5 ms·

I would say us old timers learn to be more picky about what we care about. It's a finite resource.

by dalore 8y ago

ghaff 8y ago
That's a great way of putting it. "Choose your battles" in other words. I look back and I can remember getting very wound up about some things that just didn't matter. And, today, I shake my head a little bit at people for whom every single little thing is something to man the barricades over.
- ryandrake 8y ago
  I remember a job as a junior programmer: typical 90’s era C++ Windows application. Compiling it with compiler defaults would spew out a continuous stream of thousands of warnings. This was before unit tests and static analysis were in vogue, so random crashes and errors everywhere. Major performance problems. I argued for code hygiene, fix all these crashes, figure out what’s behind the compiler warnings, etc. The response was predictable to anyone who’s been in software for a while: No, we actually need moar features! Keep spooning features into the software and we will succeed! One of my tasks was actually to write a separate process, a watchdog, that would detect every time the app crashed and re-start it quickly hoping the user didn’t notice. Totally demotivating if you were passionate about software craftsmanship. I started fantasizing that the company would crash and burn, and I would be standing there among the rubble saying, “See, I told you to fix those COMPILER WARNINGS!!” Never happened. The company simply limped along in this now-familiar “zombie mode” neither succeeding or failing until it was gobbled up by a bigger mediocre company.
  - imhoguy 8y ago
    > I started fantasizing that the company would crash and burn, and I would be standing there among the rubble... Have you had a part in writing Office Space [0] screenplay? It's Milton's wish. [0] https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0151804/ https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0151804/
ryandvm 8y ago
Bingo. As an "old timer", it's not that we don't care; we still love the craft as much as ever. It's just that we are at a point in our careers where we can afford to have a much lower tolerance for bullshit. Manager says "let's have a weekend pizza party hackathon!!!" and the old-timers are the first to recognize and decline the opportunity for unpaid overtime fixing bugs.
- fma 8y ago
  In my younger days (I'm only 35 lol) I used to want to apply for jobs that said junk like "fast paced environment". Now I'm like screw that... I mean every company wants you to work as hard as possible and turn things around...but now I feel the ones publish it want to put you through the ringer.
  - HillaryBriss 8y ago
    > "fast paced environment" yes. and, if I were to pursue a job with such a description, I'd have only myself to blame when the insane conditions started.
- collyw 8y ago
  As I said in another comment caring about producing good work is completely different about caring about every hyped up new trend that our industry comes up with (usually a rehash of something from 20 years ago).
- pvarangot 8y ago
  As a manager I never do nor support hackatons except when the team themselves suggest it's the only way... but when I myself have to code or fix or debug something that needs grind time I still enjoy them. If I'm not getting payed enough to put that hours is another issue to discuss with my manager besides the pizza hackatons themselves.
sparrish 8y ago
We've learned live is a marathon, not a dash. I'll churn out stable code; I'll deliver on reasonable deadlines; I'll do my darnedest to make the product the very best I can. But I'll do it at the pace of 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. I have a family and a life outside of your corporation that I truly value more than this, or any, job. I'm no rockstar. I build stuff that gets stuff done.

I would say us old timers learn to be more picky about what we care about. It's a finite resource.

by dalore 8y ago

I would say us old timers learn to be more picky about what we care about. It's a finite resource.

That's a great way of putting it. "Choose your battles" in other words. I look back and I can remember getting very wound up about some things that just didn't matter. And, today, I shake my head a little bit at people for whom every single little thing is something to man the barricades over.

ryandrake 8y ago
I remember a job as a junior programmer: typical 90’s era C++ Windows application. Compiling it with compiler defaults would spew out a continuous stream of thousands of warnings. This was before unit tests and static analysis were in vogue, so random crashes and errors everywhere. Major performance problems. I argued for code hygiene, fix all these crashes, figure out what’s behind the compiler warnings, etc. The response was predictable to anyone who’s been in software for a while: No, we actually need moar features! Keep spooning features into the software and we will succeed! One of my tasks was actually to write a separate process, a watchdog, that would detect every time the app crashed and re-start it quickly hoping the user didn’t notice. Totally demotivating if you were passionate about software craftsmanship. I started fantasizing that the company would crash and burn, and I would be standing there among the rubble saying, “See, I told you to fix those COMPILER WARNINGS!!” Never happened. The company simply limped along in this now-familiar “zombie mode” neither succeeding or failing until it was gobbled up by a bigger mediocre company.
- imhoguy 8y ago
  > I started fantasizing that the company would crash and burn, and I would be standing there among the rubble... Have you had a part in writing Office Space [0] screenplay? It's Milton's wish. [0] https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0151804/ https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0151804/

ryandvm 8y ago

Bingo. As an "old timer", it's not that we don't care; we still love the craft as much as ever. It's just that we are at a point in our careers where we can afford to have a much lower tolerance for bullshit. Manager says "let's have a weekend pizza party hackathon!!!" and the old-timers are the first to recognize and decline the opportunity for unpaid overtime fixing bugs.

fma 8y ago
In my younger days (I'm only 35 lol) I used to want to apply for jobs that said junk like "fast paced environment". Now I'm like screw that... I mean every company wants you to work as hard as possible and turn things around...but now I feel the ones publish it want to put you through the ringer.
- HillaryBriss 8y ago
  > "fast paced environment" yes. and, if I were to pursue a job with such a description, I'd have only myself to blame when the insane conditions started.
collyw 8y ago
As I said in another comment caring about producing good work is completely different about caring about every hyped up new trend that our industry comes up with (usually a rehash of something from 20 years ago).
pvarangot 8y ago
As a manager I never do nor support hackatons except when the team themselves suggest it's the only way... but when I myself have to code or fix or debug something that needs grind time I still enjoy them. If I'm not getting payed enough to put that hours is another issue to discuss with my manager besides the pizza hackatons themselves.

sparrish 8y ago

We've learned live is a marathon, not a dash. I'll churn out stable code; I'll deliver on reasonable deadlines; I'll do my darnedest to make the product the very best I can. But I'll do it at the pace of 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. I have a family and a life outside of your corporation that I truly value more than this, or any, job. I'm no rockstar. I build stuff that gets stuff done.