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What's the big deal with startups anyways... 1. I write software: business applications. I love what I do. I love getting something to work right the first

by edw519 16y ago

What's the big deal with startups anyways... 1. I write software: business applications. I love what I do. I love getting something to work right the first time. I love seeing people use the software I wrote to do their jobs and run their businesses. I can't imagine doing anything else. 2. The software I have inherited in all 88 companies I have worked at has sucked. I mean really sucked. Nothing to be proud of. Nothing to want to work on. I think it's because business software is now where medicine was 100 years ago. So I have a choice. Work on other people's crap or write my own. I have done both, but I have to write my own to be happy in this industry. If I could only work on other people's software, I think I'd rather work in a grocery store. Starting a software business is the most direct way to do what I really want to do. I realize that other people have different reasons; this is just one answer to your question.

petervandijck 16y ago
88, really?
- TheSOB88 16y ago
  Consultant?
bendmorris 16y ago
Other peoples' software will always be "crap" while software you wrote yourself will seem better. Joel Spolsky: "There's a subtle reason that programmers always want to throw away the code and start over. The reason is that they think the old code is a mess. And here is the interesting observation: they are probably wrong. The reason that they think the old code is a mess is because of a cardinal, fundamental law of programming: It’s harder to read code than to write it." http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html (I do understand, though, that some software may legitimately be crap.)
- thyrsusmaximon 16y ago
  Bendmorris, Great response. Kudos!!
- mmelin 16y ago
  That's true, of course, but not really relevant to this discussion. Even if your own code is crap, you're happy to work on it because it is your code. I think a large part of this, for me anyway, is that I have no one but myself to blame for the state of the code and so: 1) I have internalized all the reasons for why it looks the way it does and 2) I can't fall into the trap of blaming everything that's wrong on an external party.
- saurabh 16y ago
  Have you noticed that their stuff is shit and your shit is stuff? - George Carlin If you have some free time, do watch this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvgN5gCuLac http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvgN5gCuLac
- pjscott 16y ago
  Really? I see quite a bit of good code from other people. My dissatisfaction with it comes from shear stress when I try to use it from my own software; my expectations of what the code should do are usually subtly different from what the original author intended.
- lucisferre 16y ago
  I think Joel (as he often does) has oversimplified this massively. If you are a really good developer then the majority of 'other peoples' code will seem to be crap, likely because it is. It is a minority of coders who really and truly care about how they build software and an even smaller group of those who know how. Crap software happens because most people don't care about how to write software. It would be like people publishing novels with only a cursory knowledge of the language (and style) they are writing with (not that this doesn't happen cough twilight cough).
RealGeek 16y ago
Do you change job every week?
- weaksauce 16y ago
  He is a regular HN poster. From what I gather of him is that he has been doing this for a while now. He is also a consultant which means that you are allowed to have multiple customers at the same time in various stages of development. If he is focusing his efforts in jobs that are similar he is able to reuse some of the utility routines and design patterns that he has accumulated over the years. I see 88 as a perfectly fair number.

by edw519 16y ago

petervandijck 16y ago

88, really?

TheSOB88 16y ago
Consultant?

bendmorris 16y ago

Other peoples' software will always be "crap" while software you wrote yourself will seem better. Joel Spolsky: "There's a subtle reason that programmers always want to throw away the code and start over. The reason is that they think the old code is a mess. And here is the interesting observation: they are probably wrong. The reason that they think the old code is a mess is because of a cardinal, fundamental law of programming: It’s harder to read code than to write it." http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html (I do understand, though, that some software may legitimately be crap.)

thyrsusmaximon 16y ago
Bendmorris, Great response. Kudos!!
mmelin 16y ago
That's true, of course, but not really relevant to this discussion. Even if your own code is crap, you're happy to work on it because it is your code. I think a large part of this, for me anyway, is that I have no one but myself to blame for the state of the code and so: 1) I have internalized all the reasons for why it looks the way it does and 2) I can't fall into the trap of blaming everything that's wrong on an external party.
saurabh 16y ago
Have you noticed that their stuff is shit and your shit is stuff? - George Carlin If you have some free time, do watch this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvgN5gCuLac http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvgN5gCuLac
pjscott 16y ago
Really? I see quite a bit of good code from other people. My dissatisfaction with it comes from shear stress when I try to use it from my own software; my expectations of what the code should do are usually subtly different from what the original author intended.
lucisferre 16y ago
I think Joel (as he often does) has oversimplified this massively. If you are a really good developer then the majority of 'other peoples' code will seem to be crap, likely because it is. It is a minority of coders who really and truly care about how they build software and an even smaller group of those who know how. Crap software happens because most people don't care about how to write software. It would be like people publishing novels with only a cursory knowledge of the language (and style) they are writing with (not that this doesn't happen cough twilight cough).

RealGeek 16y ago

Do you change job every week?

weaksauce 16y ago
He is a regular HN poster. From what I gather of him is that he has been doing this for a while now. He is also a consultant which means that you are allowed to have multiple customers at the same time in various stages of development. If he is focusing his efforts in jobs that are similar he is able to reuse some of the utility routines and design patterns that he has accumulated over the years. I see 88 as a perfectly fair number.