4 ms·

It's very obviously not "the easy part", it's definitely hard. It's just not the only hard part. And there may be other parts that are harder in some sense.

habinero 8mo ago
Honestly, it really is the easy part of the job. Really truly. It's difficult when you're first learning but there are definitely much harder skills to learn.
- carlossouza 8mo ago
  What's easy for some might be truly hard for others.
  - smrtinsert 8mo ago
    The people for whom I've seen "coding is the hard part" are typically promoted out of the way or fired. They never entered a flow like those who considered it easy and addictive. The latter are the pillars of the eng team.
  - habinero 8mo ago
    Sure; but I'm not humblebragging at how talented at coding I am. I'm good at it because I have a lot of practice and experience, but I'm hardly the best. It's the easiest part because the hard parts of the job are everything else -- you're a knowledge worker so people look to you to make decisions and figure it out. You figure it out and make it work for whatever "it" happens to be.
    - lelanthran 8mo ago
      > It's the easiest part because the hard parts of the job are everything else -- you're a knowledge worker so people look to you to make decisions and figure it out. You figure it out and make it work for whatever "it" happens to be. If you thought coding was easy, wait till you see the competition for knowledge workers. You're in a spot now where the part that made you valuable (implementing business rules in software) can now be done by virtually anyone. Doing all the non-coding parts (or, as you put it, "the hard parts") can now be done by almost any white collar worker.
      - habinero 8mo ago
        Sure, anyone with the knowledge and experience lol "Knowledge worker" isn't a cutesy phrase, it means I don't get paid for my time, I get paid for what I know. Contrast that to, say, working retail where you are paid to staff the store from 8-6. It's not a value judgement (retail is hard work) it's a description. We've already had years and years of predicting the death of software engineering to offshoring and that didn't happen for the same reason. India turns out plenty of fantastic engineers who can do my job. Those people also have better options than staffing some cut rate code factory, and you can't substitute the latter if you need the former. But nice try lol
        lelanthran 8mo ago
        > "Knowledge worker" isn't a cutesy phrase, it means I don't get paid for my time, I get paid for what I know. What you appear to be missing is that (if AI coding is as good as we are told) there will considerably more people with the business knowledge to drive an AI to create their solutions. The bit that made developers valuable was the ability to actually implement those business rules in software. You will be competing with all those laid off devs as well as those non-developers who have all that business knowledge. In simple terms, there are two groups of people: 1. Developers, who have some business knowledge, and 2. White collar workers who have no development knowledge. Previously (or currently, say) the supply of solutions providers came only from group 1. Now they come from both group 1 and group 2. The supply of solutions providers just exploded, you can expect the same sort of salary that the people in group 2 get, which is nowhere close to what the people in group 1 used to get.
        habinero 8mo ago
        Yeah, nah, that's just a complete misunderstanding of what SWEs actually do lol I'm not a code factory who occasionally talks to the suits. That isn't the job lol
        lelanthran 8mo ago
        > I'm not a code factory who occasionally talks to the suits. That isn't the job lol The problem you are facing is that "person who talks to business" is a huge pool of talent, and now you have to compete with them. Previously your only competition was "person who talks to business and can code".
- deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]
- javchz 8mo ago
  Totally. I would add that code that "works" it's easy to do. Code that it's efficient, easy to maintain and safe... That it's another story. But the sad truth is that most software can be or it's done with shitty code that "kinda works" as long as the CPU it's fast enough.
  - habinero 8mo ago
    And if you're in one of those jobs, you don't get paid the big bucks.
- 8n4vidtmkvmk 8mo ago
  99.9% of the code i write is easy, but that's just because of the sort of work i do. Its not far from basic CRUD. Maybe with pubsubs and caching thrown in for fun. But that doesn't mean there isn't some tricksy stuff. All the linear algebra in graphics programming takes awhile to wrap your head around. Actually, game programming in general i find a bit hard. Physics, state management, multi threading, networking...
  - lokar 8mo ago
    For most of the tricky stuff the hard part is thinking clearly. Deciding how to approach the problem, what to prioritize, etc Translating that into whatever language you chose is not that hard.
    - hdjrudni 7mo ago
      Right, the actual engineering part is hard. Typing out the code without botching syntax usually isn't very hard. Unless it's a C++ type with a dozen modifiers.
- danielvaughn 8mo ago
  I'm curious which skills you think are much harder than programming.
  - zjp 8mo ago
    It depends on whether you mean programming (typing your solution into your text editor) or programming (formalizing your solution to a problem in a way that can be programmed).
  - habinero 8mo ago
    Honestly? Anything that requires a lot of manual dexterity because that takes a long time to master, like a trade or art. People love to lionize it, but honestly I can teach the basics of coding to anyone in a weekend. I love teaching people to code. It can be frustrating to learn but it's just not that difficult. I've mostly written Python and Ruby and Node for my career. They're not super hardcore languages lol. What is hard is learning the engineering side. I don't get paid for the code I write, I get paid because I get handed a business wishlist and it's my job to figure out how to make that business reality and execute it, from start to finish. I tell my boss what I'm going to be working on, not the other way around, and that's true pretty early in your career. At my current level of seniority, I can personally cost the company millions of dollars. That's not even a flex, most software engineers can do that. Learning to make good decisions like that takes a long time and a lot of experience, and that's just not something you can hand off.
mountainriver 8mo ago
Also totally depends on what kind of coding you are doing. Yeah building a web app can become somewhat easy, but is distributed machine learning? What about low level kernel code?
- skydhash 8mo ago
  Still easy. You just have to learned different concepts. Someone in web needs to be familiar with databases, some protocols like HTTP, DNS, some basic Unix admin,.. Someone in low level kernel code will need to know about hardware architecture, operating system concepts, assembly,... But the coding skill stays the same mostly. You're still typing code, organizing files, and fiddling with build systems.
  - menaerus 8mo ago
    Different type of "coding skills" and different type of complexities make these two impossible to put into the same bucket of "still easy". You've probably never done the latter so you're under impression that it is easy. I assure you it is not. Grasping the concept of a new framework vs doing algorithmic and state of the art improvements are two totally different and incomparable things. In 30M population of software engineers around the globe there is only handful of those doing the latter, and there's a reason for it - it's much much more complicated.
    - skydhash 8mo ago
      You are conflating problem solving and the ability to write code. Web Dev has its own challenge, especially at scale. There’s not a lot of people writing web servers, designing distributed protocols and resolving sandboxing issues either.
      - menaerus 8mo ago
        I'm not conflating one with each other, I am saying that "coding skill" when dealing with difficult topics at hand is not just a "coding skill" anymore. It's part of the problem.
jayd16 8mo ago
The easy part and hard are not mutually exclusive.
jama211 8mo ago
Something can be hard and also be the easy part. Imagine you got to see into the future and use a popular app before it was released, and you decided to make it yourself and reap the profits. Would be an absolute cinch to copy it compared to trying to make a successful app from a blank page.
shadowgovt 8mo ago
Some code is hard. Most business logic (in the sense of pushing data around databases) isn't. The value is in analysis and action, which the system enablrs, not the machine itself. Creating a high performance general purpose database is hard, but once it exists and is properly configured, the SQL queries are much easier. They'd better be or we wasted a lot of time building that database.
deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]

habinero 8mo ago

Honestly, it really is the easy part of the job. Really truly. It's difficult when you're first learning but there are definitely much harder skills to learn.

carlossouza 8mo ago
What's easy for some might be truly hard for others.
- smrtinsert 8mo ago
  The people for whom I've seen "coding is the hard part" are typically promoted out of the way or fired. They never entered a flow like those who considered it easy and addictive. The latter are the pillars of the eng team.
- habinero 8mo ago
  Sure; but I'm not humblebragging at how talented at coding I am. I'm good at it because I have a lot of practice and experience, but I'm hardly the best. It's the easiest part because the hard parts of the job are everything else -- you're a knowledge worker so people look to you to make decisions and figure it out. You figure it out and make it work for whatever "it" happens to be.
  - lelanthran 8mo ago
    > It's the easiest part because the hard parts of the job are everything else -- you're a knowledge worker so people look to you to make decisions and figure it out. You figure it out and make it work for whatever "it" happens to be. If you thought coding was easy, wait till you see the competition for knowledge workers. You're in a spot now where the part that made you valuable (implementing business rules in software) can now be done by virtually anyone. Doing all the non-coding parts (or, as you put it, "the hard parts") can now be done by almost any white collar worker.
    - habinero 8mo ago
      Sure, anyone with the knowledge and experience lol "Knowledge worker" isn't a cutesy phrase, it means I don't get paid for my time, I get paid for what I know. Contrast that to, say, working retail where you are paid to staff the store from 8-6. It's not a value judgement (retail is hard work) it's a description. We've already had years and years of predicting the death of software engineering to offshoring and that didn't happen for the same reason. India turns out plenty of fantastic engineers who can do my job. Those people also have better options than staffing some cut rate code factory, and you can't substitute the latter if you need the former. But nice try lol
      - lelanthran 8mo ago
        > "Knowledge worker" isn't a cutesy phrase, it means I don't get paid for my time, I get paid for what I know. What you appear to be missing is that (if AI coding is as good as we are told) there will considerably more people with the business knowledge to drive an AI to create their solutions. The bit that made developers valuable was the ability to actually implement those business rules in software. You will be competing with all those laid off devs as well as those non-developers who have all that business knowledge. In simple terms, there are two groups of people: 1. Developers, who have some business knowledge, and 2. White collar workers who have no development knowledge. Previously (or currently, say) the supply of solutions providers came only from group 1. Now they come from both group 1 and group 2. The supply of solutions providers just exploded, you can expect the same sort of salary that the people in group 2 get, which is nowhere close to what the people in group 1 used to get.
        habinero 8mo ago
        Yeah, nah, that's just a complete misunderstanding of what SWEs actually do lol I'm not a code factory who occasionally talks to the suits. That isn't the job lol
        lelanthran 8mo ago
        > I'm not a code factory who occasionally talks to the suits. That isn't the job lol The problem you are facing is that "person who talks to business" is a huge pool of talent, and now you have to compete with them. Previously your only competition was "person who talks to business and can code".
deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
javchz 8mo ago
Totally. I would add that code that "works" it's easy to do. Code that it's efficient, easy to maintain and safe... That it's another story. But the sad truth is that most software can be or it's done with shitty code that "kinda works" as long as the CPU it's fast enough.
- habinero 8mo ago
  And if you're in one of those jobs, you don't get paid the big bucks.
8n4vidtmkvmk 8mo ago
99.9% of the code i write is easy, but that's just because of the sort of work i do. Its not far from basic CRUD. Maybe with pubsubs and caching thrown in for fun. But that doesn't mean there isn't some tricksy stuff. All the linear algebra in graphics programming takes awhile to wrap your head around. Actually, game programming in general i find a bit hard. Physics, state management, multi threading, networking...
- lokar 8mo ago
  For most of the tricky stuff the hard part is thinking clearly. Deciding how to approach the problem, what to prioritize, etc Translating that into whatever language you chose is not that hard.
  - hdjrudni 7mo ago
    Right, the actual engineering part is hard. Typing out the code without botching syntax usually isn't very hard. Unless it's a C++ type with a dozen modifiers.
danielvaughn 8mo ago
I'm curious which skills you think are much harder than programming.
- zjp 8mo ago
  It depends on whether you mean programming (typing your solution into your text editor) or programming (formalizing your solution to a problem in a way that can be programmed).
- habinero 8mo ago
  Honestly? Anything that requires a lot of manual dexterity because that takes a long time to master, like a trade or art. People love to lionize it, but honestly I can teach the basics of coding to anyone in a weekend. I love teaching people to code. It can be frustrating to learn but it's just not that difficult. I've mostly written Python and Ruby and Node for my career. They're not super hardcore languages lol. What is hard is learning the engineering side. I don't get paid for the code I write, I get paid because I get handed a business wishlist and it's my job to figure out how to make that business reality and execute it, from start to finish. I tell my boss what I'm going to be working on, not the other way around, and that's true pretty early in your career. At my current level of seniority, I can personally cost the company millions of dollars. That's not even a flex, most software engineers can do that. Learning to make good decisions like that takes a long time and a lot of experience, and that's just not something you can hand off.

mountainriver 8mo ago

Also totally depends on what kind of coding you are doing. Yeah building a web app can become somewhat easy, but is distributed machine learning? What about low level kernel code?

skydhash 8mo ago
Still easy. You just have to learned different concepts. Someone in web needs to be familiar with databases, some protocols like HTTP, DNS, some basic Unix admin,.. Someone in low level kernel code will need to know about hardware architecture, operating system concepts, assembly,... But the coding skill stays the same mostly. You're still typing code, organizing files, and fiddling with build systems.
- menaerus 8mo ago
  Different type of "coding skills" and different type of complexities make these two impossible to put into the same bucket of "still easy". You've probably never done the latter so you're under impression that it is easy. I assure you it is not. Grasping the concept of a new framework vs doing algorithmic and state of the art improvements are two totally different and incomparable things. In 30M population of software engineers around the globe there is only handful of those doing the latter, and there's a reason for it - it's much much more complicated.
  - skydhash 8mo ago
    You are conflating problem solving and the ability to write code. Web Dev has its own challenge, especially at scale. There’s not a lot of people writing web servers, designing distributed protocols and resolving sandboxing issues either.
    - menaerus 8mo ago
      I'm not conflating one with each other, I am saying that "coding skill" when dealing with difficult topics at hand is not just a "coding skill" anymore. It's part of the problem.

jayd16 8mo ago

The easy part and hard are not mutually exclusive.

jama211 8mo ago

Something can be hard and also be the easy part. Imagine you got to see into the future and use a popular app before it was released, and you decided to make it yourself and reap the profits. Would be an absolute cinch to copy it compared to trying to make a successful app from a blank page.

shadowgovt 8mo ago

Some code is hard. Most business logic (in the sense of pushing data around databases) isn't. The value is in analysis and action, which the system enablrs, not the machine itself. Creating a high performance general purpose database is hard, but once it exists and is properly configured, the SQL queries are much easier. They'd better be or we wasted a lot of time building that database.

deleted 8mo ago

[deleted]