineering, so much of what we do is ephemeral. If you're a carpenter you'll know if you're good or not. You'll be able to do stuff like frame a house, replace a door, etc. And then when someone asks you how long it will take to frame a house, how much it will cost, what supplies/staff you need and so on, you…

I agree it's a culture problem - we developers can't agree on anything even when someone else already went to the trouble of defining a standard. I also think there is another component which is inherently related to the software engineering profession: technology move fast and some things are indeed worth adopting because they are beneficial in the long run, even if it means reinventing the wheel or having to re-learn something from scratch. But understanding which is which it's not that simple. Every time I start a new project in the team, we need to learn a new way to deploy, to instrument the code for metrics, a new integration test framework, the new features of the the CI/CD pipeline which replaced the old ones, maybe a new framework or even a new language. This is even before writing any meaningful code. How much of the new stuff is an improvement, rather than just a slightly different flavor of the old stuff?

Re: On Coding, Ego and Attention

#162

Post by camgunz »

brainless wrote: post #139
themacguffinman wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CRUD and data serialization is an incredibly broad and diverse field. It's like saying "we've been moving our hands and feet for centuries, how can we not just say: this is how we move our hands and feet?" Software has so many more possibilities to explore than carpentry which is constrained by our current physical technology. It's far better to encourage engineers to explore these diverse possibilities than to encou…

This is my way of thinking: 99.99999% of applications out there still will store their CRUD into a standard relational DB and run on standard operating system with standard protocols. Sure you can create a lot of fuss all around it, but I feel we create a lot of fuss because of ego, because we want to be perceived that we came up with new ways. The reason to not conform is ego. Software is perhaps the cheapest ego bo…

Yeah this is what I'm thinking. Yeah sometimes we need to figure out how "doors" work on the International Space Station, but 99.99999% of the time you buy a door kit from your hardware store and you're done. Same with serialization or CRUD or whatever, yeah maybe you do have really interesting requirements that are open research questions. But that's rare.

We're verging towards this, "No Code", PaaS, FaaS, Zapier, etc. I'd be super surprised if there were lots of CRUD jobs in the industry in 10 years.

Re: On Coding, Ego and Attention

#163

Post by csharptwdec19 »

partyboat1586 wrote: post #159
themacguffinman wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good. The only people who come up with new ways are the people who have the ego to try, and the world is richer for it. I'm glad the world is filled with engineers who try and fail and learn instead of those who would rather not create a fuss.

I think developing new ways to do CRUD is great but as an industry we take it too far. I worked at an agency that produced CRUD apps at a rate you wouldn't believe. Every task was correctly estimated to the nearest hour. Add xyz entity 2hrs, add xyz frontend widget 3hrs, change deployment pipeline 4hrs etc. This was possible because they picked a tech stack and stuck with it. I've also worked at companies where doing…

I feel your pain.

Especially on the .NET side.

A general history of CRUD in .NET:

- Basic ADO.NET (Not too different from JDBC/ODBC, direct commands)

- First Gen ORMs; Linq2Sql (functional but only on SQL server, and missing some features)

- Entity Framework (4-6) /NHibernate. Lots of people wound up hating this, so they went to

- Dapper. Dead simple; Takes SQL and only maps the results back. Everyone loves it.... Similar abstractions are created over Linq (linq2db, SqlFu) as well, with less (but happier) adoption.

- EF Core is released. Everyone switches back over again.

The whole thing is silly.

Re: On Coding, Ego and Attention

#164

Post by partyboat1586 »

csharptwdec19 wrote: post #163
partyboat1586 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think developing new ways to do CRUD is great but as an industry we take it too far. I worked at an agency that produced CRUD apps at a rate you wouldn't believe. Every task was correctly estimated to the nearest hour. Add xyz entity 2hrs, add xyz frontend widget 3hrs, change deployment pipeline 4hrs etc. This was possible because they picked a tech stack and stuck with it. I've also worked at companies where doing…

I feel your pain. Especially on the .NET side. A general history of CRUD in .NET: - Basic ADO.NET (Not too different from JDBC/ODBC, direct commands) - First Gen ORMs; Linq2Sql (functional but only on SQL server, and missing some features) - Entity Framework (4-6) /NHibernate. Lots of people wound up hating this, so they went to - Dapper. Dead simple; Takes SQL and only maps the results back. Everyone loves it.... Si…

Yeah, all the churn costs more time and resources than it saves. I personally just stayed with Dapper, simple and flexible. I think people have a problem with judging tech based on any benefit rather than cost benefit analysis. People also value cuteness and elegance in doing 'common' tasks over conceptual simplicity and a similar degree of ugliness for all operations.

Re: On Coding, Ego and Attention

#165

Post by alexbanks »

camgunz wrote: post #162
brainless wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is my way of thinking: 99.99999% of applications out there still will store their CRUD into a standard relational DB and run on standard operating system with standard protocols. Sure you can create a lot of fuss all around it, but I feel we create a lot of fuss because of ego, because we want to be perceived that we came up with new ways. The reason to not conform is ego. Software is perhaps the cheapest ego bo…

Yeah this is what I'm thinking. Yeah sometimes we need to figure out how "doors" work on the International Space Station, but 99.99999% of the time you buy a door kit from your hardware store and you're done. Same with serialization or CRUD or whatever, yeah maybe you do have really interesting requirements that are open research questions. But that's rare. We're verging towards this, "No Code", PaaS, FaaS, Zapier, e…

In 10 years there will still be plenty of companies that never adopted "current" trends.

Re: On Coding, Ego and Attention

#166

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

the_af wrote: post #82
disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spend a week in the lab to save a day in the library?

I should have been clearer: I was talking about motivational or self-improvement sort of books and articles, as is the topic of TFA. I wouldn't try it with lab work, though pioneering work sometimes was that way ;)

I was mostly being facetious, thanks for taking it so well :)

Re: On Coding, Ego and Attention

#167

Post by camgunz »

alexbanks wrote: post #165
camgunz wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah this is what I'm thinking. Yeah sometimes we need to figure out how "doors" work on the International Space Station, but 99.99999% of the time you buy a door kit from your hardware store and you're done. Same with serialization or CRUD or whatever, yeah maybe you do have really interesting requirements that are open research questions. But that's rare. We're verging towards this, "No Code", PaaS, FaaS, Zapier, e…

In 10 years there will still be plenty of companies that never adopted "current" trends.

Eh, yeah that's a fair point. I wonder if starting at one of those companies will be like walking into one of those houses built by an eccentric after a while though.

Re: On Coding, Ego and Attention

#168

Post by mtalantikite »

moreaccountspls wrote: post #96
mtalantikite wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can certainly work towards a deeper ability without attaching to the outcome or to even use ego-craving to get there.

Your ego drives every action of your existence, so no, you really can't. What you can do is be self aware of that reality.

That hasn’t been my experience, but ok.

Re: On Coding, Ego and Attention

#169

Post by dang »

deckard1 wrote: post #140
harikb wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's easier to get ahead by building a new Z framework than to become a core committer on X framework from 10 years ago? Sometimes, yes. This particular angle is explained in the article >> This is ego distraction in action. Self comparison determining effort. If we feel like we’re ahead we continue to put in the effort. If we feel like we’re not, we determine it’s not worth the effort. The reason people would pref…

> Python is clearly more productive that Perl Oh please troll. Python is a few years newer than Perl and only has the patina of "modernity" (whatever the hell that is) by virtue of being last to sit at the mainstream table. > Go is clearly more productive than many things that came before. Where the fuck are you getting this bullshit from, Sir? What drugs are you on today? Citations???

Yikes, please don't do programming language flamewar on HN.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23480630

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

Re: On Coding, Ego and Attention

#170

Post by maccard »

camgunz wrote: post #167
alexbanks wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 10 years there will still be plenty of companies that never adopted "current" trends.

Eh, yeah that's a fair point. I wonder if starting at one of those companies will be like walking into one of those houses built by an eccentric after a while though.

Probably more like a house built 100 years ago. I bought a made-to-measure blind for my flat a few weeks ago. Followed the instructions, went to attach it to my window frame only to find out that my window frame bows so much that the metal bar won't actually attach to the wall. Stuff like this is rampant in non-modern build housing, not just eccentric built.
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