5 ms·

Very reactionary take here. Blaming developers for everything that's wrong is just as bad-wrong as blaming everything on management, the C-suite, capitalism, or

by twh270 4y ago

Very reactionary take here. Blaming developers for everything that's wrong is just as bad-wrong as blaming everything on management, the C-suite, capitalism, or anything else. I've worked with some very ignorant, lazy, incompetent, individuals. Some had 'programmer' or 'developer' in their title, others were managers or product owners or QA, etc. etc. I do agree with your last point. I expect the real-world consequences of Bad Software to become more serious and common, and that will result in more regulation of the industry.

scottLobster 4y ago
I think he's focusing on the word "dabble", and how unprofessional it sounds. I'd be inclined to agree. I'm a developer and would never say I "dabble" in code. It just sounds light, playful and uncommitted. If your goal at work is to "dabble" in code because you're "passionate" about it, you have an unprofessional mindset. You're putting your passion above the mission. Maybe reading too much into a couple of words, particularly since this is the internet, but in general I'd recommend avoiding words like "passion" and "dabble" in professional contexts.
- digitalsushi 4y ago
  As the commenter above who used those words, I stand by them: my influence over code these days is, indeed, light, playful, and uncommitted. I'm the art teacher who draws a single line on the canvas of the student whom is stuck, and then walk away. That's my role, to exist on my team and help them navigate this red tape by dabbling with their code. If this costs me the Next Big Thing, so be it. This modern mindset, that we're always interviewing for the next job, even between HN comments, is exhausting and just funnels us further into exhaustion.
jodrellblank 4y ago
There is nobody else who could have written good code, except developers. There is nobody else who kept rewriting X-Screensaver clones insecurely for 17 years[1] except developers. Nobody else who has knowledge or experience to standardise on tools for the greater good. There is nobody else who wrote Jira but developers. There is nobody else who only wants to do Electron, or who refuses things like UAC because security is fine on their OpenBSD ThinkPad. Reddit blames capitalism, HN blames managmenent, 4chan blames 'Pajeet' Indian stereotype, Slashdot blames Microsoft, very few developers take a look in the mirror and say things like "we need less powerful languages"[2] or "ignore the firehose of new technologies"[3] or "If I want to ship my software, as opposed to just write it, I need to use tech that's a couple of clicks back from "bleeding edge," and spend a lot of time, "polishing the fenders. B O R I N G [but I do it]"[4]. Civil engineers have legal duties and responsibilities to make sure the things they build are fit for purpose and sign off on them before they get deployed, and can be personally fined or imprisoned or lose licenses if they weren't fit for purpose. Want to make a text editor at home? Knock yourself out, pick any language you want, dabble all you like. Want to make something that handles millions of people's data, sign your name to it and put your professional reputation on the line before every release. And it may well make salaries go up for the people willing and able to do that. The world runs on a lot more code than buildings these days and professional developers with bleeding edge MacBooks Pro and six figure salaries complaining that all the software we all suffer under is shitty, is like civil engineers complaining that buildings fall down and it's all management's fault for demanding blueprints before construction and inspections during construction to try and stop the company buildings falling down so often, ugh all that red tape, can't we still use wattle and daub it works fine on my garden shed. [Edit: just seen[5] comment from "Jon" "if you think 'function will crash if given invalid parameters' is a "defect" you should switch to Java". Nice sneer, right?] [1] https://www.jwz.org/blog/2021/01/i-told-you-so-2021-edition/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2021/01/i-told-you-so-2021-edition/ [2] https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/less-powerful-languages/ https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/less-powerful-languages/ [3] https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/01/06/fire-and-motion/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/01/06/fire-and-motion/ [4] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=chrismarshallnyc%20polish&sort=byPopularity&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... [5] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/8477965/is-kr-c-still-applicable#comment10486687 https://stackoverflow.com/questions/8477965/is-kr-c-still-ap... comment from "Jon"
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

by twh270 4y ago

scottLobster 4y ago

I think he's focusing on the word "dabble", and how unprofessional it sounds. I'd be inclined to agree. I'm a developer and would never say I "dabble" in code. It just sounds light, playful and uncommitted. If your goal at work is to "dabble" in code because you're "passionate" about it, you have an unprofessional mindset. You're putting your passion above the mission. Maybe reading too much into a couple of words, particularly since this is the internet, but in general I'd recommend avoiding words like "passion" and "dabble" in professional contexts.

digitalsushi 4y ago
As the commenter above who used those words, I stand by them: my influence over code these days is, indeed, light, playful, and uncommitted. I'm the art teacher who draws a single line on the canvas of the student whom is stuck, and then walk away. That's my role, to exist on my team and help them navigate this red tape by dabbling with their code. If this costs me the Next Big Thing, so be it. This modern mindset, that we're always interviewing for the next job, even between HN comments, is exhausting and just funnels us further into exhaustion.

jodrellblank 4y ago

There is nobody else who could have written good code, except developers. There is nobody else who kept rewriting X-Screensaver clones insecurely for 17 years[1] except developers. Nobody else who has knowledge or experience to standardise on tools for the greater good. There is nobody else who wrote Jira but developers. There is nobody else who only wants to do Electron, or who refuses things like UAC because security is fine on their OpenBSD ThinkPad. Reddit blames capitalism, HN blames managmenent, 4chan blames 'Pajeet' Indian stereotype, Slashdot blames Microsoft, very few developers take a look in the mirror and say things like "we need less powerful languages"[2] or "ignore the firehose of new technologies"[3] or "If I want to ship my software, as opposed to just write it, I need to use tech that's a couple of clicks back from "bleeding edge," and spend a lot of time, "polishing the fenders. B O R I N G [but I do it]"[4]. Civil engineers have legal duties and responsibilities to make sure the things they build are fit for purpose and sign off on them before they get deployed, and can be personally fined or imprisoned or lose licenses if they weren't fit for purpose. Want to make a text editor at home? Knock yourself out, pick any language you want, dabble all you like. Want to make something that handles millions of people's data, sign your name to it and put your professional reputation on the line before every release. And it may well make salaries go up for the people willing and able to do that. The world runs on a lot more code than buildings these days and professional developers with bleeding edge MacBooks Pro and six figure salaries complaining that all the software we all suffer under is shitty, is like civil engineers complaining that buildings fall down and it's all management's fault for demanding blueprints before construction and inspections during construction to try and stop the company buildings falling down so often, ugh all that red tape, can't we still use wattle and daub it works fine on my garden shed. [Edit: just seen[5] comment from "Jon" "if you think 'function will crash if given invalid parameters' is a "defect" you should switch to Java". Nice sneer, right?] [1] https://www.jwz.org/blog/2021/01/i-told-you-so-2021-edition/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2021/01/i-told-you-so-2021-edition/ [2] https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/less-powerful-languages/ https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/less-powerful-languages/ [3] https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/01/06/fire-and-motion/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/01/06/fire-and-motion/ [4] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=chrismarshallnyc%20polish&sort=byPopularity&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... [5] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/8477965/is-kr-c-still-applicable#comment10486687 https://stackoverflow.com/questions/8477965/is-kr-c-still-ap... comment from "Jon"

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]