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Thoughts on the software industry (2022)

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Re: Thoughts on the software industry (2022)

#21

Post by kenjackson »

famahar wrote: post #4
bruce511 wrote: post #3

Since the article jumps around a lot, let me add one more; Software is an amazing passion, but a terrible job. Imagine you love music, play the piano for hours every day, then once you grow up someone pays you a huge salary just to play. You're in heaven. Now imagine someone who loves classical music, but can't play. You see the fortunes being made by piano players, so you decide to learn. Which takes years of doing…

This is really spot on. I realized how soul sucking it was after I got a teaching job. It was low pay English teaching in Japan but I felt a kind of joy, playfulness, humanity and a stress-free life I never experienced in working in tech. I've since gone back to tech and miss my students so much. Don't think I'll ever get that feeling at my current corporate job. I also ended up making way more side projects since my…

Why don’t you go back to teaching? Is it the money?

Re: Thoughts on the software industry (2022)

#22

Post by nmehner »

> Besides that: find small (2-3 day) project ideas that require you to learn max. 1 new technology or idea, and build lots of such projects.

That's how you learn programming. It's not a bad idea, but at least for me software development is more about long term issues coming up, team communication, features that create short term value but long term problems. How to organize big piles of code.

A lot of abstractions don't make any sense in a 2-3 days project and you are better of hacking away a script than looking into "properly" modelling things.

My impression is always that as a junior you learn how to do stuff. Then you learn to do complicated stuff. And becoming a senior you learn how not to do complicated stuff.

This takes some of the fun out of it as well. Deploying a feature that is simple and that just works without any issues does not create nearly as much excitement as "saving the company" with a big hack and high risk deployments, although it is much better to not have to "save the company" in the first place.

Re: Thoughts on the software industry (2022)

#23

Post by tonyedgecombe »

SupremumLimit wrote: post #18
brink wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The funny thing is 15 years ago, programming was nearly everyone's passion for those that were in the field. There were very few "job" type programmers. Not the case today.

I’d say the same thing except about 25-30 years ago and definitely not 15, which suggests to me that both of us suffer from observer bias and likely there’s always been a real mix of programmers who were really into it and others who were only after a job. Perhaps the proportion of uninterested programmers has increased though.

It probably follows the booms and busts of the industry. Boom times encourage people to enter the industry whether they are interested or not. During a bust you will only get people who are interested in the subject for its own sake.

Re: Thoughts on the software industry (2022)

#24

Post by lpapez »

grey-area wrote: post #17
bruce511 wrote: post #3

Since the article jumps around a lot, let me add one more; Software is an amazing passion, but a terrible job. Imagine you love music, play the piano for hours every day, then once you grow up someone pays you a huge salary just to play. You're in heaven. Now imagine someone who loves classical music, but can't play. You see the fortunes being made by piano players, so you decide to learn. Which takes years of doing…

You seem to have a terrible job, you should fix that. Meanwhile many people happily make a living programming in a mostly stress-free, creative environment where every day brings new challenges and the codebase is well ordered and easy to navigate. Also, tracking down bugs is fun! I can see how it would not be fun in a terrible codebase and have experienced that side of things, but nobody is forcing you to work at a…

> but nobody is forcing you to work at a particular company.

It really isn't all that simple. I felt the same way when I was younger - "just switch jobs yo" - but as I grow up I realize that there are increasingly many external life factors forcing people into an unhealthy work environments which can be outside their control.

I work in a shitty legacy PHP codebase, but I do it for the great money and can accept the pain willingly. It is much easier to tolerate things when you know there is an exit nearby, but I imagine people can get much more jaded when their visa depends on the shitty employer, debts loom over their head, medical costs are piling up, kids require feeding every month etc.

Re: Thoughts on the software industry (2022)

#25

Post by Swizec »

8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote: post #16
Swizec wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The most passionate software engineers I know might be able to claim similar joy, but they have overwhelmingly quit their corporate gigs and fly solo. I have done the solo thing and have come to realize I much prefer coding for others. There’s just too much annoying bullshit in running a business and I don’t need to deal with almost any of that as an employee despite getting basically all the same freedom, impact,…

Agreed. Managing, fundraising, legal, roadmaps, payroll, hiring, sales, marketing, customer support etc. If you're a coder running a company, it's likely you might not get to code at all, or ever again if you're very successful. I wouldn't do my own business if my hope was to be more hands-on with software dev unless you find a partner to whom you outsource all of the above, but now you're back to the situation where…

> If you're happy with not having a bigger slice of the pie

Not to mention a smaller slice of a way bigger pie can still be a lot bigger in absolute terms. With much lower risk.

Re: Thoughts on the software industry (2022)

#26

Post by grey-area »

lpapez wrote: post #24
grey-area wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to have a terrible job, you should fix that. Meanwhile many people happily make a living programming in a mostly stress-free, creative environment where every day brings new challenges and the codebase is well ordered and easy to navigate. Also, tracking down bugs is fun! I can see how it would not be fun in a terrible codebase and have experienced that side of things, but nobody is forcing you to work at a…

> but nobody is forcing you to work at a particular company. It really isn't all that simple. I felt the same way when I was younger - "just switch jobs yo" - but as I grow up I realize that there are increasingly many external life factors forcing people into an unhealthy work environments which can be outside their control. I work in a shitty legacy PHP codebase, but I do it for the great money and can accept the p…

It really is that simple and as I reach the end of my career I appreciate that more.

Life is too short to stay in bad situations for a long time. Of course it’s sometimes hard to move/switch job but it’s never impossible and why spend most of your waking life on something you hate with unremitting passion like the OP?

Re: Thoughts on the software industry (2022)

#28

Post by 8f2ab37a-ed6c »

Swizec wrote: post #25
8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Managing, fundraising, legal, roadmaps, payroll, hiring, sales, marketing, customer support etc. If you're a coder running a company, it's likely you might not get to code at all, or ever again if you're very successful. I wouldn't do my own business if my hope was to be more hands-on with software dev unless you find a partner to whom you outsource all of the above, but now you're back to the situation where…

> If you're happy with not having a bigger slice of the pie Not to mention a smaller slice of a way bigger pie can still be a lot bigger in absolute terms. With much lower risk.

Indeed.

Re: Thoughts on the software industry (2022)

#29

Post by AlotOfReading »

syndicatedjelly wrote: post #8

As someone who does play music, although not professionally, I don't really agree with the analogy that writing code is like playing music. You don’t expect to learn how to play the piano by reading a book, but you might expect to pick up a programming language or concept because you read about it. Really, it doesn’t work that way. You have to read it, and then use it and practice it and make a hundred mistakes, and…

The specific analogy with music isn't great, but it makes more sense if you step back and say that a large part of software is aesthetic rather than technical concerns.

Re: Thoughts on the software industry (2022)

#30

Post by pineaux »

kenjackson wrote: post #21
famahar wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is really spot on. I realized how soul sucking it was after I got a teaching job. It was low pay English teaching in Japan but I felt a kind of joy, playfulness, humanity and a stress-free life I never experienced in working in tech. I've since gone back to tech and miss my students so much. Don't think I'll ever get that feeling at my current corporate job. I also ended up making way more side projects since my…

Why don’t you go back to teaching? Is it the money?

You can also teach your skill. I do that, although not full time, but there is money to be made. If you are reasonably good at your craft you can teach novices and you can make sure they get their money's worth. Or give training at a company. I teach creative coding for lighting designers and vj's and if I could do it every day of the year it would net me a good income. However, the market is too small to live off.
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