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After 14 years in the industry, I still find programming difficult

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Re: After 14 years in the industry, I still find programming difficult

#201

Post by lobsterthief »

al_borland wrote: post #183
eska wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve seen my share of programmers who showed off all-nighters and productive weekends, only to realize they compensate but not actually working productively their entire 40 hours, not even half. Programming is not a race, it’s a marathon.

My issue with the 40 hours is the constant interruptions with meetings, co-workers asking questions, shifting priorities, etc. When pulling an all-nighter or weekend, all of that stuff goes away. It’s been a long time since I pulled and all-nighter or weekend, but I’ve been thinking about it just so I can feel like I finished something. If I could get actual heads down time during my 40 hours, I’d much prefer to use…

Why not just work on your own projects on the nights or weekends? I promise you’ll have fewer project-related distractions than ever.

Re: After 14 years in the industry, I still find programming difficult

#202

Post by sfvisser »

eyelidlessness wrote: post #23
sfvisser wrote: post #12

Yes, incredibly difficult. Nearing 20 years in the field now and programming is still as difficult as in at the start. Or maybe more so, because you are so aware things will break on the first try anyways. Always. Most important lesson for me is to stay close to the problem domain. Think deeply about what your domain means and model in code accordingly. Staying close to the true meaning of your application beats all…

I agree almost totally. But I would frame this differently: > Types, tests, frameworks, dry, language features, ci pipelines, scrum whatnot. All just fun party tricks that fall short when your building the wrong thing. Some or all of these might be excellent tools in service of solving your problem in its domain. They may be even essential for solving it. And they might be the wrong tools. It’s situational, and evalu…

Agreed, properly modeling domain knowledge without types for example feels insurmountable to me. Maybe there exist a category of programmer who can do this, but why make programming more difficult than it already is.

Re: After 14 years in the industry, I still find programming difficult

#203

Post by al_borland »

lobsterthief wrote: post #201
al_borland wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My issue with the 40 hours is the constant interruptions with meetings, co-workers asking questions, shifting priorities, etc. When pulling an all-nighter or weekend, all of that stuff goes away. It’s been a long time since I pulled and all-nighter or weekend, but I’ve been thinking about it just so I can feel like I finished something. If I could get actual heads down time during my 40 hours, I’d much prefer to use…

Why not just work on your own projects on the nights or weekends? I promise you’ll have fewer project-related distractions than ever.

I’m too burned out from the 40 hours of BS. When I have a couple weeks off I usually get inspired to start a side project. I get started, then in quickly dies once I start back up at work. I hardly touch my personal computer anymore.

Re: After 14 years in the industry, I still find programming difficult

#204

Post by a_gnostic »

a_gnostic wrote: post #98
throwitaway222 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of those processes, tps reports, jira and other annoyances is because in a programming environment you literally have too many cooks in the kitchen. Every programmer can create the system from scratch, so to prevent them from doing so, we have to make it super annoying. Basically it's a people problem. The most incredible work happens in the first 3 months by a lone developer green-fielding with no boundaries. T…

Be sure to use a cover sheet for the tps reports.

Didn't you get the memo? Lumbergh requires cover sheets for all tps reports now. We …lost some people this week, and everyone is playing catch-up…

Re: After 14 years in the industry, I still find programming difficult

#207

Post by rldjbpin »

mettamage wrote: post #75
hyggetrold wrote: post #62

Reading the comments here, I am having a total Slashdot throwback moment. Did anybody actually read TFA? Most of the replies I am seeing here seem to have treated the article's title as a writing prompt. Read the whole article friends - it's got a nice amount of nuance and the author unpacks what they mean by "difficult" very well.

I feel quite a lot of people on HN simply react to the titles and that's it. Many people on HN also only read the comments. I know I do. I also sometimes read the post, it really depends.

this. i am in that camp, but i mostly read and not comment like others mentioned. i find that most people commenting still have gone through the post.
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