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“Code was never the hard part” is an insult to all programmers

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Re: “Code was never the hard part” is an insult to all programmers

#391

Post by jasonlotito »

bob1029 wrote: post #9

> If coding is easy, how come programmers were in high demand, and have demanded large salaries for years (even before ZIRP)? Because programmers have generally been forced to wear additional, invisible hats that are essential to making the code happen in the first place. Writing code is not hard. Writing correct code is. Knowing what is correct in a setting with paying customers generally involves interacting with t…

> Writing code is not hard. Writing correct code is.

Xing Y is not Z. Xing `additional adjective` Y is.

Writing prose is not hard. Writing good prose is.

Cooking food is not hard. Cooking good food is.

...

Re: “Code was never the hard part” is an insult to all programmers

#392

Post by satvikpendem »

hannofcart wrote: post #372
agentultra wrote: post #308

The author might be missing the intent of the observation. Maybe they’re misinterpreting it. What I, and many people who’ve said, “code was never the hard part,” aren’t referring to the skill of an individual. It’s not the hard part of the engineering process of developing software. Programming languages have manuals. Many data structures are well documented. There are frameworks for damn near everything. While the d…

If what you're saying is true we are moving into an era where rockstar product managers are going to be more in demand than programmers since they can do all of what you mentioned above. And typically (though not always) product managers have better people skills than programmers and consequently they might be more effective at the "gathering requirements" and "working together" bits you mentioned above. Even much of…

Well, it's true. In a world where code is commoditized, a PM who knows exactly what the customers' needs are will be much more successful than an engineer who does not. Not sure what is controversial about that.

Re: “Code was never the hard part” is an insult to all programmers

#393

Post by satvikpendem »

sensanaty wrote: post #153
maxrev17 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one seems to mind the quality drop though. The buyers of this stuff could never discern.

I'm definitely noticing, I imagine the populace at large will soon too. I'm not even talking about random software either, the company I work for has more and more fired that need to be put out because people are spamming out ai-generated code that was at best rubber stamped. Not even just the customer-facing stuff either, the internal tooling is on fire more and more often. It's not sustainable in the slightest

Are you the buyer of the stuff?

Re: “Code was never the hard part” is an insult to all programmers

#394

Post by satvikpendem »

tombert wrote: post #218
maxrev17 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one seems to mind the quality drop though. The buyers of this stuff could never discern.

I suspect the massive shitshow of Windows 11 and all of its failings is a result of large quantities of vibe code being merged into the OS. People are noticing.

And when exactly did Windows 11 release?

Re: “Code was never the hard part” is an insult to all programmers

#395

Post by DanHulton »

jghn wrote: post #388
prinny_ wrote: post #72

I believe there are some programming jobs in which the code is absolutely the easier part. Not all of us work in signal processing, integrated systems or have to push upstream to Linux kernel because the company we work for really needs a memory allocation optimization for its data centers. Navigating customer requirements and building something that satisfies both market's needs and company strategy can be an incred…

Mostly this. The phrase "code was the never the hard part" touches on a larger culture war. I was I was moving up in the ranksit was common to see people, both myself and then watching others, say things like "I just want to code". Coding was the job. But there were diminishing returns in that getting better at coding wasn't as impactful as getting better at all the social skills, big picture strategy, and general sc…

It's exactly this - "coding was never the hard part" translates more directly to "coding was never was slowing me down". It's nailing down requirements, it's cross-functional team meetings, it's planning the testing and rollout, it's integrating with all the other parts of the product and systems, etc etc etc. Optimizing coding was just aiming at the fastest part of the job already.

Re: “Code was never the hard part” is an insult to all programmers

#396

Post by satvikpendem »

torginus wrote: post #241
ryandrake wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sad reality is that the vast majority of customers (whoever you are writing software for: clients, management, or end users) simply don't care as much about quality. If you give them the "time, cost, and quality" pick-two choice, 99.9% of customers are going to ask for fast+cheap. It's not the world I wish we were living in.

This isn't true. I don't think you or me would want a car/TV/smartphone that's cheap and flashy but breaks every two weeks. Sometimes people are strapped for cash that's why they cheap out on stuff, or really are enthusiastic about it, so they tolerate it breaking all the time, but for everything else, reliability is king.

There is a minimum but beyond that people don't care. Asian brands like Toyotas are the most reliable yet the Ford F150 is the best selling vehicle in the world.

Re: “Code was never the hard part” is an insult to all programmers

#397

Post by sidcool »

pdpi wrote: post #174
hakunin wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Writing code is not hard. Writing correct code is. Knowing what is correct in a setting with paying customers generally involves interacting with those customers. That's like saying "building a car is not hard, building a real car that you can use and that passes regulation is". IOW, writing code is hard in every reasonable context.

Speaking/writing English is easy. Writing literature at the level of Shakespeare is hard. Writing educational content that makes hard concepts accessible like Grant Sanderson is hard. Likewise, coding is easy. It's just writing, and any child can learn it. Coding is not programming, and the hard part of the job lives in that distinction.

Many still struggle with getting fizzbuzz right.

Re: “Code was never the hard part” is an insult to all programmers

#398

Post by tripleee »

Jach wrote: post #230
tripleee wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've watched dozens of people try to learn to code and fail, some definitely not for a lack of trying. Of those that did learn, only a fraction had the IQ or passion to be genuinely good at it. The difficulty of it has absolutely been a bottleneck to the supply of good devs, keeping salaries high.

We've also seen decades of effort, much of it successful, aimed at making it easier . Programming used to be harder. (Difficulty alone doesn't account for high salaries.) If it was never "the hard part", what motivation for all that effort? Books, pedagogy, tooling, languages, even the notion of publishing a library is an attempt to make coding a related task easier for others. There's been comparatively less effort…

My hunch is that the difficulty has moved, not reduced in practice. We make one layer easier and then another mountain lies at the layer above, just as hard.

Re: “Code was never the hard part” is an insult to all programmers

#399

Post by gt0 »

I think "Code was never the hardest part" is more fair.

Code itself can absolutely be difficult, but it's seldom the most difficult part of a project. Generally the hard part is actually figuring out what you want, and how to achieve what you want, then the actual code is pretty straightforward in most cases.

I've been programming since the the 1980s and I'm not insulted by the idea that code isn't the hard part.

Re: “Code was never the hard part” is an insult to all programmers

#400

Post by p5v »

In my peak programming years in Germany, about 5-6 years ago, every company that ever tried to hire me, wanted to do some sort of CRM for xyz. It’s fun when you build it once, but then you change the domain, and realize you’re essentially building the same thing, but for different people. I’d gotten so bored of it all by 2020 that I’d approach them right away, asking “are you building yet another CRM for xyz?” They didn’t like it, because it would undermine their work. But it’s true - thousands of highly-educated, well-paid people in Munich at the time, were essentially paid to build and maintain glorified sheets software for managing people and resources.

You can guess which companies and people were hit the hardest, when it turned out that all that software could eventually be generated by a machine.

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