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

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

#241

Post by enneff »

dijereedan wrote: post #239

I am one of those people who wants their code to be poetry. Ideas and logic expressed in the simplest most elegant terms. But when I left academia for industry and started working on a bigger project requiring coordination between many dozens of people, I realized that this approach is not conducive to making money. My idealism collided with the complexity of the real world. Software is a mess, but a beautiful mess.…

Poetry is an artistic expression and so it can be, as you say, ideas expressed in simple and elegant terms. But it can also be opaque, complicated, confusing, awkward, and abrasive, and still be great poetry.

When working with others it is all the more important that the code be elegant and simple. That’s the only way to fight the always encroaching complexity.

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

#242

Post by Grustaf »

DC1350 wrote: post #82
rektide wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But answering the question literally, I am not representative of everyone in the industry, I am deeply /deeply/ romantic about programming, but industry is dreck. Unimaginative, low potential, sapping, low-ambition, filled with endless middle- & low-roads & compromises. Countless stakeholders, endless non-technical-personals to "reason" with. Plans & designs & endless corporate aligning & planning. All for middling…

Quoted post unavailable.

You’re partly right, programming as a whole and on a sort of macro level is soils crushingly boring and pointless. But on the micro scale, even boring pointless programming tasks can offer challenges that are interesting enough to keep you entertained for a few hours until you look up and remember how pointless it all is.

I like to compare it to solving sudoku. If that entertains you and you can make 200k doing it, it’s not the worst thing in the world, even if it is sad and boring when you see it in a wider context. Who wants to go through life as a programmer?

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

#243

Post by Grustaf »

rektide wrote: post #143
DC1350 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

> It’s boring and people only do it because they’re too socially unsuccessful to participate in things that are actually fun, To throw some bombs the other way, I think there's a legit feeling that a lot of the socialization/fun that humanity gets up to is frivolous, pointless, dis-engaged, solipsistic avoidance of how they are spending their lives. We are all engaged in distracting ourselves at some level (Terror Ma…

Sure there are people with higher callings, geniuses like Einstein or Newton. But that’s not what we’re talking about here. We are talking about moderately intelligent people who will never contribute anything meaningful to humanity. For them work is not an excuse not to have friends or do “frivolous” things. Those frivolous things are what life are made of, so you better have a damn good reason if you avoid them. Being 10% of a team that is building some accounting software is not comparable to inventing calculus.

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

#244

Post by Footkerchief »

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…

> I do it for fun, and I don't really need the work

Have you considered that this might cause you to be perceived as a hobbyist?

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

#245

Post by wwww4all »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #214
wwww4all wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 prob…

> When you demonstrate high performance and solution delivery, age becomes less of an issue. Never even comes up. Like I said, I've been doing this for a loooooong time. I have a massive open-source portfolio[0]. Much of it is days (or minutes) old. I've been surfing the leading edge for my whole career. No one ever even looks at it. I've learned that if they give me a binary tree test, I might as well just end the p…

My plan to minimize ageism is straight forward. Continuous improvement in latest tech stack. Demonstrate delivering solutions. Regularly interview with recruiters for positions at or above my level.

When the full time offers slows down, I’ll take on vendor and contract positions. When the contract positions slow down, I’ll start my own vendor or consulting company. I’ll hire younger sales and product people to be the face of the company.

I always look for solutions to problems, implement the solutions and make adjustments when needed. This is the kind of solution oriented mindset that helps get offers and land clients.

There are so many software engineering problems and so few people that can deliver the solutions. There’s no real competition, younger or older. There are enough to go around for everyone.

Good luck to you.

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

#246

Post by [deleted] »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #101
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so? The job situation for good developers has never been better. We can make salaries that would have seemed unthinkable two decades ago while working from home and doing something we enjoy.

This has not been my experience. It seems that it's a young person's game, and us older folks are not particularly encouraged to participate. Frankly, I've been stunned by the way in which I was treated, in the short period of time I spent looking for work, after leaving my last company. Thankfully, I am not required to work, and have been having the best time I could imagine, since giving up on working for others. I…

[deleted]

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

#248

Post by logbiscuitswave »

picks_at_nits wrote: post #33

I am deeply, deeply romantic about programming. I consider it an act of self-actualization. But answering the question literally, I am not representative of everyone in the industry, and that's a good thing. It's easy to feel romantic about your vocation when you have a number of reasonable options for achieving modest financial security, and you thus had the privilege of choosing the one that most closely matched yo…

I once had someone vehemently complain to me about certain style rules in place in a code base saying, “only machines will ever read it, who cares how it looks as long as it works?” As someone who’s deeply passionate about software development it certainly made me look at this person in a different light.

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

#249

Post by sidlls »

frereubu wrote: post #134
vlunkr wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know it's the biggest cliche in the world, but the grass isn't always greener on the other side. Lots of musicians wish they had a skill that let them sit at a desk all day and get a stable paycheck. Not saying you have to keep working in tech forever, but I don't think it's objectively stopped being fun and interesting.

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.

It's not that I have regret--I'm ridiculously well paid compared to other laborers, even if I'm still underpaid compared to the value I deliver--it's that I just can't stand the personalities and practices in this field, and I'm still in the (b) side of that spectrum.

Though that will change soon thanks to a fantastic liquidity event.

I'm looking forward to leaving this industry in a couple of months and living comfortably on my low- to mid-seven figure exit.

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

#250

Post by david422 »

philosopher1234 wrote: post #112
reaperducer wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

don't have the will/independence ("budget") to implement that change So, dicks and idiot middle managers. I think you made his point.

No. This is such a small issue who honestly cares if it gets fixed? I guarantee you this is not the most important thing anyone involved could be working on. Too many perfectionists on this website.

Nobody competent wants to spend extra time and work dealing with junior level mistakes. If the basic stuff can't be done right, then the complex stuff definitely isn't done right. Little issues like this cause ripple effects and now guaranteed you've got incorrect behavior in other parts of the system because of this broken API. It's a time suck all around.
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