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Ask HN: Do you hate software engineering but love programming?

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Re: Ask HN: Do you hate software engineering but love programming?

#411

Post by DAVer98 »

busterarm wrote: post #349
tsunamifury wrote: post #321

Every few months or so we get these really circle jerky posts by engineers who believe the world of business is them just pumping out code and somehow getting paid. 1) that’s the difference between a job and a hobby. You do the hard parts you’re paid to do sometimes. 2) decisions you don’t like by stakeholders you don’t like aren’t always wrong just because you see some way to “code it”. A product is not just its cod…

It's kind of like all of the threads that I've been reading from smart, well-paid engineers lately bemoaning that unprofitable startup companies should be offering softer landings for mass layoffs. They have all of this fuzzy thinking around how in this economy broken companies that can't raise any more money are going to somehow take out loans to give people a year of severance... No profession is immune from practi…

[dead]

Re: Ask HN: Do you hate software engineering but love programming?

#412

Post by [deleted] »

torben-friis wrote: post #25

I am the exact opposite. I mean, I don’t like processes and meetings, but I do like the planning and architecture part much more than I like actually writing code. Usually, if your mind is decently organized, I find that the problem is solved before writing a single line of code. If that happens, then the actual part of writing becomes dull and mechanical - the problem has already been solved. I’ve never understood p…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Do you hate software engineering but love programming?

#413

Post by goodpoint »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #6

> I have come to a realization that I don't really enjoy Software Engineering(& the processes that it comes with) but I do love programming & solving problems. I can almost guarantee that you’re just at the wrong company. Some software companies can turn even the simplest tasks into a grueling series of processes, endless meetings, and joint work across a big number of “stakeholders”. These companies will take the jo…

> Some software companies can turn even the simplest tasks into a grueling series of processes, endless meetings

You mean 95% of companies.

Re: Ask HN: Do you hate software engineering but love programming?

#414

Post by antonfire »

brippalcharrid wrote: post #263
mejutoco wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> most people stuck in unhappy marriages are men If we are counting only heterosexual and 2 people marriages, wouldn't the number of people stuck in unhappy marriages be exactly 50% men and 50% women?

The [perceived] consequences of ending a marriage seem to provide more of a disincentive to men, so they are more likely to persist in a marriage that they feel they would be unable to leave (and then have to support multiple households, etc.). The fact that women (in the USA) are more than twice as likely to initiate a divorce seems to bear this out.

"Women divorce men more often than the other way around; this seems to bear out that men are more dissatisfied in marriage" seems like a stretch to me.

At any rate, it reminds me of the classic physics joke:

> An experimental physicist comes running excitedly to a theorist's office, waving a graph taken off his latest experiment. "Hmmm", says the theorist, "that's exactly where you'd expect to see that peak. Here is the reason." A long logical explanation follows. In the middle of it, the experimentalist says "Wait a minute", studies the chart for a second and says "Oops, this is upside down." He fixes it. "Hmmm," says the theorist, "you'd expect to see a dip in exactly that position. Here is the reason..."

Re: Ask HN: Do you hate software engineering but love programming?

#415

Post by guywhocodes »

matsemann wrote: post #160
torben-friis wrote: post #25

I am the exact opposite. I mean, I don’t like processes and meetings, but I do like the planning and architecture part much more than I like actually writing code. Usually, if your mind is decently organized, I find that the problem is solved before writing a single line of code. If that happens, then the actual part of writing becomes dull and mechanical - the problem has already been solved. I’ve never understood p…

Hmm, I often feel lots of important details or edge cases are only discovered when you start programming. It's a reason waterfall was abandoned. Planning, prototyping and then making a more informed decision is my goto approach, instead of planning forever. Actually, I often feel the architects that think they've "fully solved the problem" are full of themselves, and just not smart enough to realize all the things th…

Yeah this is quite common, somehow I sympathize with both gp and submitter here, the last year I have tried suffered under a group of architects that have greenlit a project where we have now wasted about a man century. All because we ramped up fast into a "fully sovled problem" with new "well understood architectural patterns and design philosophy". And these are not "23 year old CTO" type people, it's people with 25+ years as "enterprise architect" in FAANG type companies.

The main lesson I've drawn is that never propose a technical solution that you didn't PoC and that you only have validated the parts of the system you implemented. Deletion is often harder than creation.

Re: Ask HN: Do you hate software engineering but love programming?

#416

Post by goodpoint »

thwawawa1234 wrote: post #256
mpweiher wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> agile has killed the happiness...meetings...rituals...meta-work...not actual productivity. All of that isn't actual agile. It's Fauxgile and has nothing to do with what agile is about, which is about removing impediments to productivity, removing meetings (why were there standups? Because they shouldn't exist in the first place, and if you absolutely positively can't avoid them then at least make them as short as p…

Agile is made up. The vast majority of places “do it wrong”. Coaches come in and make things even worse, with even less understanding. Saying “they are doing it wrong” and having nothing change isn’t doing anything, and it’s not really a great point. (Not specifically calling you out I just hear this all the time) “Fauxagile” *is* agile, because thats what the majority of places in reality do. “Agile” needs a complet…

“Agile” needs to stop existing.

Re: Ask HN: Do you hate software engineering but love programming?

#417

Post by [deleted] »

barrenko wrote: post #170
mpweiher wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> agile has killed the happiness...meetings...rituals...meta-work...not actual productivity. All of that isn't actual agile. It's Fauxgile and has nothing to do with what agile is about, which is about removing impediments to productivity, removing meetings (why were there standups? Because they shouldn't exist in the first place, and if you absolutely positively can't avoid them then at least make them as short as p…

Agile is like socialism at times.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Do you hate software engineering but love programming?

#418

Post by ajmurmann »

thegrimmest wrote: post #401
ajmurmann wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The original statement will be read by men and some men will connect to it right away, because rather than envision some abstract person, they are made to immediately picture a man, and in that image they may recognize themselves, like looking at a mirror. Sorry, are you saying that the audience of the statement is on purpose only men? If so, how could you possibly support any claim that it's not misogynistic?

It's quite possible to target a statement at a male audience without a disclaimer and yet still not be guilty of misogyny.

The statement was made in a discussion about working in tech, not at a free masons lodge

Re: Ask HN: Do you hate software engineering but love programming?

#419

Post by willio58 »

I’ll just say that a lot of jobs don’t follow the exact agile sprint methodology. At my company we have weekly sprints which are just rough lists of what each of us will do, and there’s no pressure to do more ever. And if I can’t do something one week I just add it to the next week’s sprint.

Re: Ask HN: Do you hate software engineering but love programming?

#420

Post by lifeplusplus »

floydian10 wrote: post #200
lifeplusplus wrote: post #136

That's me... I loved coding, I did it in my spare time. Then I got a job it's been downhill since then. I thought maybe I was a junior. Then I thought I was at the wrong company. Then I told him maybe I was working in the role or programming stack?. But that's not it, I like writing code, I like refactoring code, I like debugging code but I don't like that it'd be held as a knife to my throat every day forever. At my…

10+ years for me. It wasnt like this when I started

tts just isn't there yet
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