5 ms·

> it's so frustrating I feel the same way developing software - the only thing that ever matters, and has ever mattered (at least since I started developing so

> it's so frustrating I feel the same way developing software - the only thing that ever matters, and has ever mattered (at least since I started developing software in 1992) is "meeting the date". Whatever corners can be cut to make the date are cut, and then the thing breaks in fairly predictable ways because corners were cut. It's maddeningly infuriating and I'm not even dealing with people's lives here. I can't even imagine having to put up with this attitude when people could actually die.

cm2187 4y ago
Not sure what you are equating this to in software, but if it is security vulnerabilities, incompetence has probably more to do with it than time pressure. It takes about the time to write a parametrised query than to concatenate your strings.
- ornornor 4y ago
  The corners that are cut are often around automated testing, security, best practices. And it adds up, so if nothing is done right then it’s faster to keep doing it wrong than rearchitect or abstract everything so you can have a clean implementation. Honestly, I haven’t been working that long (about a decade) but this general attitude from PHBs calling the shots in software makes me count the months until I can retire early and never write code for money again. It’s just soul sucking to fight everyone on this and then fight again when overtime is needed to add more bandaids to the resulting abomination because the date won’t be met.
  - fragmede 4y ago
    I don't know your situation, but I'd encourage you to find one that isn't "soul sucking" that you can actually live with. Life's too short to spend it in a job you hate, especially if you have an in demand skillset.
  - pmarreck 4y ago
    Yeah, I'd advise looking for work elsewhere, it's not supposed to be like that and I guarantee you that you could find something better
  - jeltz 4y ago
    Many jobs are like that but far from all. I recommend looking for a new job where the PHBs are not calling the shots.
- MyneOutside 4y ago
  Depends on what you are building. Websites probably not going to kill you. Other things well... https://hackaday.com/2015/10/26/killed-by-a-machine-the-therac-25/ https://hackaday.com/2015/10/26/killed-by-a-machine-the-ther... "AECL never publicly released the source code, but several experts including [Nancy Leveson] did obtain access for the investigation. What they found was shocking. The software appeared to have been written by a programmer with little experience coding for real-time systems. There were few comments, and no proof that any timing analysis had been performed. According to AECL, a single programmer had written the software based upon the Therac-6 and 20 code. However, this programmer no longer worked for the company, and could not be found.'
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- jeltz 4y ago
  I disagree. Yes, a lot of them are caused by incompetence to some extent but we should use processes where the harm of incompetence is limited and where we take quality and security seriously. Blaming it on individual incompetent developers is unhelpful when the industry allows this and encourages it since it increases the short term output of new features.
  - mcguire 4y ago
    Everyone started out as an incompetent developer.
    - mrguyorama 4y ago
      Everyone makes stupid mistakes sometimes. If you are perfect 99.9% of the time, you're still doing something wrong every quarter.
hinkley 4y ago
For three years I got the team to still do a drill release cycle around the holidays because we were running into trouble hunting down regressions when we went two or three weeks. People start to forget things, especially around holidays. This year they decided to skip a bunch. We had one almost disaster that I caught, so of course we’re going to forget why we did this stuff in the first place. Until the next time it blows up.
katscradle_1989 4y ago
There were API keys literally sitting on the site of a F500 company at one point. This is because they were using DJANGO and some brilliant engineer thought having them in the "base.html" was good because that means they could be accessed on any page pretty easy. I soon realized though that they didn't care about that issue and it would have to be fixed after "busy season." Coincidentally, busy season is 365 days a year. The keys are finally gone but they were there for well over 2 years. I went back to check every now and then lol
PicassoCTs 4y ago
The only thing were that does not hold, ironically, is startups, were the boss is involved with the product and suddenly all the gamed metrics, are suspended and things get done properly. Goto love those no longer important deadlines.

cm2187 4y ago

Not sure what you are equating this to in software, but if it is security vulnerabilities, incompetence has probably more to do with it than time pressure. It takes about the time to write a parametrised query than to concatenate your strings.

ornornor 4y ago
The corners that are cut are often around automated testing, security, best practices. And it adds up, so if nothing is done right then it’s faster to keep doing it wrong than rearchitect or abstract everything so you can have a clean implementation. Honestly, I haven’t been working that long (about a decade) but this general attitude from PHBs calling the shots in software makes me count the months until I can retire early and never write code for money again. It’s just soul sucking to fight everyone on this and then fight again when overtime is needed to add more bandaids to the resulting abomination because the date won’t be met.
- fragmede 4y ago
  I don't know your situation, but I'd encourage you to find one that isn't "soul sucking" that you can actually live with. Life's too short to spend it in a job you hate, especially if you have an in demand skillset.
- pmarreck 4y ago
  Yeah, I'd advise looking for work elsewhere, it's not supposed to be like that and I guarantee you that you could find something better
- jeltz 4y ago
  Many jobs are like that but far from all. I recommend looking for a new job where the PHBs are not calling the shots.
MyneOutside 4y ago
Depends on what you are building. Websites probably not going to kill you. Other things well... https://hackaday.com/2015/10/26/killed-by-a-machine-the-therac-25/ https://hackaday.com/2015/10/26/killed-by-a-machine-the-ther... "AECL never publicly released the source code, but several experts including [Nancy Leveson] did obtain access for the investigation. What they found was shocking. The software appeared to have been written by a programmer with little experience coding for real-time systems. There were few comments, and no proof that any timing analysis had been performed. According to AECL, a single programmer had written the software based upon the Therac-6 and 20 code. However, this programmer no longer worked for the company, and could not be found.'
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
jeltz 4y ago
I disagree. Yes, a lot of them are caused by incompetence to some extent but we should use processes where the harm of incompetence is limited and where we take quality and security seriously. Blaming it on individual incompetent developers is unhelpful when the industry allows this and encourages it since it increases the short term output of new features.
- mcguire 4y ago
  Everyone started out as an incompetent developer.
  - mrguyorama 4y ago
    Everyone makes stupid mistakes sometimes. If you are perfect 99.9% of the time, you're still doing something wrong every quarter.

hinkley 4y ago

For three years I got the team to still do a drill release cycle around the holidays because we were running into trouble hunting down regressions when we went two or three weeks. People start to forget things, especially around holidays. This year they decided to skip a bunch. We had one almost disaster that I caught, so of course we’re going to forget why we did this stuff in the first place. Until the next time it blows up.

katscradle_1989 4y ago

There were API keys literally sitting on the site of a F500 company at one point. This is because they were using DJANGO and some brilliant engineer thought having them in the "base.html" was good because that means they could be accessed on any page pretty easy. I soon realized though that they didn't care about that issue and it would have to be fixed after "busy season." Coincidentally, busy season is 365 days a year. The keys are finally gone but they were there for well over 2 years. I went back to check every now and then lol

PicassoCTs 4y ago

The only thing were that does not hold, ironically, is startups, were the boss is involved with the product and suddenly all the gamed metrics, are suspended and things get done properly. Goto love those no longer important deadlines.