12 ms·

I used to be part of the silent majority of software developers but that changed after I became disillusioned about the direction of the industry. Nowadays, I'm

I used to be part of the silent majority of software developers but that changed after I became disillusioned about the direction of the industry. Nowadays, I'm basically forced to use certain inefficient tools in order to get a job because a bunch of highly vocal junior devs who got their way. It's a bit like in politics; when times are good for the majority, most normal people aren't interested in politics; they have better things to do; this apathy makes it easier for freaks to get power and start messing with things... Until it gets so bad that regular people start noticing and begrudgingly getting involved in politics.

specialist 4y ago
FWIW, every generation feels this way. Older me is now super embarrassed by my prior enthusiasm for object oriented programming and misc methodologies. I have very vivid memories of grey beards dismissing my naivety and me thinking "they just didn't get it." [0] If there's any kind of karma, today's noobs will live long enough to be mocked by even younger noobs. Small solace, I know. [0] I always remember criticisms. I've got the voice of doubt in the back of my head always wondering what I'm missing, what if they're right, etc. It's a serious bummer.
- wainstead 4y ago
  > I've got the voice of doubt in the back of my head always wondering what I'm missing, what if they're right, etc. It's a serious bummer. There's probably a saying somewhere along the lines of "There are two kinds of programmers: those who admit they get Imposter's Syndrome, and those who are too afraid to admit it." We all have those doubts. I've been in this since... what, 1994 professionally I suppose, and I still have doubts. It's totally normal. IS is not limited to software development either.
donatj 4y ago
I am regularly up at night in a cold sweat worrying about how if I suddenly needed to find a new job I’d have to learn some sort of front end JavaScript framework.
- pjerem 4y ago
  Could be worse. I am regularly up at night in a cold sweat worrying about how if I suddenly find a technically fulfilling job, realizing I forgot everything about computers after a decade on working on meaningless front end JavaScript framework.
  - Existenceblinks 4y ago
    Even worse when backend is javascript framework too. Welcome to isomorphic thingy (don't even know what that really means). SSR today only means nodejs server. No, not ruby, go, rust, python, php, elixir, it's javascript. Island architecture, partial hydration, and the latest backend js framework is "Zero JavaScript Runtime" wow. One language to rule them all pipe dream is not dead yet.
  - Aeolun 4y ago
    Yeah, that’s a thing. When you’ve been fighting React for some years your mental pathways for anything else are completely eroded.
  - quickthrower2 4y ago
    Where is the job where you get to work on compilers. If it is not React it is probably the glorious back end, making some graphql endpoints talk to mongodb or suchlike. Or devops, fight k8s!
    - bluGill 4y ago
      There are a few thousand compiler jobs in the world. Maybe in the tens of thousands, i'm not sure. For everyone of them there are thousands (again I don't know how to measure, could be in the ten thousands) of programmers using the compiler.
      - golergka 4y ago
        Feels pretty lined up to the amount of programmers who are skilled in writing compilers.
camgunz 4y ago
While I admit to enjoying some of the debate aerobics on HN, this is the prime reason I try and give my voice to some of the discussion here. I kind of view it similarly to voting: you have to make your opinions known. It's had the pleasant side effect of also educating me on quite a lot--mixing in with people with different experiences and values has enriched my life, so I think it's a win-win. I just try and be careful to not get too wound up: that's the failure case haha (I'm not saying constantly check your blood pressure while using HN, but I'm not not saying it).
- ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
  One of the [few] advantages of becoming a crusty old fart™, is that we tend to waste a lot less time, worrying about what others think of us, and just do what we need to do, to get the job done. I was just talking about this, to someone, yesterday. I'm often accused of being a "killjoy," or a "dreamkiller," by today's yutes. This is because I say 'orrible things, like "Have you considered what happens if..?" or "We tried that, a couple of years ago. It didn't work out, and here's why...". In actual point of fact, I'm exactly the opposite. It's my job to Make Things Happen. I plan to ship everything that I do, and my work is generally focused around the endless practicalities and compromises, necessary to get products out the door. This has often resulted in me being called every name in the book, as I try to avoid chasing shiny, and keep the eye on the ball. In my days of yute, this would keep me awake at night, worrying whether or not I had made the right decision, if I was an unintended, out-of-wedlock child, or if I really was a goose-stepping fascist. But I have been getting stuff out the door, for pretty much my entire adult life. These days, I sleep like a baby.
  - falcolas 4y ago
    > and my work is generally focused around the endless practicalities and compromises, necessary to get products out the door. This hits too hard. I’m still in the “acceptance” phase of grief over the death of my ideal that there’s a “right” technical solution for every problem. And I’m in my 40’s.
    - 4y ago
Existenceblinks 4y ago
Yeah. This is happening, look around job board. A lot of job description look really dumb, tech stack doesn't make sense for their business at all.
- jongjong 4y ago
  It's so frustrating to find a nice job advert, then you read through the (very specific) list of requirements and you're thinking to yourself "JavaScript: Check, Node.js: Check, Postgres: Check, Docker: Check, REST: Check, WebSockets: Check, Redis: Check, RabbitMQ: Check, Distributed systems: Check, nginx: Check, Kubernetes: Check, GraphQL: DAMN IT! This was almost a match..."
  - oaiey 4y ago
    You hire smart people not perfect matches.
    - jongjong 4y ago
      Companies will generally tolerate developers to not have experience with certain tools but they will only hire them based on the assumption that they will learn those tools on the job. The problem arises when the developers don't like a specific tool; maybe they know better tools to use for this project. For me, as a developer, it's a deal breaker if a company expects me to use some tool which I'm experienced with but which I don't like. It's a mistake for companies to assume that just because someone has 3 years of professional experience with a particular tool, that they like that tool. I've witnessed many developers catch Stockholm syndrome after spending lot of time using (and becoming an expert in) a specific tool but I regard this is as a sign of inexperience.
    - Micheal1 4y ago
  - pindab0ter 4y ago
    Requirements aren't really that. They're really wish lists. Such a shame, since this is ‘a great way’ to dissuade women[1]. [1]: https://hbr.org/2014/08/why-women-dont-apply-for-jobs-unless-theyre-100-qualified https://hbr.org/2014/08/why-women-dont-apply-for-jobs-unless...
goodpoint 4y ago
Same here. Many popular and needlessly complex tools, especially around devops... used only because they are popular. Even worse, people don't even bother to look at other options even if it's just to learn from them. Compare the new hip thing with a different one and people get defensive.
- kaba0 4y ago
  Strangely enough I feel that we tell ourselves again and again that this problem is not as hard, the previous iteration of programs trying to solve it were just written by incompetent people. It can be made so much easier - the program gets built but in the process the developers realize that it has plenty of edge cases not solved by this easier version and the same complexity gets bolted on later. The fact is, there is an essential complexity that simply can not ever be reduced. But we should also strive to not get blinded by the n+1 failed, bad attempt because true, novel approaches do turn up from time to time, e.g. nix actually solves the dependency hell problem.
  - goodpoint 4y ago
    > written by incompetent people Which is funny because most modern devops tools are written by organizations with no experience maintaining critical systems or large scale.
    - CrLf 4y ago
      Well… many of those tools are written while building those critical systems and scale, so they may include both the learnings as well as the mistakes. And, frankly, most people aren’t building things that are critical or require scale (no matter what they say to make their work sound interesting).
      - goodpoint 4y ago
        > many of those tools are written while building those critical systems and scale Very, very few come out of teams working on the real stuff. Both FAANGs and other companies are not going to release their crucial internal tools and not even discuss them in public. > may include both the learnings as well as the mistakes "release early" is not something anybody should do for production critical tools like devops stuff. > frankly, most people aren’t building things that are critical or require scale 100% agree, but if I build ships they have to fit safety standards even if most people never meet rough seas.
azemetre 4y ago
Would you mind sharing some things that juniors have forced that you think are bad? I’ve recently switched jobs and my team doesn’t write integration tests for our services but rather manually test them with postman. It’s definitely odd and very inefficient.
- wainstead 4y ago
  > Would you mind sharing some things that juniors have forced that you think are bad? Nested ternary operators... though, because of how TypeScript does constants, I saw why they used this way of doing things so often.
- chrischattin 4y ago
  Not OP, but front end JavaScript frameworks are the first thing that comes to mind as an inefficient antipattern that was forced into the dev mindshare by (effective) mega-cap marketing and jr devs who didn’t know any better.
  - vbezhenar 4y ago
    You may call me junior, although I have over 10 years of programming at different things. But IMO React is hands down best thing happened with frontend. It's beautiful tech. Sometimes I write javascript without frameworks, but I'm doing it just for fun, because I have strange love for tiny code, when entire "webapp" fits in few kilobytes. That's something like demo scene from the old days. I'll never do that for any commercial project. Right now my position is something like tech lead, at least I do technical decisions in our company. And there's no way I'll allow to write anything complex without React. And sites are bad not because of React. Sites are bad because of other things. If anything, React helps making sites less bad. Second best thing is TypeScript. I don't like tooling, though, but I think it gets better.
  - ericwooley 4y ago
    The entire concept of fronted frameworks is an anti pattern? This might be the oldest, grumpiest man on the front lawn yelling at childreniest take we on web dev, that I’ve ever heard

specialist 4y ago

FWIW, every generation feels this way. Older me is now super embarrassed by my prior enthusiasm for object oriented programming and misc methodologies. I have very vivid memories of grey beards dismissing my naivety and me thinking "they just didn't get it." [0] If there's any kind of karma, today's noobs will live long enough to be mocked by even younger noobs. Small solace, I know. [0] I always remember criticisms. I've got the voice of doubt in the back of my head always wondering what I'm missing, what if they're right, etc. It's a serious bummer.

wainstead 4y ago
> I've got the voice of doubt in the back of my head always wondering what I'm missing, what if they're right, etc. It's a serious bummer. There's probably a saying somewhere along the lines of "There are two kinds of programmers: those who admit they get Imposter's Syndrome, and those who are too afraid to admit it." We all have those doubts. I've been in this since... what, 1994 professionally I suppose, and I still have doubts. It's totally normal. IS is not limited to software development either.

donatj 4y ago

I am regularly up at night in a cold sweat worrying about how if I suddenly needed to find a new job I’d have to learn some sort of front end JavaScript framework.

pjerem 4y ago
Could be worse. I am regularly up at night in a cold sweat worrying about how if I suddenly find a technically fulfilling job, realizing I forgot everything about computers after a decade on working on meaningless front end JavaScript framework.
- Existenceblinks 4y ago
  Even worse when backend is javascript framework too. Welcome to isomorphic thingy (don't even know what that really means). SSR today only means nodejs server. No, not ruby, go, rust, python, php, elixir, it's javascript. Island architecture, partial hydration, and the latest backend js framework is "Zero JavaScript Runtime" wow. One language to rule them all pipe dream is not dead yet.
- Aeolun 4y ago
  Yeah, that’s a thing. When you’ve been fighting React for some years your mental pathways for anything else are completely eroded.
- quickthrower2 4y ago
  Where is the job where you get to work on compilers. If it is not React it is probably the glorious back end, making some graphql endpoints talk to mongodb or suchlike. Or devops, fight k8s!
  - bluGill 4y ago
    There are a few thousand compiler jobs in the world. Maybe in the tens of thousands, i'm not sure. For everyone of them there are thousands (again I don't know how to measure, could be in the ten thousands) of programmers using the compiler.
    - golergka 4y ago
      Feels pretty lined up to the amount of programmers who are skilled in writing compilers.

camgunz 4y ago

While I admit to enjoying some of the debate aerobics on HN, this is the prime reason I try and give my voice to some of the discussion here. I kind of view it similarly to voting: you have to make your opinions known. It's had the pleasant side effect of also educating me on quite a lot--mixing in with people with different experiences and values has enriched my life, so I think it's a win-win. I just try and be careful to not get too wound up: that's the failure case haha (I'm not saying constantly check your blood pressure while using HN, but I'm not not saying it).

ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
One of the [few] advantages of becoming a crusty old fart™, is that we tend to waste a lot less time, worrying about what others think of us, and just do what we need to do, to get the job done. I was just talking about this, to someone, yesterday. I'm often accused of being a "killjoy," or a "dreamkiller," by today's yutes. This is because I say 'orrible things, like "Have you considered what happens if..?" or "We tried that, a couple of years ago. It didn't work out, and here's why...". In actual point of fact, I'm exactly the opposite. It's my job to Make Things Happen. I plan to ship everything that I do, and my work is generally focused around the endless practicalities and compromises, necessary to get products out the door. This has often resulted in me being called every name in the book, as I try to avoid chasing shiny, and keep the eye on the ball. In my days of yute, this would keep me awake at night, worrying whether or not I had made the right decision, if I was an unintended, out-of-wedlock child, or if I really was a goose-stepping fascist. But I have been getting stuff out the door, for pretty much my entire adult life. These days, I sleep like a baby.
- falcolas 4y ago
  > and my work is generally focused around the endless practicalities and compromises, necessary to get products out the door. This hits too hard. I’m still in the “acceptance” phase of grief over the death of my ideal that there’s a “right” technical solution for every problem. And I’m in my 40’s.
  - 4y ago

Existenceblinks 4y ago

Yeah. This is happening, look around job board. A lot of job description look really dumb, tech stack doesn't make sense for their business at all.

jongjong 4y ago
It's so frustrating to find a nice job advert, then you read through the (very specific) list of requirements and you're thinking to yourself "JavaScript: Check, Node.js: Check, Postgres: Check, Docker: Check, REST: Check, WebSockets: Check, Redis: Check, RabbitMQ: Check, Distributed systems: Check, nginx: Check, Kubernetes: Check, GraphQL: DAMN IT! This was almost a match..."
- oaiey 4y ago
  You hire smart people not perfect matches.
  - jongjong 4y ago
    Companies will generally tolerate developers to not have experience with certain tools but they will only hire them based on the assumption that they will learn those tools on the job. The problem arises when the developers don't like a specific tool; maybe they know better tools to use for this project. For me, as a developer, it's a deal breaker if a company expects me to use some tool which I'm experienced with but which I don't like. It's a mistake for companies to assume that just because someone has 3 years of professional experience with a particular tool, that they like that tool. I've witnessed many developers catch Stockholm syndrome after spending lot of time using (and becoming an expert in) a specific tool but I regard this is as a sign of inexperience.
  - Micheal1 4y ago
- pindab0ter 4y ago
  Requirements aren't really that. They're really wish lists. Such a shame, since this is ‘a great way’ to dissuade women[1]. [1]: https://hbr.org/2014/08/why-women-dont-apply-for-jobs-unless-theyre-100-qualified https://hbr.org/2014/08/why-women-dont-apply-for-jobs-unless...

goodpoint 4y ago

Same here. Many popular and needlessly complex tools, especially around devops... used only because they are popular. Even worse, people don't even bother to look at other options even if it's just to learn from them. Compare the new hip thing with a different one and people get defensive.

kaba0 4y ago
Strangely enough I feel that we tell ourselves again and again that this problem is not as hard, the previous iteration of programs trying to solve it were just written by incompetent people. It can be made so much easier - the program gets built but in the process the developers realize that it has plenty of edge cases not solved by this easier version and the same complexity gets bolted on later. The fact is, there is an essential complexity that simply can not ever be reduced. But we should also strive to not get blinded by the n+1 failed, bad attempt because true, novel approaches do turn up from time to time, e.g. nix actually solves the dependency hell problem.
- goodpoint 4y ago
  > written by incompetent people Which is funny because most modern devops tools are written by organizations with no experience maintaining critical systems or large scale.
  - CrLf 4y ago
    Well… many of those tools are written while building those critical systems and scale, so they may include both the learnings as well as the mistakes. And, frankly, most people aren’t building things that are critical or require scale (no matter what they say to make their work sound interesting).
    - goodpoint 4y ago
      > many of those tools are written while building those critical systems and scale Very, very few come out of teams working on the real stuff. Both FAANGs and other companies are not going to release their crucial internal tools and not even discuss them in public. > may include both the learnings as well as the mistakes "release early" is not something anybody should do for production critical tools like devops stuff. > frankly, most people aren’t building things that are critical or require scale 100% agree, but if I build ships they have to fit safety standards even if most people never meet rough seas.

azemetre 4y ago

Would you mind sharing some things that juniors have forced that you think are bad? I’ve recently switched jobs and my team doesn’t write integration tests for our services but rather manually test them with postman. It’s definitely odd and very inefficient.

wainstead 4y ago
> Would you mind sharing some things that juniors have forced that you think are bad? Nested ternary operators... though, because of how TypeScript does constants, I saw why they used this way of doing things so often.
chrischattin 4y ago
Not OP, but front end JavaScript frameworks are the first thing that comes to mind as an inefficient antipattern that was forced into the dev mindshare by (effective) mega-cap marketing and jr devs who didn’t know any better.
- vbezhenar 4y ago
  You may call me junior, although I have over 10 years of programming at different things. But IMO React is hands down best thing happened with frontend. It's beautiful tech. Sometimes I write javascript without frameworks, but I'm doing it just for fun, because I have strange love for tiny code, when entire "webapp" fits in few kilobytes. That's something like demo scene from the old days. I'll never do that for any commercial project. Right now my position is something like tech lead, at least I do technical decisions in our company. And there's no way I'll allow to write anything complex without React. And sites are bad not because of React. Sites are bad because of other things. If anything, React helps making sites less bad. Second best thing is TypeScript. I don't like tooling, though, but I think it gets better.
- ericwooley 4y ago
  The entire concept of fronted frameworks is an anti pattern? This might be the oldest, grumpiest man on the front lawn yelling at childreniest take we on web dev, that I’ve ever heard