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There’s certainly nothing wrong with enjoying the high pay, no – I definitely do. But yeah, it’s upsetting to find out how few people care. Even moreso when the

There’s certainly nothing wrong with enjoying the high pay, no – I definitely do. But yeah, it’s upsetting to find out how few people care. Even moreso when they double down and say that you shouldn’t care either, because it’s been abstracted away, blah blah blah. Who do you think is going to continue creating these abstractions for you?

ebiester 2y ago
...Someone else who thinks of actual web applications as an abstraction. In the olden days, we used to throw it over to "Ops" and say, "your problem now." And Junior developers have always been overwhelmed with the details and under pressure to deliver enough to keep their job. None of this is new! I'm a graybeard now, but I remember seniors having the same complaints back then. "Kids these days" never gets old.
- conductr 2y ago
  I get what you’re saying, but at the same time I feel like I encounter the real world results of this erosion constantly. While we have more software than ever, it all just kind of feels janky these days. I encounter errors in places I never had before, doing simple things. The other day I was doing a simple copy and paste operation (it was some basic csv formatted text from vs code to excel iirc) and I encountered a Windows (not excel or vs code) error prompt that my clipboard data had been lost in the time it took me to Alt+Tab and Ctrl+v, something I’ve been doing ~daily for 3 decades without any issues. I’m more of a solo full stack dev and don’t really have first hand experience building software at scale and the process it takes to manage a codebase the size of the Windows OS, but these are the kinds of issues I see regularly these days and wouldn’t in the past. I also use macOS daily for almost as long and the Apple software has really tanked in terms of quality, I hit bugs and unexpected errors regularly. I generally don’t use their software (Safari, Mail, etc) when I can avoid it. Also have to admit lack of features is a big issue for me on their software.
bumby 2y ago
I get the pragmatism argument, but I would like to think certain professions should hold themselves to a higher standard. Doctors, lawyers, and engineers have a duty to society IMO that runs counter to a “just mail it in to cash a paycheck” mentality. I guess it comes down to whether you consider software developers to be that same kind of engineer. Certainly I don’t want safety critical software engineers to have that cavalier attitude (although I’ve seen it).

ebiester 2y ago

...Someone else who thinks of actual web applications as an abstraction. In the olden days, we used to throw it over to "Ops" and say, "your problem now." And Junior developers have always been overwhelmed with the details and under pressure to deliver enough to keep their job. None of this is new! I'm a graybeard now, but I remember seniors having the same complaints back then. "Kids these days" never gets old.

conductr 2y ago
I get what you’re saying, but at the same time I feel like I encounter the real world results of this erosion constantly. While we have more software than ever, it all just kind of feels janky these days. I encounter errors in places I never had before, doing simple things. The other day I was doing a simple copy and paste operation (it was some basic csv formatted text from vs code to excel iirc) and I encountered a Windows (not excel or vs code) error prompt that my clipboard data had been lost in the time it took me to Alt+Tab and Ctrl+v, something I’ve been doing ~daily for 3 decades without any issues. I’m more of a solo full stack dev and don’t really have first hand experience building software at scale and the process it takes to manage a codebase the size of the Windows OS, but these are the kinds of issues I see regularly these days and wouldn’t in the past. I also use macOS daily for almost as long and the Apple software has really tanked in terms of quality, I hit bugs and unexpected errors regularly. I generally don’t use their software (Safari, Mail, etc) when I can avoid it. Also have to admit lack of features is a big issue for me on their software.

bumby 2y ago

I get the pragmatism argument, but I would like to think certain professions should hold themselves to a higher standard. Doctors, lawyers, and engineers have a duty to society IMO that runs counter to a “just mail it in to cash a paycheck” mentality. I guess it comes down to whether you consider software developers to be that same kind of engineer. Certainly I don’t want safety critical software engineers to have that cavalier attitude (although I’ve seen it).