Newsletter Article, Programming Isn't Fun Anymore [modified]
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I've been doing this for over 30 years. Imagine how I must feel... You can't possibly become intimately familiar with every nuance of every language and/or framework. The best you can hope for is to become extremely good at what's currently putting beans on the table, and if the need arises, go with the flow and learn whatever else you need to learn as you need to learn it. It's called "adaptation". The nature of computer work is change. Embrace it, or die.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:
Embrace it, or die
Seems like you abandoned VB.NET in favor of PHP now... :-D
Luc Pattyn [My Articles] Nil Volentibus Arduum
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So how do you deal with the disparate setups of your clients? Do you take on only clients who allow you to use that platform, or are your solutions such that you can "play nice" with whatever they're running (i.e get a VM with your environment or something)? Or something else I'm missing?
Well, we mainly do desktop development for clients. Our particular niche is such that the environments tend to be similar, and where they aren't we do specify up front what will be needed to run it. Where we have done web development, we host the applications for the client so we aren't worried about server compatibility issues - and we have total control of the support which is always nice.
Forgive your enemies - it messes with their heads
My blog | My articles | MoXAML PowerToys | Mole 2010 - debugging made easier - my favourite utility
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Did this newsletter article really resonate with anyone else? It's slashdotted (codeprojected maybe?) so here's the GCache link: http://bit.ly/qNbGv6[^]. I know it's in the nature of a programmer to be working in a dynamic field, moreso than many others; but ****, is it frustrating when you want to build someone a relatively simple website with some standard features and a few new "things", and you have to spend however many hours evaluating not just languages but platforms and frameworks and communities and future plans and everything else. It's not just Ruby/Rails, the poster child for programmers with ADHD; it's also PHP, easy to deploy on most hosts but with 168 frameworks you need to spend several hours each to evaluate, only to figure out that someone with delusions of grandeur wrote the routing engine. Honestly, I want to code, become really familiar with one stack, so that I can focus on really great solutions with it. If I want to check out some new paradigms, then I can without having to do so just to find work. Yeah, maybe not the "ideal programmer", but having been doing this only 6 years... it's frustrating to me.
modified on Tuesday, September 6, 2011 11:34 AM
Strip the jargon from all these new-fangled tools and you will find that you are doing the same old things the same old way. In the early 1970's, you had dumb terminals talking to centralized computers. Then came PC's but a whole lot of them had a 3278 emulation card inside them so that they could emulate a dumb terminal cconnected to the mainframe. Then people said they would write client programs on the PC and server programs on the server and everything would be hunky-dory.... except that, a few years later they felt they couldn't maintain all the distributed programs. So they went back to a browser on the PC but all instructions to the browser would be downloaded from the central computer, making the PC a brain-dead machine. Then of course, IBM and Oracle to come up with the dumbed-down NetPC concept too. So, just buy into the latest buzzword and it will keep you in a job that brings you a paycheck. Don't ask for job satisfaction. Just ask for the paycheck every two weeks. :wtf:
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Did this newsletter article really resonate with anyone else? It's slashdotted (codeprojected maybe?) so here's the GCache link: http://bit.ly/qNbGv6[^]. I know it's in the nature of a programmer to be working in a dynamic field, moreso than many others; but ****, is it frustrating when you want to build someone a relatively simple website with some standard features and a few new "things", and you have to spend however many hours evaluating not just languages but platforms and frameworks and communities and future plans and everything else. It's not just Ruby/Rails, the poster child for programmers with ADHD; it's also PHP, easy to deploy on most hosts but with 168 frameworks you need to spend several hours each to evaluate, only to figure out that someone with delusions of grandeur wrote the routing engine. Honestly, I want to code, become really familiar with one stack, so that I can focus on really great solutions with it. If I want to check out some new paradigms, then I can without having to do so just to find work. Yeah, maybe not the "ideal programmer", but having been doing this only 6 years... it's frustrating to me.
modified on Tuesday, September 6, 2011 11:34 AM
I would just be happy with well defined requirements, and no scope creep. Everything else (choosing the right tool for the job) is what makes it fun to do. :)
Common sense is admitting there is cause and effect and that you can exert some control over what you understand.
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I would just be happy with well defined requirements, and no scope creep. Everything else (choosing the right tool for the job) is what makes it fun to do. :)
Common sense is admitting there is cause and effect and that you can exert some control over what you understand.
Knowing that a screw needs to be removed and that's all the job is ever going to be doesn't make it any more fun to try and figure out what screwdrivers can to be used. And determine if a given screwdriver allows you to turn it the requisite number of times to get the screw out. And whether the screwdriver can handle screws painted blue. And whether the screwdriver can be used anywhere else. Or if it would be cheaper just to buy a whole new [x]. [Apologize for the analogy.]
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John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:
Embrace it, or die
Seems like you abandoned VB.NET in favor of PHP now... :-D
Luc Pattyn [My Articles] Nil Volentibus Arduum
Hijacking... I seem to recall that around the time that VS 2010 came out you posted that activating a guideline in the editor required two registry entries rather than one like the earlier versions. From what I see today, that's not the case, but I wonder what it is I must be confusing with this. Do you recall something that requires an additional registry entry? Don't sweat over it.
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Hijacking... I seem to recall that around the time that VS 2010 came out you posted that activating a guideline in the editor required two registry entries rather than one like the earlier versions. From what I see today, that's not the case, but I wonder what it is I must be confusing with this. Do you recall something that requires an additional registry entry? Don't sweat over it.
You are probably hinting at this thread[^]. Seems my article[^] could use an update... :)
Luc Pattyn [My Articles] Nil Volentibus Arduum
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Did this newsletter article really resonate with anyone else? It's slashdotted (codeprojected maybe?) so here's the GCache link: http://bit.ly/qNbGv6[^]. I know it's in the nature of a programmer to be working in a dynamic field, moreso than many others; but ****, is it frustrating when you want to build someone a relatively simple website with some standard features and a few new "things", and you have to spend however many hours evaluating not just languages but platforms and frameworks and communities and future plans and everything else. It's not just Ruby/Rails, the poster child for programmers with ADHD; it's also PHP, easy to deploy on most hosts but with 168 frameworks you need to spend several hours each to evaluate, only to figure out that someone with delusions of grandeur wrote the routing engine. Honestly, I want to code, become really familiar with one stack, so that I can focus on really great solutions with it. If I want to check out some new paradigms, then I can without having to do so just to find work. Yeah, maybe not the "ideal programmer", but having been doing this only 6 years... it's frustrating to me.
modified on Tuesday, September 6, 2011 11:34 AM
I totally TOTALY feel your pain in this...
///////////////// -I’m a DHCP server at a local restaurant. This chick came up and asked me for my address, and I told her she was out of my scope -Why do Java Programmers wear glasses? Because they don’t C#
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I think "gravelly voice and knife at your neck" is a more appropriate visage.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997I agree with Pete, gave me the image of Clint Eastwood from "Man with No Name". :cool: Good posting JSOP, needed to hear those words today. (beer)
///////////////// -I’m a DHCP server at a local restaurant. This chick came up and asked me for my address, and I told her she was out of my scope -Why do Java Programmers wear glasses? Because they don’t C#
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You are probably hinting at this thread[^]. Seems my article[^] could use an update... :)
Luc Pattyn [My Articles] Nil Volentibus Arduum
I don't think so, but that's one I was able to find via search. It must have been some completely other feature. Thanks for the effort. Also, in regard to your 301: As you can imagine, I usually open Control and Form files in the editor, rarely in the designer, and a per-file setting isn't what I want, so I set the editor as the default... In Solution Explorer, right-click a Form file, click Open With..., select CSharp Editor, click Set as Default. This way the icons remain unchanged, but the editor opens when I double-click a Form file. To open the Designer instead, right-click the file and click View Designer.
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Dalek Dave wrote:
He is at the point of no return.
Gawd, that was corny. But I like it anyway. :laugh:
XAlan Burkhart
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I don't think so, but that's one I was able to find via search. It must have been some completely other feature. Thanks for the effort. Also, in regard to your 301: As you can imagine, I usually open Control and Form files in the editor, rarely in the designer, and a per-file setting isn't what I want, so I set the editor as the default... In Solution Explorer, right-click a Form file, click Open With..., select CSharp Editor, click Set as Default. This way the icons remain unchanged, but the editor opens when I double-click a Form file. To open the Designer instead, right-click the file and click View Designer.
Thanks for the suggestion, I never had tried it. Also, I'm still using VS2008 most of the time, that is why my article isn't up-to-date... :thumbsup:
Luc Pattyn [My Articles] Nil Volentibus Arduum
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Did this newsletter article really resonate with anyone else? It's slashdotted (codeprojected maybe?) so here's the GCache link: http://bit.ly/qNbGv6[^]. I know it's in the nature of a programmer to be working in a dynamic field, moreso than many others; but ****, is it frustrating when you want to build someone a relatively simple website with some standard features and a few new "things", and you have to spend however many hours evaluating not just languages but platforms and frameworks and communities and future plans and everything else. It's not just Ruby/Rails, the poster child for programmers with ADHD; it's also PHP, easy to deploy on most hosts but with 168 frameworks you need to spend several hours each to evaluate, only to figure out that someone with delusions of grandeur wrote the routing engine. Honestly, I want to code, become really familiar with one stack, so that I can focus on really great solutions with it. If I want to check out some new paradigms, then I can without having to do so just to find work. Yeah, maybe not the "ideal programmer", but having been doing this only 6 years... it's frustrating to me.
modified on Tuesday, September 6, 2011 11:34 AM
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Architects can make those decisions based on high-level understandings of platforms/languages/build tools/dependencies/etc. without having to actually implement said decisions in the trenches? It's a little trite, but some architects seem to be people giving relationship advice to someone who's going out on dates with a bunch of different people. They may think person x is the right person for you, but they're not the one dealing day in and day out with person x and all their little quirks that range from minor to crazy. And unlike women, you can't just break up with your logging framework or whatever if you've got it deployed everywhere. I can enjoy evaluating different programming tools, but that doesn't make the commitment to one easier; for me it makes it more difficult, because you're constantly wondering if that new tool would make your life rainbows and unicorns (or at least, with fewer headaches).
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Did this newsletter article really resonate with anyone else? It's slashdotted (codeprojected maybe?) so here's the GCache link: http://bit.ly/qNbGv6[^]. I know it's in the nature of a programmer to be working in a dynamic field, moreso than many others; but ****, is it frustrating when you want to build someone a relatively simple website with some standard features and a few new "things", and you have to spend however many hours evaluating not just languages but platforms and frameworks and communities and future plans and everything else. It's not just Ruby/Rails, the poster child for programmers with ADHD; it's also PHP, easy to deploy on most hosts but with 168 frameworks you need to spend several hours each to evaluate, only to figure out that someone with delusions of grandeur wrote the routing engine. Honestly, I want to code, become really familiar with one stack, so that I can focus on really great solutions with it. If I want to check out some new paradigms, then I can without having to do so just to find work. Yeah, maybe not the "ideal programmer", but having been doing this only 6 years... it's frustrating to me.
modified on Tuesday, September 6, 2011 11:34 AM
It is called being a professional not just a hacker. If our profession were that of an architect we would have to know how to build on sand, bedrock and everything in between. We would build houses, garages, apartment blocks, skyscrapers and bridges. Of course if you wanted to just build chicken coops you might make a living, you would certainly know, after a while, how to do everything there is in the world of chicken coops and some of your chicken coops might be amazing. You could not however justify calling yourself an architect. Sitting down and just cutting code can be fun, the analysis planning, testing and dealing with varied technologies and difficult clients is also a very important part of the job. Like it or not it is the price you pay for being a professional software engineer.
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The
Returnkey isn't available in his chosen language.".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997Return is for the weak. One should never look back.
"To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems" - Homer Simpson
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It is called being a professional not just a hacker. If our profession were that of an architect we would have to know how to build on sand, bedrock and everything in between. We would build houses, garages, apartment blocks, skyscrapers and bridges. Of course if you wanted to just build chicken coops you might make a living, you would certainly know, after a while, how to do everything there is in the world of chicken coops and some of your chicken coops might be amazing. You could not however justify calling yourself an architect. Sitting down and just cutting code can be fun, the analysis planning, testing and dealing with varied technologies and difficult clients is also a very important part of the job. Like it or not it is the price you pay for being a professional software engineer.
Little condescending, aren't we? I enjoy the analysis, testing, planning, etc. that goes into setting the STAGE for building a system... if I gave that impression above, that's not what I intended. Figuring out the algorithms for determining how to successfully build a real-time platform where data x from source y needs to be run through systems a/b/c before being placed in a data warehouse for analysis (or some other complex example) is fun to me and to a lot of developers. Where your analogy to a 'regular' architect falls down is that your knowledge of different building materials and types of systems and freaking physics DOESN'T CHANGE EVERY SIX MONTHS. THAT'S my problem. Concrete hasn't gotten obsolete in the last two hundred years. Steel hasn't been replaced by TransparaSteel and left to be only supported on some aging platform because a company or some developers lost interest or found something else that's more in their best interests. I find that aspect frustrating, and I think there's a decent number of people that feel the same way. It's not just Microsoft that decides that some technology they were pimping is suddenly obsolete, won't be further developed and will leave you with the decision to either switch to something else or risk going without security patches and updates to have it deal with newer technologies. And frankly, your concluding statement is just insulting. Devs that agree with the article author and I are quite familiar with the stuff that happens outside the IDE, from analysis to deployment. We wouldn't be reading freaking CodeProject if we were "code monkeys", as it seems you're implying that we are. "Code monkeys" who wouldn't know anything about that outside stuff wouldn't be complaining about it's crazily dynamic nature, would they? A professional commits to improving his craft, and by (loose) definition, someone who is trying to do so and finds some parts of that effort to be incredibly frustrating is still a professional. I work through it, most of those other devs do too. So don't presume that we're not willing to pay that price, and unless you're some software luminary don't presume to define me as a professional or not.
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craigsaboe wrote:
is it frustrating when you want to build someone a relatively simple website with some standard features and a few new "things", and you have to spend however many hours evaluating not just languages but platforms and frameworks and communities and future plans and everything else.
That's why I never build stuff for clients in new tech. I'd rather we spent some time playing around R&Ding with a particular technology, rather than trying it out on the clients. By doing this, there's less pressure on you to lever code into solving one part of a particular problem - instead, you can spend time trying to get a broader understanding of how things work and what you need to do. This is why it took us 18 months from starting to play around with WPF to actually using it on a daily basis with our clients. Basically, never try out new tech on clients - it's only going to end up blowing up in both your faces.
Forgive your enemies - it messes with their heads
My blog | My articles | MoXAML PowerToys | Mole 2010 - debugging made easier - my favourite utility
Pete O'Hanlon wrote:
I'd rather we spent some time playing around R&Ding with a particular technology, rather than trying it out on the clients
I just wish everyone thought like you. I've participated on a project from a contractor and the project leader said it would require Sharepoint license. Since I was at the client side and I wasn't involved on requirement analysis, all I could do was accept it. Later I had to maintain the application and I learned that the application was simple CRUD and reporting application as far as the front-end is concerned. It cost the company a good amount of money for the sharepoint license, when obviously a simple asp.net front-end would do it. Instead, because the contractor used us a lab mouse, we ended up with a costlier, difficult to maintain and deploy application which used Infopath forms hosted on a Sharepoint Server. If only I could give my 2¢ in the appropriate moment... Sometimes it just amazes me how people are picked to decide about things they are ignorant about. If I had been consulted I'd have saved money and time for the company. It was so obvious that we were used as an experiment to train the contractor's development team.
"To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems" - Homer Simpson
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Little condescending, aren't we? I enjoy the analysis, testing, planning, etc. that goes into setting the STAGE for building a system... if I gave that impression above, that's not what I intended. Figuring out the algorithms for determining how to successfully build a real-time platform where data x from source y needs to be run through systems a/b/c before being placed in a data warehouse for analysis (or some other complex example) is fun to me and to a lot of developers. Where your analogy to a 'regular' architect falls down is that your knowledge of different building materials and types of systems and freaking physics DOESN'T CHANGE EVERY SIX MONTHS. THAT'S my problem. Concrete hasn't gotten obsolete in the last two hundred years. Steel hasn't been replaced by TransparaSteel and left to be only supported on some aging platform because a company or some developers lost interest or found something else that's more in their best interests. I find that aspect frustrating, and I think there's a decent number of people that feel the same way. It's not just Microsoft that decides that some technology they were pimping is suddenly obsolete, won't be further developed and will leave you with the decision to either switch to something else or risk going without security patches and updates to have it deal with newer technologies. And frankly, your concluding statement is just insulting. Devs that agree with the article author and I are quite familiar with the stuff that happens outside the IDE, from analysis to deployment. We wouldn't be reading freaking CodeProject if we were "code monkeys", as it seems you're implying that we are. "Code monkeys" who wouldn't know anything about that outside stuff wouldn't be complaining about it's crazily dynamic nature, would they? A professional commits to improving his craft, and by (loose) definition, someone who is trying to do so and finds some parts of that effort to be incredibly frustrating is still a professional. I work through it, most of those other devs do too. So don't presume that we're not willing to pay that price, and unless you're some software luminary don't presume to define me as a professional or not.
It would seem that you read my reply to your post as condescending. I apologise that was not my intent. My final statement to which you seem to take so much offence simply stated ‘Like it or not it is the price you pay for being a professional software engineer.’ That is not a dig at you or anyone else it is simply a statement of fact. A bit like saying postmen work in the rain or farmers work in manure. That is the price they pay; there is no implication that they are anything but very good postmen or farmers. It would seem that you do not like some aspects of our wonderful profession or at least do not find them fun anymore. There is quite a lot that I do not like and I have been at it for twenty five years so I have seen most of what is on offer but I still enjoy my job. I handle the frustrating non fun bits and accept that life is never all roses.
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It would seem that you read my reply to your post as condescending. I apologise that was not my intent. My final statement to which you seem to take so much offence simply stated ‘Like it or not it is the price you pay for being a professional software engineer.’ That is not a dig at you or anyone else it is simply a statement of fact. A bit like saying postmen work in the rain or farmers work in manure. That is the price they pay; there is no implication that they are anything but very good postmen or farmers. It would seem that you do not like some aspects of our wonderful profession or at least do not find them fun anymore. There is quite a lot that I do not like and I have been at it for twenty five years so I have seen most of what is on offer but I still enjoy my job. I handle the frustrating non fun bits and accept that life is never all roses.
But why would you bother pointing out about the "price we pay" unless you believed it was something we weren't cognizant of already? Of course there are some things of this profession I don't like, as you agree in the next sentence. I get the impression you believe you're talking to some PHP guy who believes himself a coder because he tweaked a Drupal theme - yes, in that case you probably DON'T have a professional developer who is familiar with the software lifecycle. I'm talking about professionals who just get frustrated over this particular characteristic and do more complex work. Don't mistake that minor bit of despair I'm discussing here with regret over my choice of profession, or some belief that it should be "all roses", or that I don't or can't handle those bits that suck. I think my tone might indicate to you more discomfort than I'm expressing. I won't stop developing software, and I'll try my best to keep up with things like every other professional dev, as I do know is the price I pay for being a professional. I just want to express that bit of pain and see whether there are other souls who feel this way as well.
