5 ms·

There's a difference between programming, the hobby, and programming, the job. In one of these you're paid to care.

vaylian 4y ago
True. But it would help some managers to understand that there is more to programming than just achieving business goals.
- throwaway98797 4y ago
  the only other goal a manager should care about is if the programmer feels fulfilled i bet a lot managers know that devs don’t care about business goals
- eastbound 4y ago
  As a founder, I pay programmers who care about customers about 50% more. I’ve actually doubled the salary if a total junior within 10 months of hiring, because he cared about business goals. I also work to eject those who can’t work with customers. We’re not here to serve the beauty of JUnit tests. I simply don’t understand the “programmers aren’t paid enough” torpe; It’s only true for purists who don’t dedicate their work to building a business.
  - M5x7wI3CmbEem10 4y ago
    thank you for sharing. how did you learn to become an effective owner? any book or blog recommendations?
    - eastbound 4y ago
      HN. Really, that was back at the time of PG essays and Kalzumeus’ 10,000-words blogposts. But I’m probably not an effective manager, I was just a good founder, a passionate creator, and luck/market fit struck me.
  - mgkimsal 4y ago
    Perhaps overly semantic, but... there's a conflation of "care about customers" and "cared about business goals" there. Ideally, they're the same thing, but not always. And if you care about customers, but are 'managed' in to doing things which are clearly at odds with what the customers are wanting... you're in a bind.
    - pcthrowaway 4y ago
      Also a conflation of customers and the users (mentioned upthread). The business's goal is generally to extract as much value as possible from its ability to balance servicing customers and users, and managing operations. I've never worked anywhere where there isn't a fair bit of conflict of interests between those three groups
- fallingknife 4y ago
  Sorry, but as a professional programmer, the entire point of your existence is to achieve business goals. Why would a business pay you to do anything else?
jmclnx 4y ago
Well here is the thing. At work all we hear about is "put the customer (user) first" which is great. But in reality you get 'dinged' if you really do that. In the 80s and very early 90s, I would work directly with the user to give them what they want. The users would see real progress so was kept happy, no matter how long it took. You just had to prove to them why you are having issues. Not a big deal. Then the methodologies came in, far more than I can remember. Now, god forbid I forget to keep Jira updated. Also, I have not talked to a real user in many years. The outcome, the real users are frustrated because they get their statuses from their managers who attend meetings that show meaningless 'high-level' presentations. The web site should add a line for "high-level", meaning "I am too dumb to look at details, here is a pretty picture". When I hear "high-level", I know the meeting will contain no real information. You can see this with Opensource too, in the Early Days of Linux, if a user had a problem, Linus or someone close to him, would respond directly and it would get fix rather quickly. Now companies run the show, so we get things we really do not want. But to be fair, I think Linus still tries to cut through the bureaucracy when he can, with little success.
- sirsinsalot 4y ago
  I'm sorry you've had bad experience of being managed. That isn't the case for everyone, and not a reason for "black and white" thinking where you take the extreme position of rejecting the tools used badly against you ... rather than placing the individuals accountable. It isn't the tool's fault, be that meetings, agile, estimation, jira or anything else.
  - jmclnx 4y ago
    Actually my direct managers are very good, the only reason I am staying, this is a very large company and rules are imposed upon us from senior VPs (direct reports to the CEO). One example, points from all Devl groups need to be combined and rolled up to the VP, and we need to increase 'points' by a small percentage every iteration. Last I heard, the squad decides what points mean so how can that be rolled up :)
- mattip 4y ago
  > You see this with Opensource too I think it depends what project you want to interact with. In the projects I am involved in (Python, Numpy, SciPy, Cython, PyPy) you will get a response from a core dev quite quickly.
sensanaty 4y ago
More like paid to pretend to care :)

True. But it would help some managers to understand that there is more to programming than just achieving business goals.

throwaway98797 4y ago
the only other goal a manager should care about is if the programmer feels fulfilled i bet a lot managers know that devs don’t care about business goals
eastbound 4y ago
As a founder, I pay programmers who care about customers about 50% more. I’ve actually doubled the salary if a total junior within 10 months of hiring, because he cared about business goals. I also work to eject those who can’t work with customers. We’re not here to serve the beauty of JUnit tests. I simply don’t understand the “programmers aren’t paid enough” torpe; It’s only true for purists who don’t dedicate their work to building a business.
- M5x7wI3CmbEem10 4y ago
  thank you for sharing. how did you learn to become an effective owner? any book or blog recommendations?
  - eastbound 4y ago
    HN. Really, that was back at the time of PG essays and Kalzumeus’ 10,000-words blogposts. But I’m probably not an effective manager, I was just a good founder, a passionate creator, and luck/market fit struck me.
- mgkimsal 4y ago
  Perhaps overly semantic, but... there's a conflation of "care about customers" and "cared about business goals" there. Ideally, they're the same thing, but not always. And if you care about customers, but are 'managed' in to doing things which are clearly at odds with what the customers are wanting... you're in a bind.
  - pcthrowaway 4y ago
    Also a conflation of customers and the users (mentioned upthread). The business's goal is generally to extract as much value as possible from its ability to balance servicing customers and users, and managing operations. I've never worked anywhere where there isn't a fair bit of conflict of interests between those three groups
fallingknife 4y ago
Sorry, but as a professional programmer, the entire point of your existence is to achieve business goals. Why would a business pay you to do anything else?

jmclnx 4y ago

Well here is the thing. At work all we hear about is "put the customer (user) first" which is great. But in reality you get 'dinged' if you really do that. In the 80s and very early 90s, I would work directly with the user to give them what they want. The users would see real progress so was kept happy, no matter how long it took. You just had to prove to them why you are having issues. Not a big deal. Then the methodologies came in, far more than I can remember. Now, god forbid I forget to keep Jira updated. Also, I have not talked to a real user in many years. The outcome, the real users are frustrated because they get their statuses from their managers who attend meetings that show meaningless 'high-level' presentations. The web site should add a line for "high-level", meaning "I am too dumb to look at details, here is a pretty picture". When I hear "high-level", I know the meeting will contain no real information. You can see this with Opensource too, in the Early Days of Linux, if a user had a problem, Linus or someone close to him, would respond directly and it would get fix rather quickly. Now companies run the show, so we get things we really do not want. But to be fair, I think Linus still tries to cut through the bureaucracy when he can, with little success.

sirsinsalot 4y ago
I'm sorry you've had bad experience of being managed. That isn't the case for everyone, and not a reason for "black and white" thinking where you take the extreme position of rejecting the tools used badly against you ... rather than placing the individuals accountable. It isn't the tool's fault, be that meetings, agile, estimation, jira or anything else.
- jmclnx 4y ago
  Actually my direct managers are very good, the only reason I am staying, this is a very large company and rules are imposed upon us from senior VPs (direct reports to the CEO). One example, points from all Devl groups need to be combined and rolled up to the VP, and we need to increase 'points' by a small percentage every iteration. Last I heard, the squad decides what points mean so how can that be rolled up :)
mattip 4y ago
> You see this with Opensource too I think it depends what project you want to interact with. In the projects I am involved in (Python, Numpy, SciPy, Cython, PyPy) you will get a response from a core dev quite quickly.

sensanaty 4y ago

More like paid to pretend to care :)