5 ms·

Copy-and-paste is bad, I agree, but on the other hand, I hate it. And by 'it' I mean all of it. I have never seen a large system that could, for more than a m

Copy-and-paste is bad, I agree, but on the other hand, I hate it. And by 'it' I mean all of it. I have never seen a large system that could, for more than a moment in time, be seen as anything else than elephantiasis. It's shameful and I'm sick of it. I want out. Right now, I'm paid quite well as a contractor to make some enhancements to a project developed by a hundred underpaid developers in a distant land, who did a remarkable job, considering. But it's rat's nest -- they didn't stand a chance. And I can't look myself in the mirror anymore and say this is what I do. It's grotesque. I'd rather run a coffee shop (and indeed I've been talking about it) because at least I could go home at the end of the day having seen a little beauty here and there, instead spending all day staring into the face of the Elephant Man.

0x12 15y ago
Beware, you're getting scarily close to burn-out territory if I interpret you right.
- david927 15y ago
  Thanks for your concern but I'm not sure it's burnout. It's waking up. Here's my process: 1) Sure it's ugly, but look at what it can do! 2) Ok, it's ugly, but with good practices, good people, good management, you can ameliorate the worst of it. 3) Fuck it. I've decided that this is my last contract. I have a project called Kayia, and my wife has a site called Kongoroo. I'll continue to work on those but otherwise that's it. If I'm not coding in Kayia, I'm not coding.
  - gruseom 15y ago
    I completely understand your #3. We keep making excuses and rationalizing, for years and years, the fact that the overwhelming majority of software projects are fucked. It doesn't sound like burnout to me either. I went through something similar. The solution was to admit that I had taken a wrong turn in my programming career, and commit to working only on things I believe in. It was either that or get out of the software business altogether.
    - david927 15y ago
      Thanks for understanding. I really appreciate it.
MortenK 15y ago
A couple of Wiki entries written by programmers, you might enjoy: http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?BurnOut http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?BurnOut http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?GetaLife http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?GetaLife http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?JustLeave http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?JustLeave I recently stumbled on them. Especially the second one has some entries that are very inspiring if you are feeling burned out / largely incontent with programming.
- david927 15y ago
  Thanks, I appreciate the sentiment. I think it's more like this: imagine you are a house builder in a place where they make houses out of plastic spoons and masking tape. You make a great living out of building these houses, but it just doesn't feel professional, and finally you quit just because it seemed too much of a farce to continue anymore. It's not just where I'm working, etc. -- it's all based on C. It's all a farce. (And don't mention Lisp, which is an idiot savant. Sure it can count the matches on the floor, but you can't introduce it to anyone.)
  - loup-vaillant 15y ago
    OMeta: http://www.tinlizzie.org/ometa-js/#Lambda_Calculus http://www.tinlizzie.org/ometa-js/#Lambda_Calculus This one, you may be able to introduce to people (of course, OMeta by itself isn't enough: the DSLs you could write with it however…).
    - david927 15y ago
      Thanks for that, and I feel horrible with my cheap shot, just hours before the legend himself passed. Lisp is brilliant and has been one of the very few lights we've had to guide us. My heart breaks at the news of John's passing.
  - gruseom 15y ago
    Language is clearly not the whole solution, only part of it. The greater part is, I suspect, psychological and social. We have yet to come to terms with the relationship between software development and how humans function. Given that code is written by humans for humans, that's a fatal omission. Yes, there have been attempts to talk about this (Weinberg, Peter Naur, the better parts of agile) but they're the tip of an iceberg. (p.s. Edited for brevity. I always do that and never bother saying it, but in this case there was a concurrency conflict because someone downvoted the bloated version. Mea culpa.)

0x12 15y ago

Beware, you're getting scarily close to burn-out territory if I interpret you right.

david927 15y ago
Thanks for your concern but I'm not sure it's burnout. It's waking up. Here's my process: 1) Sure it's ugly, but look at what it can do! 2) Ok, it's ugly, but with good practices, good people, good management, you can ameliorate the worst of it. 3) Fuck it. I've decided that this is my last contract. I have a project called Kayia, and my wife has a site called Kongoroo. I'll continue to work on those but otherwise that's it. If I'm not coding in Kayia, I'm not coding.
- gruseom 15y ago
  I completely understand your #3. We keep making excuses and rationalizing, for years and years, the fact that the overwhelming majority of software projects are fucked. It doesn't sound like burnout to me either. I went through something similar. The solution was to admit that I had taken a wrong turn in my programming career, and commit to working only on things I believe in. It was either that or get out of the software business altogether.
  - david927 15y ago
    Thanks for understanding. I really appreciate it.

MortenK 15y ago

A couple of Wiki entries written by programmers, you might enjoy: http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?BurnOut http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?BurnOut http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?GetaLife http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?GetaLife http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?JustLeave http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?JustLeave I recently stumbled on them. Especially the second one has some entries that are very inspiring if you are feeling burned out / largely incontent with programming.

david927 15y ago
Thanks, I appreciate the sentiment. I think it's more like this: imagine you are a house builder in a place where they make houses out of plastic spoons and masking tape. You make a great living out of building these houses, but it just doesn't feel professional, and finally you quit just because it seemed too much of a farce to continue anymore. It's not just where I'm working, etc. -- it's all based on C. It's all a farce. (And don't mention Lisp, which is an idiot savant. Sure it can count the matches on the floor, but you can't introduce it to anyone.)
- loup-vaillant 15y ago
  OMeta: http://www.tinlizzie.org/ometa-js/#Lambda_Calculus http://www.tinlizzie.org/ometa-js/#Lambda_Calculus This one, you may be able to introduce to people (of course, OMeta by itself isn't enough: the DSLs you could write with it however…).
  - david927 15y ago
    Thanks for that, and I feel horrible with my cheap shot, just hours before the legend himself passed. Lisp is brilliant and has been one of the very few lights we've had to guide us. My heart breaks at the news of John's passing.
- gruseom 15y ago
  Language is clearly not the whole solution, only part of it. The greater part is, I suspect, psychological and social. We have yet to come to terms with the relationship between software development and how humans function. Given that code is written by humans for humans, that's a fatal omission. Yes, there have been attempts to talk about this (Weinberg, Peter Naur, the better parts of agile) but they're the tip of an iceberg. (p.s. Edited for brevity. I always do that and never bother saying it, but in this case there was a concurrency conflict because someone downvoted the bloated version. Mea culpa.)