Woodworking as an escape from the absurdity of software • Hacker News Board

Re: Woodworking as an escape from the absurdity of software

#441

Post by bumby » Fri, May 03, 2024, 9:05 PM UTC

ravenstine wrote: post #52

sukruh wrote: post #35

Most of the people I know who pursue creative/crafting hobbies alongside a software development job have chosen to work for well-known big companies, for prestige and safety, and ended up unfulfilled in their jobs. Most big companies are not good if you want to solve problems and build stuff. Especially "the enterprise", where software is seen as a cost center so the less of it the better. The effort of managing up e…

At a level or two down from the abstraction of company size, crafting hobbies are also a reprieve from the tyranny of linters. So many programmers today believe that code is always better when it all looks identical. Consistency is a good thing, but not when it's expected to be absolute. Programming should actually allow for creativity, and where you decide to add spaces and newlines can actually add subtle but impor…

It seems like you're making a distinction between types of work.

For hobby or artisanal pursuits, homogeneity isn't the goal. Often the uniqueness is a feature. But for mass production or large coordinated efforts, uniqueness is a bug. You don't want your car to be manufactured by someone who just felt like a 3mm panel gap felt more right than the 4mm gap the specs called for. Standardization makes coordination easier and that's why some products are better when they are homogenous while others are better when they're allowed to be "creative."

Re: Woodworking as an escape from the absurdity of software

#442

Post by mlsu » Fri, May 03, 2024, 9:11 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #427

mlsu wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These conversations where highly paid software people complain about insanely minor things (the code linter is the worst part of your job??) are actually kind of nice to read, in a funny way. The privilege of having pixels be the most stressful part of your life... it's actually really nice to read that. Having perspective from hardship is good, and everyone will have at least some perspective at some point in their…

Yea, that linter thread was wild! Sometimes I think we are totally pampered and out of touch! I've cleaned McDonalds bathrooms, worked in a plastics factory where the chemical stench left my nose nonfunctional for weeks, hauled heavy sacks of shingles up onto a roof in 100+F degree summer temperatures. I am utterly grateful and consider it a lucky privilege to now be typing into a computer in a climate controlled off…

Yeah. Amazing, isn't it?

I will say: I don't necessarily like to say "lucky," or even "privileged". Luck incites tricky emotion because there's an implication with luck that you didn't deserve it. A gambler who won at the slot machine should have lost his money -- luck carries that "should have" connotation with it. Likewise, privilege carries a zero-sum connotation, because we always mean someone is privileged in relation to another, which introduces almost an adversarial tone to it.

For me, a better term is fortunate. I am fortunate that I have a job in a nice office, solving interesting puzzles all day, getting paid (relatively) a lot of money doing it. Fortune has come upon me. I work hard, although not really harder than any other reasonable person. I was born in the right zip code, to the right family, had access to an amazing education, had the stability in my life to pursue it. Fortune.

I will never look down on anyone who is fortunate. I wish most people could have fortune in their lives. If the price we pay is a few complaints that the soda machine is down today, so be it!

Re: Woodworking as an escape from the absurdity of software

#443

Post by randomdata » Fri, May 03, 2024, 9:16 PM UTC

ravenstine wrote: post #222

digging wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Code is not art, it's instructions. I'll slightly disagree here because code needs to be read by a computer and by your human teammates. There are times when I'm frustrated because prettier is making a necessary but unintuitive choice and causing my code to become harder to read. But those are rare, and I would never trade them for the guarantee of readable code the other >99% of the time.

Yes, this is fundamentally where I disagree with the person you're responding to and what seems like most programmers (or perhaps mostly web developers). If code is just instructions, it would look barely comprehensible to [most] programmers. Again, maybe I came off as more extreme than I actually am, because I think that consistent formatting is a very good thing most of the time, but that last 5-10% that programmer…

Programmers don't love errors. In fact, we see time and time again that even just seeing the word "error" causes programmers to forget how to program. It's their kryptonite.

But they don't see value in warnings. Either you have a problem that needs to be fixed or you don't.

Re: Woodworking as an escape from the absurdity of software

#444

Post by jdashg » Fri, May 03, 2024, 9:19 PM UTC

thunky wrote: post #165

ravenstine wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I'm not articulating my point very well. I absolutely agree that consistency, in principle, is usually a very good thing. My objection is to the idea that it's always a good thing, which it's not. Treating code formatting as rules rather than suggestions, in my experience, is a waste of time and unnecessarily tyrannical. In terms of mere code formatting, I don't buy that there's a meaningful difference between…

> My objection is to the idea that it's always a good thing If everyone doesn't follow the standards all the time then there are no standards. Code is not art, it's instructions. If you can't write instructions without adding your own avant garde whitespace brush strokes to it then yes coding for a professional company may not be your jam.

This is binary thinking and loses important nuance.

Re: Woodworking as an escape from the absurdity of software

#445

Post by GuB-42 » Fri, May 03, 2024, 9:24 PM UTC

_huayra_ wrote: post #285

colecut wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you inherited woodworking tools from your grandfather, I'm assuming that either your grandfather or father taught you some woodworking skills? I grew up on the computer since I was a preteen. My dad moved 2000 miles away when I was 11. Every job I've ever had since I was 14 was web/software related and I am nearly 39. I feel like I have no practical skills outside of computers and the idea of building things with…

I've always recommended hobbies that meet the following criteria 1. Don't require you to interact with screens 2. Require your full attention (e.g. if you were listening to a podcast while doing it, you wouldn't remember a single thing they were talking about) 3. Has a social aspect, but is also possible to do on your own 4. Preferably physical 5. Preferably has some level of "controllable danger/risk", e.g. mountain…

I fly light aircraft and that's exactly what I think.

One thing I may add is commitment and responsibility, as in, if you are careless, people may die, including yourself. In most software work, with all these tests and reviews and backups, you don't have that, for very good reasons, but it kind of feels like what you are doing is inconsequential.

Re: Woodworking as an escape from the absurdity of software

#446

Post by chasd00 » Fri, May 03, 2024, 9:27 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #427

mlsu wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These conversations where highly paid software people complain about insanely minor things (the code linter is the worst part of your job??) are actually kind of nice to read, in a funny way. The privilege of having pixels be the most stressful part of your life... it's actually really nice to read that. Having perspective from hardship is good, and everyone will have at least some perspective at some point in their…

Yea, that linter thread was wild! Sometimes I think we are totally pampered and out of touch! I've cleaned McDonalds bathrooms, worked in a plastics factory where the chemical stench left my nose nonfunctional for weeks, hauled heavy sacks of shingles up onto a roof in 100+F degree summer temperatures. I am utterly grateful and consider it a lucky privilege to now be typing into a computer in a climate controlled off…

I don't mean to pile on but i feel the same when software devs here talk about how becoming a farmer is their salvation from their workplace suffering. As a kid I remember watching my cousin lie on his back with a stick welder underneath a horse trailer in 105F Texas summer heat. No thanks, i'll stick with my coffee, desk, and computer.

edit: different strokes for different folks, i don't want to sound too presumptuous. For some people what i described is exactly what would bring them joy.

Re: Woodworking as an escape from the absurdity of software

#447

Post by enraged_camel » Fri, May 03, 2024, 9:30 PM UTC

ravenstine wrote: post #52

sukruh wrote: post #35

Most of the people I know who pursue creative/crafting hobbies alongside a software development job have chosen to work for well-known big companies, for prestige and safety, and ended up unfulfilled in their jobs. Most big companies are not good if you want to solve problems and build stuff. Especially "the enterprise", where software is seen as a cost center so the less of it the better. The effort of managing up e…

At a level or two down from the abstraction of company size, crafting hobbies are also a reprieve from the tyranny of linters. So many programmers today believe that code is always better when it all looks identical. Consistency is a good thing, but not when it's expected to be absolute. Programming should actually allow for creativity, and where you decide to add spaces and newlines can actually add subtle but impor…

>> With woodworking, you can just do the thing. OK, I don't do woodworking myself, but both of my parents do, and I know that they don't spend their time bikeshedding or homogenizing their work.

This is why woodworking is actually a poor analogy for software development. A better analogy is carpentry. And when it comes to carpentry, it is much more important to ensure whatever you're building is extensible or follow certain specs. The cabinets you make, for example, need to fit into a certain space under or over the counter, and need to be homogenous to a large extent.

Re: Woodworking as an escape from the absurdity of software

#448

Post by Implicated » Fri, May 03, 2024, 9:35 PM UTC

jimbokun wrote: post #284

WillAdams wrote: post #138

Interestingly, Glenn Reid also escaped from making software (Touchtype.app, PasteUp.app, wrote "The Green Book", _PostScript Language Program Design_) to making dovetail joined furniture by hand. That said, I've always described the "Maker" movement as "Geeks who missed shop class", and have argued that the world would be a better place if the Sloyd system of woodworking as a basic constituent of education was preval…

Isn't it more Geeks who enjoyed shop class, but went into software because it paid more? (I'm the Geek who hated shop class, and thank my locking stars I can make a living writing software, decades later.)

I took the Cisco networking electives, being the geek I was. I slept through 90% of it, it was such a terrible experience. Ironically, there was a very popular shop class where effectively the entire student population knew who the shop teacher was and I chose to take the networking because I didn't have any interest in shop.

Now I have a garage full of woodworking equipment (and wood), spend my leisure time watching youtube and building things.. sometimes I wonder if I would have ever made it to software professionally had I taken that shop class. Might have ended up making cabinets :D

Re: Woodworking as an escape from the absurdity of software

#449

Post by 9dev » Fri, May 03, 2024, 9:45 PM UTC

hinkley wrote: post #300

9dev wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you’re romanticising woodworking a bit here. A large saw is specifically built to allow doing a single, precise cut, in exactly the same way, over and over again. The tools are absolutely made to prevent you from messing up the various ways, it’s just that you don’t use the professionals tools at home. And indeed that’s something I’d apply to software: both hobbyists and small companies are tempted to use pro…

Highly compensated people doing manual labor for fun are romanticizing woodworking. Full stop. Trying to de-romanticize it means you have absolutely no idea what motivates most of us. Signed, someone with restored antique Stanley wood planes, Japanese saws and who drools over Lee Valley product reviews.

That’s kind of missing the point here (I actually do enjoy woodworking as a hobby! :)

OP complained about all the strict rules software engineers have to abide by, while woodworkers get to have all the fun with sharp tools, nobody telling them how to use them, and generally freedom at how they do stuff. But that’s precisely the perspective of a highly compensated person doing manual labor for fun, not the one of a professional woodworker. It’s like someone cooking fancy once or twice per week saying chefs have such a great job because they get to dice the onion the way they like. Ask any professional chef how well that works.

Something you do as a hobby will always seem more fulfilling, because it’s a hobby. Anyone doing it professionally very likely also has strict rules to follow, you just don’t know about them - because you’re not a pro.

Re: Woodworking as an escape from the absurdity of software

#450

Post by thunky » Fri, May 03, 2024, 9:46 PM UTC

digging wrote: post #208

thunky wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My objection is to the idea that it's always a good thing If everyone doesn't follow the standards all the time then there are no standards. Code is not art, it's instructions. If you can't write instructions without adding your own avant garde whitespace brush strokes to it then yes coding for a professional company may not be your jam.

> Code is not art, it's instructions. I'll slightly disagree here because code needs to be read by a computer and by your human teammates. There are times when I'm frustrated because prettier is making a necessary but unintuitive choice and causing my code to become harder to read. But those are rare, and I would never trade them for the guarantee of readable code the other >99% of the time.

> I'll slightly disagree here because code needs to be read by a computer and by your human teammates.

I still don't think that makes it art and this is why: art can't be simplified. Code can.

Take that to it's extreme and you see that code can be simplified down to nothing without anything being destroyed. Art can't.

Maybe you could say that the act of programming (or simplifying) is an artform, but that's not what we're talking about here.

We're talking about the product of that process, which is just instructions to accomplish a task.