Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How can you not be romantic about programming? (2020)

thorstenball.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 373 posts

Re: How can you not be romantic about programming? (2020)

#201

Post by NotPavlovsDog »

overscore wrote: post #135
reaperducer wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Retiring sounds good right about now. I'm with you. If I had another skill, I'd give up computers entirely. Maybe have a smartphone, and that's it. But only for limited use. I wish I could build things with my hands, or play an instrument, or just be good at something else, and let the tech world pass me by. I used to love technology because it was fun and interesting. It's no longer either of those things.

For almost exactly the same reasons as discussed above, I'm in the process of trying to move from software development to medicine. I'm currently a pre-hospital medical practitioner and work part-time in that field. My pay averages over the last year averages between 1/20th to 1/25th (0.05 to 0.04 times) my hourly pay as a software development consultant. I'm now trying to decide whether I should attempt a medical de…

>I'm now trying to decide whether I should attempt a medical degree to become a doctor

Have you reviewed how much sleep deprivation would be involved in the path towards being a doctor? It differs depending on the path, but middle-age and lack of sleep may be very hard (source: have multiple surgeons in my near circle). But it is very specific to the path you pick, of course.

I am currently trying to see if I can find a niche in healthcare, away from my software manager job, but am taking it slowly. For me, the 7 years of school are impossible, so no doctor for me. This comment is not meant to be in any way discouraging, and it may be presumptuous of me, as you have perhaps spoken to multiple doctors in the field interesting to you.

The feeling of tipping the needle towards keeping someone alive is incomparable, best wishes with your path transition, whatever it ends up being.

Re: How can you not be romantic about programming? (2020)

#202

Post by wwww4all »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #154
wwww4all wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 back…

There definitely is ageism in tech. However, there are ways to minimize impact.

Become an expert in latest tech stack and experience in delivering solutions to clients. These positions are extremely difficult to fill, so recruiters are more open to older software engineers.

Open the door to yourself by expanding opportunities, vendor companies, contracts, freelance, start your own company, etc. There are so many problems in software and so few high performance engineers, globally.

Sometimes, you may be the only person in the world with that specific tech stack and experiences. Demonstrate the solutions and many companies will have to bring you on board, FE or contract at least.

For most companies, the age thing isn’t the issue. It’s that older software engineers have stagnated and won’t be able to keep pace. When you demonstrate high performance and solution delivery, age becomes less of an issue.

Re: How can you not be romantic about programming? (2020)

#203

Post by 50 »

Programming may be romantic. After all, much like in the spiritual life, programmers also work towards an ideal. And isn't this working towards an ideal just a love affair? One might claim that programming is logic-intensive compared to the spiritual life and other disciplines like poetry. Ellen Ullman in Close to the Machine: Technophilia and its Discontents writes, "...the computer is... a projection of a very slim part of ourselves: that portion devoted to logic, order, rule, and clarity." Another form of the author's question might then be this: How can you not be romantic about logic, order, rule, and clarity?

Re: How can you not be romantic about programming? (2020)

#204

Post by ZephyrBlu »

mb7733 wrote: post #199
ZephyrBlu wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't be surprised if most Gen Z people had never picked up a hammer in their life (Speaking as a Gen Z myself).

I'm missing something here. Why would hammer use be declining?

People used to do things a lot more (Not limited to using a hammer). Now, they tend to stay on their phones/computers.

Re: How can you not be romantic about programming? (2020)

#205

Post by bonestamp2 »

3princip wrote: post #65

I've found being too attached to code is a recipe for frustration in the workplace. You code something elegant, simple, dare I say beautiful and inevitably it will be butchered by new product requirements, business needs, that quick hack to satisfy a client or more generally uncaring colleagues who are looking to get their job done as quickly as possible. Perhaps romantic aspects could only be achieved when there are…

> It's hard to be romantic in corporate environments.

I agree it's hard, but it's not impossible. One thing that heightens the experience for me is to:

Listen to movie scores while you program.

I first started this to help drown out other noises so I could concentrate. But, I soon realized that there's a lot of drama in the sound: there are highs and lows, chaos and order, fumbles and precision, brief pauses, slow times and fast -- the sound is just like programming!

One time, as the score was building my task was nearing completion. Just as I ran the program and saw that everything worked the movie score delivered a massive crescendo. It was so cathartic and I had never felt so much emotion while programming. I actually cried with joy. That's the closest thing I've felt to actual love while programming.

A few of my favorite scores are:

TRON: Legacy - https://open.spotify.com/album/3AMXFnwHWXCvNr5NCCpLZI

Interstellar - https://open.spotify.com/album/3B61kSKTxlY36cYgzvf3cP

Inception - https://open.spotify.com/album/2qvA7HmSg1iM6XMiFF76dp

Re: How can you not be romantic about programming? (2020)

#206

Post by sircastor »

wwww4all wrote: post #108
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I've been wrangling software bytes for a while and I am pragmatic about the business. Software engineering is extremely difficult. High performance engineers are rare and valuable. Some times, they become jaded and burn out. This is my career and my craft, so I'm inclined to ride the waves and trends in software engineering. Negotiate for above average salary while maintaining my tech stack and producing at above ave…

> Switch jobs regularly and negotiate hard for salary and levels.

I’ve been at my current role for almost 7 years. It doesn’t pay nearly what I could be making elsewhere. I’ve interviewed and been offered better money, but it means giving up the kind of work I do now for something less interesting.

I’ve turned down those offers and stuck where I am, even though it means less money. As my wife told me when we were talking about this: This is the work that you’re going to be doing every day, and that has to be worth it.

That said, there is a cost to my career sticking here instead of moving around.

Re: How can you not be romantic about programming? (2020)

#207

Post by wccrawford »

jholman wrote: post #182
fastball wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

4xx would be what you want anyway, no?

What you described: let x = 2 // runs x = 3; // runs x = 3; // runtime error, you made a mistake No, I'd want a balance update to succeed. Even if it's to the same value that it already had.

Or at least return a "no change" message, and not a failure result in the 400s or 500s.

Re: How can you not be romantic about programming? (2020)

#208

Post by dreary_dugong »

``I think that it's extraordinarily important that we in computer science keep fun in computing. When it started out, it was an awful lot of fun. Of course, the paying customers got shafted every now and then, and after a while we began to take their complaints seriously. We began to feel as if we really were responsible for the successful, error-free perfect use of these machines. I don't think we are. I think we're responsible for stretching them, setting them off in new directions, and keeping fun in the house. I hope the field of computer science never loses its sense of fun. Above all, I hope we don't become missionaries. Don't feel as if you're Bible salesmen. The world has too many of those already. What you know about computing other people will learn. Don't feel as if the key to successful computing is only in your hands. What's in your hands, I think and hope, is intelligence: the ability to see the machine as more than when you were first led up to it, that you can make it more.''

Alan J. Perlis (April 1, 1922-February 7, 1990)

Re: How can you not be romantic about programming? (2020)

#209

Post by andrewflnr »

shagie wrote: post #168
dmingod666 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An alternate perspective to this is. The great line of thought, that you are meant to 'follow your passion' and discover your true calling. There is a job mean for you and you just need to find it. I disagree with this and feel this thinking makes peoples lives miserable thinking they're somehow wasting their lives and makes people take plunges in life that they later regret. I feel there is space for an attitude tha…

There's a blog post from a CS Professor that I stumbled across a bit ago - Find The Hard Work You're Willing To Do - http://www.cs.uni.edu/%7Ewallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2018... Its short, only a few short paragraphs - but it has one key piece that I've found myself oft quoting to people: > Maybe this is what people mean when they tell us to "find our passion", but that phrase seems pretty abstract to me. Maybe in…

That link deserves a top-level post.

Re: How can you not be romantic about programming? (2020)

#210

Post by shiyason »

dmingod666 wrote: post #150
frereubu wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. Every friend I talk to, from central bankers to dramaturgs, has regrets about the career they chose. It generally breaks down into where they are on the spectrum from (a) they wish their job was more creative to (b) they wish they had more money to live comfortably. I know almost no-one who is content that they've found a happy medium, and the few that do have done so through blind luck.

An alternate perspective to this is. The great line of thought, that you are meant to 'follow your passion' and discover your true calling. There is a job mean for you and you just need to find it. I disagree with this and feel this thinking makes peoples lives miserable thinking they're somehow wasting their lives and makes people take plunges in life that they later regret. I feel there is space for an attitude tha…

Could not agree more! Same goes for marriage actually!

Thinking that life would have been better with someone else, is just an escape for the mind which makes people miserable!

The secret is to roll up your sleeves, and put in the work!

Post reply on HN