Programming as a career

^^ thank you

I think software/systems architect is a fine title, even if my actual designs-buildings-and-structures friend recoils in disgust. I hate when people introduce themselves as "architects" without the qualifier.

Now, the part of the business where people use "architect" as a verb... not so good.

I do enjoy the critical thinking parts of my mind that were unlocked by learning CS theory and programming over a period of time, but it really chafes me to see software developers think that they're able to solve non-software societal problems with that toolkit

― a strange man (mh), Monday, June 9, 2014 5:09 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

they probably also think they can throw together that application in a matter of a few days

programmers are horrible estimators

working with computers makes people feel very powerful because computers are powerful

bring back punch cards

ya, it's just funny because in canada you're not really allowed to use "software engineer", because, well, you're not an engineer. but in the states, it's quite common

I feel like 'engineer' is fair

you are designing and building something more abstract, but you are still designing and building something

I should be a software architect because I have all the artistic pretensions that building architects have

interesting how engineer and developer have become prominent as the job has become less about programing

you should be an engineering software architect or an architecture software engineer.

my dad once purchased landscaping software from a barnes & noble. i sometimes think about the people who developed that software.

i dunno, engineering would imply a discipline that's way more predictable than software. there's no ISO manual you can check that tells you the number of tests you need per 1,000 lines of java.

They might as well claim to be 'magicians of our modern age' and finish the job.

pretty sure metrics for unit test coverage in large companies are getting there

Yeah but are they as useful as "minimum cross-section for structs on suspension bridge given expected load" etc etc, I mean physical engineers actually know things

Programmers - the next job to become demand-weakened by too many people who enjoy it ad thus do it for free

That will never happen, I don't believe there are enough psychos out there who also love programming that'll fit the demand

as a cs student, I'm really not feeling the hyperactive "hackathon/build a startup in a day/be the next zuckerberg" horseshit mentality that i fear dominates. I mean, it's obvious that I'm doing this in order to get a job, why do i have to care about forming a startup

it's difficult, because you do need to keep up on new technologies and development practices, but to do so you end up viewing/reading/attending material that has an overlap with people who are WE ALL MUST MAKE NEW BUSINESSES and it's irritating

I guess the larger tech-oriented gatherings don't have that problem, but then you're at Microsoft's Build conference or JavaOne or whatever the fuck people go to these days

Every year my dad never fails to ask me to go to this one Oracle conference with him

on the bright side, the huge corporate ones usually have really cheesy entertainment

I think I went to one yeeeears ago with Mini Kiss, Battlebots, and a Rolling Stones cover band.

Silicon Valley Techno-Utopianism

programmers are horrible estimators

Guilty as charged.

Can I still charge by the hour though?

^Just call yourself a consultant instead of a freelancer and you should be good

Every year my dad never fails to ask me to go to this one Oracle conference with him

programming as a carer

Being a programmer means being the smartest guy in the room while taking requirements from the dumbest guy in the room.

If I had to do it all again...I wouldn't.

Can we swap careers? Because I can tell you that doing IT support for 15 years has sucked way more than I imagine being a programmer would have.

xp the zuck is definitely portrayed as an asshole in The Social Network, but his attitude toward those twins was basically otm and well aligned with your feelings I am guessing.

Programmers are the magicians of the modern age

― calstars, Sunday, June 8, 2014 2:36 PM

I wish I had have given up on both attempts at programming and IT careers long before they happened

On my desk at work I have five (count 'em) Blackberrys rebuilding while I curse the chimps who made BES.

I wish I had have given up on both attempts at programming and IT careers long before they happened

otm

i'd love to know what i was doing now in the alternate universe where i never thought "spending every evening staring at the computer" was in any way sufficient grounding for an attempted (flunked) CS degree or IT career

I'm going to be doing a lot less programming per se, after finally having mastered Windows desktop app development (after yeeeears of mostly-backend web development and deployment) I have accepted a position as an enterprise service bus developer. So I'll be connecting services and defining queues and working with project teams to determine how to hook their projects up to the ecosystem.

fwiw I don't think I've ever felt a business client was dumb, although moments where they might not understand the concepts they're asking for me to implement has definitely happened

I wish all the luck to anyone having a rough time of it with their job, though!

hi guys

do u mind not bumping this thread the week I go back to 14 hr days studying evenings in computer science PS yr new job sounds boss mh

computer science is awesome and is not just programming so you are good

feel like programming is better than it used to be. wish we'd had unit tests and code reviews when i was a programmer, i wouldn't have sucked so bad.

my coworker is annoyed because I get to move back to a cubicle from our team cave and will no longer be on a scrum team

actually I'm taking the cube he had before we moved in here. muahaha

friend just moved to california because he was hired by facebook.

said friend, for as long as i've known him, used to have socialist and even some anarchist tendencies, used only debian, hated microsoft, loved open source, liked kernel programming, turned down a job at google, and was just generally super geeky.

i guess this is what fatherhood does to a man?

yup, makes you sell out and suck

feel like if u guys h8 programming so much u shd at least move to ca and make bank

nah i just dropped out of college instead and had a miserable life instead

*cutcutcut*

xp one could conceivably end up in san jose or something. is it worth the risk?

no one can make u go to san jose if u dont want to

he definitely wanted to. i'm happy for him

generally the way we do it, tdd, one person writes unit tests for the new feature, the other one implements it. swap. repeat to fade. yeah, normally sat side by side but now we are remote it's done via teams or slack or, in this case, neither.

i have other things to do but given you don't know whether they're going to get back to you in 5 minutes or 5 hours it's hard to know whether to start on those.

as for leaving at the end of the day without saying anything, that's just rude

Yeah, totally agreed.

I haven't pair programmed in eons but the other bonus of it is that you have two people familiar with the code

That is funny...I recall shops mandating (but more commonly just encouraging) pair programming 15-20 yrs ago, but I have not seen this recently. We don't do it commonly at my very large shop.

For me, I find the social engagement and requirement to articulate why I am doing each small action just too distracting. Explaining it in chunks is easier.

If pair programming was as incredibly helpful as some believed, we would all be doing it. It's time has passed.

I think it's a nice method to have in your repertoire but forcing it seldom works. second pair of eyes, etc. when trying to figure out why something isn't working right is good

half the time I think you could do the rubber duck thing instead, though

today's standup, the end of which was meant to be us changing pairs, finished with the words 'fuck it. fucking sort it out yourselves'.

all i do anymore is instruct agents