How can you not be romantic about programming? (2020) • Hacker News Board

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

#261

Post by scrozier » Sun, Feb 21, 2021, 1:58 AM UTC

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #27

rufus_foreman wrote: post #4

"After a while, more and more, you’ll find yourself in moments of awe, stunned by the size and fragility of it all; the mountains of work and talent and creativity and foresight and intelligence and luck that went into it. And you’ll reach for the word “magic” because you won’t know how else to describe it and then you lean back and smile, wondering how someone could not." I guess I wish I felt like that about progra…

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.

After being an entrepreneur and an independent contractor most of my career (I'm 62), and now finding myself working for a company "rolling up" a bunch of software companies, I will say that the state of employment seems to have gone downhill drastically over my lifetime.

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

#262

Post by monadic5 » Sun, Feb 21, 2021, 1:59 AM UTC

GuB-42 wrote: post #126

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…

If your code gets butchered it is not that great. That's something I am slowly learning, and by slowly I mean in the scale of decades. I've seen some of my old code I wrote in the workplace ten years ago, going through the hands of many developers of various skill levels and with different ideas, and then getting back to me. Needless to say, it is pretty ugly. Analyzing that, I found the real good parts mostly untouc…

I don't understand why you'd put the effort in when you can write it off as a job and pursue your "romances" in your personal life. I'd guess the return in satisfaction is greater unless you're already in love with your job in some way.

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

#263

Post by disgruntledphd2 » Sun, Feb 21, 2021, 2:00 AM UTC

LordHumungous wrote: post #115

rufus_foreman wrote: post #4

"After a while, more and more, you’ll find yourself in moments of awe, stunned by the size and fragility of it all; the mountains of work and talent and creativity and foresight and intelligence and luck that went into it. And you’ll reach for the word “magic” because you won’t know how else to describe it and then you lean back and smile, wondering how someone could not." I guess I wish I felt like that about progra…

So all the difficulties in engineering are due to "dicks" and "idiots", unlike like the author who is presumably the only clever person in the entire industry. Here is an example of one thing I actually don't like about this profession: too many emotionally stunted egomaniacs.

To be fair, it's actually a pretty entertaining article, and if you haven't read it, it's definitely worth taking the time for it.

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

#264

Post by rufus_foreman » Sun, Feb 21, 2021, 2:01 AM UTC

Grustaf wrote: post #240

rufus_foreman wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried it. I figured out I can make a few dollars a minute sitting in front of a computer screen or I can make 0 dollars a minute sitting in front of a computer screen. Those are my two choices. The choice is pretty clear.

You could also make 0 dollars a minute standing on a surf board, hiking in a national park or reading a book. There are a lot of things in life that are more interesting than computers.

"You could"

But I didn't. I tried. It didn't happen.

I have to face facts, I might just be a worker bee.

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

#265

Post by disgruntledphd2 » Sun, Feb 21, 2021, 2:04 AM UTC

scsilver wrote: post #165

psyc wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand this. You make it sound as if other trades and professions are about getting invited to parties.

Other professions arent as technical, and focus more on creating human connections rather than abstract connections.

- Accounting? - Finance? - Law? I dunno, I think this notion that software development is uniquely technical is pretty misguided.

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

#266

Post by jrowen » Sun, Feb 21, 2021, 2:08 AM UTC

saagarjha wrote: post #232

jrowen wrote: post #72

Something I sometimes think about in this vein: how many lines of code, written by how many people, in how many different times and places, are traversed on your computer every second? It's kind of mind-blowing to me, and I can't think of anything else that works like that. It would be like if, when building a new house, you built it around an existing house, and continued to add layer after layer, and generations la…

This is true of any complex object, though. Any skyscraper you walk into probably has parts and labor coming from thousands of different places.

That's true, skyscrapers and cruise ships are pretty marvelous in a similar way. When I visited the Met in New York I was most fascinated by the building/complex itself. How many individual pieces, how many workers, how many design elements and functional considerations...

What makes software even more romantic is the "living" aspect of it. When you write a new text or build a new skyscraper, you incorporate the learnings and knowledge gained from prior work, but with software you actually embed a functioning copy that lives on and interacts with the new work. Repeat enough times and soon the "git blame" equivalent for your processor reflects an incomprehensible network of creative work from so many different people and times and organizations that mostly had little to no connection to each other.

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

#267

Post by disgruntledphd2 » Sun, Feb 21, 2021, 2:12 AM UTC

Jugurtha wrote: post #257

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't mean to sound rude, but what age are you right now?

Here's something funny: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26000821

That is kinda amusing.

On the other hand, someone telling other people how to handle ageism should definitely be prepared for such a question.

Conditional on the person I replied to's comments, if he/she is 60 I can perform a particular probability update, if they are 20 then I'll perform another probability update.

tl;dr : if you tell people how to handle aging, your own age becomes relevant.

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

#268

Post by fastball » Sun, Feb 21, 2021, 2:13 AM UTC

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.

I don't think it's clear from the OC that even if they weren't using the wrong HTTP response they would want an update to succeed if it is the same value, at which point 409 could be a reasonable response code.

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

#269

Post by wwww4all » Sun, Feb 21, 2021, 2:13 AM UTC

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #255

wwww4all wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't mean to sound rude, but what age are you right now?

There is ageism in tech, it’s very real and people have to plan for it. It’s not as old as people think it is. It’s way lower than official retirement age.

It’s like any other problem, there are solution options. Some people switch to management. But ageism affects management too.

Focusing on the age doesn’t help I any matter. Age is simply proxy for stagnation to most people. The common euphemism is you can’t teach old dog new tricks.

Focus of solving problems and delivering solutions utilizing latest tech stack and design patterns. Effectively demonstrate these dynamic abilities and open the doors to opportunities.

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

#270

Post by brmgb » Sun, Feb 21, 2021, 2:14 AM UTC

chubot wrote: post #226

brmgb wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And that's not to say "good" is a fixed target... The interesting thing is that once you get to a certain point, you can see the infinite world that you haven't explored yet. > If you like math then there is a ton of stuff in programming that's mathematical, but you can't get a job in those areas until you've mastered the basics. I don't think you understand my point. While I don't think I am exceptionally good, I…

OK, well it's great you found something you like, and I don't doubt that there are people who can program who don't like it. I would still claim that just like guitar, it may get more fun with practice, and that practice may take years. Even if you're working on some old legacy system, being the person who can make it sing is pretty fun IMO. Actually I find the legacy stuff to be more interesting because it actually…

To be honest with you, I'm quite amused by our exchange because you obviously enjoy programing a lot and so seems to have difficulty even fathoming that someone could just dislike the craft which is the point I am trying to make.

I don't doubt you get a lot better with experience. I was working with a lot of fourth and fifth something engineers and learnt a lot from most of them. The fact remains. I don't find programming or debugging infuriating. I find it mostly uninteresting, dull, devoid of joy and dispiriting.

My very first paid job as an intern during my engineering degree was working on a static analyzer written in Ocaml. There was very little bug. I didn't enjoy it at all. At the time, I thought it was because of the context and that I had to keep at it. It never became better.