“Code was never the hard part” is an insult to all programmers • Hacker News Board

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

#411

Post by bramadityaw » Sun, Aug 09, 2026, 4:21 AM UTC

zero_shift wrote: post #264

ivanjermakov wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm yet to work on an enterprise project where programming is beyond simple validation, simple SQL, simple sheduling, simple mapping, simple error handling. Might be more about web backend than the whole field, but the challenge always comes from formulating requirements in a rigid form with all edge cases considered. This might be the reason why many personal projects are so technical and impressive - it's the itch…

It depends what you mean by enterprise project? If you just mean a large company, I would say they do exist - though it may take some looking for them. You can find them in companies that have to deal with "real" things (hardware, factories, production lines), or where there is an interest in taking advantage of emerging technology (advertising, e-commerce) I would call my current project relatively systems-level too…

> ...it's better to be a goat than a cow.

That's the first time I've heard that idiom. What does it mean?

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

#412

Post by hakunin » Sun, Aug 09, 2026, 4:23 AM UTC

pessimizer wrote: post #407

hakunin wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get what you're trying to say, but coding is hard. A significant percentage of children struggle with it from the very beginning, unable to reason in a very specific way, read and understand errors, trace incredibly detailed logic, gain mental model of memory and state, etc. According to these[1] sources[2] computer science has the highest college drop out rates: ~10.7%. I worry that "code was never hard" is going…

> I worry that "code was never hard" is going to become a misleading truism for business leaders. The fact that children cannot do it does not mean that it is particularly hard, and computer science attracts a lot of people who just like video games and have no mathematical ability. I think that the fact that programmers were/are doing a lot of the job that other positions take credit for is significant. Others can g…

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

#413

Post by nunez » Sun, Aug 09, 2026, 4:30 AM UTC

agentultra wrote: post #336

ip26 wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s getting everyone to understand the problems, working together (etc)… There are manuals for this too, and interestingly enough this has been studied since the Romans at least! Is it then really the hard part?

Apparently it is. Modern companies seem to prefer dysfunction over anything else. I have been trying to understand why for my whole career.

Competing incentives and the natural result of dealing with lots of people mostly

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

#414

Post by nunez » Sun, Aug 09, 2026, 4:36 AM UTC

poisonfountain wrote: post #137

>If deciding what to build is the hard part, why aren't market researchers, usability experts and—hell, customer success—considered rockstars in a software company? If “understanding the customer” is harder, why are business analysts looked down on as pencil pushers? Because they're not the ones deciding it, they just provide input for the Heads/VPs/managers who make the strategic decisions. And they are paid pretty…

Customer Success definitely doesn't get compensated what they're worth.

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

#415

Post by tunesmith » Sun, Aug 09, 2026, 4:51 AM UTC

All of our developers are now using agents. We're not hand-writing code at all anymore. And yet, some of our developers deliver stories in an hour, others deliver similar complexity stories in a week. Executives are surprised to discover they cannot simply turn over a product-authored jira story and have it yield a single agent-written PR. There is still significant work that happens between the point at which a story is written, and the point at which correct prompts are input that generate the code that fits the requirements. Very significant work. I think that when people say "code was never the hard part", they're only guilty of eliding the point that "code was never the only part" or "the hardest part", and that there's so much other stuff that programmers do at various levels of competency, and that... perhaps up to now it was easy for product folks and execs gloss over since they just put us all in one bucket of "people that write code".

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

#416

Post by nesarkvechnep » Sun, Aug 09, 2026, 4:53 AM UTC

I currently work on a glorified admin panel. The code should be the easy part. Unfortunately, the codebase is absolute trash. The code and the requirements are hard. My colleagues which drove the codebase to this miserable state think they’re developer extraordinaires. They don’t see the problems, at all. I can’t change anything and if I ask to be put on a different project I might be fired.

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

#417

Post by ochronus » Sun, Aug 09, 2026, 4:56 AM UTC

The author is conflating coding with other parts of the sw engineer role.

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

#418

Post by Tallain » Sun, Aug 09, 2026, 5:02 AM UTC

buran77 wrote: post #332

blub wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No they can’t do everything before writing a line of code. The design and requirements feed into the code and vice-versa over and over through the lifecycle of a piece of software. Some architecture work and design will be done beforehand, but many details will fall into place as the code is being written, thrown away, adapted, etc. The idea that code is mere transcription - which I see a lot in these AI discussions…

> but many details Which part of my list was just "a detail" to be dealt with at some point in the lifecycle (but only if you're not too busy shipping features) for you? You're laying bricks before knowing if the wall's supposed to be concrete. > Code is a form of low-level design and is where the rubber hits the road. Sure but in keeping with your analogy tires are fungible across most cars and it takes minutes to c…

In my experience, the parent's view and your view are an example of the divide between the Silicon Valley / startup mindset -- it doesn't need to last, it just needs to get us a paycheck so we can go on to the next paycheck -- and actual software engineering where people build resilient systems meant for humans to use for a long time.

There's a conflation too that to approach things with this level of thought and care requires waterfall design (it doesn't), so people shrug it off or resist because if you want to think carefully and design thoughtfully you can't also Move Fast and Break Things.

Ironically, we all complain about enshittification.

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

#419

Post by nbardy » Sun, Aug 09, 2026, 5:11 AM UTC

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…

yea, a lot of my prior work was in the "code is the easy part" I was a frontend engineer for years. And something like 90% of my job the code was not the hard part.

I loved writing GPU shaders or optimizing visualization performance, but most of the time it was wiring up netcode to UI elements that exist.

Ironically as I've moved into focusing on more GPU and kernel programming AI is now lapping me there anyway, however the impact of knowing what sort of algorithsm are state of the art in papers, what is causing memory bandwidth issues etc... does a lot to drive the machine.

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

#420

Post by nurettin » Sun, Aug 09, 2026, 5:12 AM UTC

I mean, yeah, we are pretty trash without years of domain knowledge. But programmers do have a large domain. Some are experts at a/v, some security/networking, some like to make games/demos. These domains were highly accessible to us and still are. It's not like we solved coding exercises all day when we weren't leasing our souls to companies.