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I no longer build software

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Re: I no longer build software

#591
post #476
post #472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Like I said, “getting directions” used to be a service. Specifically, back then—and still today, in many places!—you’d be expected to retain the services of a guide when you were in a foreign city/country. Who would often double as your translator, and potentially as your driver as well. So previously, travel to foreign destinations was something few could afford, since it required sourcing and hiring a local guide…

Yes, correct. But that’s moving the goal-posts, kind of: “making something available to a wider audience” isn’t the same thing as making something possible . The original claim was that we’re now in a world where these things are possible . But really, we’re “merely” in a world where they’re more widely-available. They’ve been possible for a long time. What I wanted to highlight, was that technology making something…

The super rich framing isn't useful IMO, much of the advances in technology function to make things possible for people for whom that function was impossible for before.

> You could hail a cab in Ancient Greece!

Depends on who the "you" is. And choosing a super rich person as your point of reference is a pretty arbitrary choice (with underlying assumptions about society that are worth examining, I might add).

Re: I no longer build software

#592

I started doing similar changes because software became a shitshow. Corporate software shops are just a bunch of IT people trying to get their friend's products in use in the company for kickbacks. So what you have are multiple IT teams with more power than developers trying to tell everyone which tools they MUST use. Developers at the last place I worked had no access to production, could not deploy code at all, cou…

Say more. I think you're onto something here.

Re: I no longer build software

#593

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are right to say that the methods are vastly improved, but the ends to which those methods are applied have become ever more uninteresting (for a lot of people), and often morally suspect. We have built exquisite tools, but we use them to extract profit, to manipulate behaviour and often for no discernable purpose at all. Programming has become joyless. There are ever-shrinking spaces where a developer ge…

Unfortunately I agree with this. A great quote I saw a while ago: “The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads.” –Jeff Hammerbacher Every paying software job I've ever had was in some way involved getting people to click on ads. Either directly making a product where ad click rate is a measured metric, or products that helped people make products where clicking on ads was a metric.…

I'm going to take a wild guess that you are a web developer.

I'm a happy low level systems developer. I solve hard and interesting problems that have nothing to do with ads.

Re: I no longer build software

#594
post #204

Totally on board with not building software any more. In fact, at 55 this is my last week of it. For real. Basically, everything sucks more about building software nowadays more than I remember it sucking before, from the mere mechanics of navigating through an obscenely large pseudo-object-oriented codebase to the WRONG constructs/idioms people use to build distributed systems to the way software is packaged and dep…

Your first paragraph nails it completely. The entire software ecosystem is like having infinite layers of train crashes to fight through every day. The purpose of a lot of software is to make software, not to solve problems.

There's nothing stopping you from getting an FPGA board and rolling your own CPU, system, software stack from the ground. It's easier than ever before to walk in the footsteps of Woz or so if you like the idea.

Re: I no longer build software

#595

Totally on board with not building software any more. In fact, at 55 this is my last week of it. For real. Basically, everything sucks more about building software nowadays more than I remember it sucking before, from the mere mechanics of navigating through an obscenely large pseudo-object-oriented codebase to the WRONG constructs/idioms people use to build distributed systems to the way software is packaged and dep…

I am not so old, but I also remember a time when software development was much more enjoyable. The difference is that at the time software engineers had more autonomy to decide what to do. Nowadays everything seems to revolve around fads. If you're not into the latest fad or have some ideas that differ you'll suffer resistance all the way around: in the job, online, when doing hobby projects, etc. Even open source no…

Self-determination Theory predicts this. It’s my favorite theory on about intrinsic motivation.

Re: I no longer build software

#596

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a very specific meaning, like in terms of scaling maybe? But in terms of actually meaningful problems solved for end users... But there very nature large scale systems aren't very common, but everyone is chasing that unicorn startup which can serve 10 million users; so scalable APIs are more "practical" then simple workflows

Scalability seems overhyped. If you write small efficient systems they can handle a lot of work. If you use big clunky frameworks that convert simple things into map-reduce style problems of course you're going to care about scalability and how much your AWS bill is going to be.

I could not agree more.

In many technical interviews, they want to talk about "scalability", using fancy big data software for horizontal scalability etc

But I also know from experience that many, many of these problems would be more elegantly solved by more traditional tools like Postgres, especially since servers have gotten more powerful, the cloud service options more plentiful and reliable, and the software more optimized. The "scalable" approach can lead to massive amounts of wasted person hours unless you're sure you really need it. But if you say, "just use RDS or CloudSQL, or maybe BigQuery", you get perceived as a newb by the 24 year old who just got his MS doing Spark work on toy problems.

Re: I no longer build software

#597

Totally on board with not building software any more. In fact, at 55 this is my last week of it. For real. Basically, everything sucks more about building software nowadays more than I remember it sucking before, from the mere mechanics of navigating through an obscenely large pseudo-object-oriented codebase to the WRONG constructs/idioms people use to build distributed systems to the way software is packaged and dep…

I totally understand people who are burnt out on building commercial software. The incentives are often to create systems that work poorly for both users and are hard to work with for developers. It's a miracle when that's not true!

However if you're really burnt out, and still want to exercise your skill, take a break and give open source software a try! I'm still having fun building http://www.oilshell.org/ after many years.

If you're building it for yourself, open source software can be fun, and it should have the side effect of being useful to some others as well.

Re: I no longer build software

#598
I'm nearing 60 (decimal) and have spent a programming career in what we used to call supercomputing. I will spare you "old guy" stories, but I will share one insight: I've worked for companies who made money selling hardware, companies who made money selling advertising, and companies who made money selling software. It's always been the most fun working as a software guy at a company selling hardware to solve hard problems in the real world. If you're bored as a software person in a software or advertising company, consider being a software person elsewhere.

Re: I no longer build software

#600

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Add me to the woodworking ex-developers (...) I have a lot of time on my hands. Be careful with that table saw...

For those transitioning from programming to woodworking, if you don’t understand how to use your table saw, you’re not supposed to design and build your own table saw because you think you can build a better one.

This made me chuckle and then suddenly realizing that you caught me: often enough, this is how i(t) work(s) . E.g. "i don't understand (crypto) algorithm $XYZ, fuk it, i'll write my own crypto!"

*in not-so-serious side projects

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