Too deep for Sat morning
Professional programmers
- Thread starter Aquarians
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I don’t hate programming (as non-job as you said), but I hate what the industry has become. The commoditization of programming combined with offshoring just makes it no longer rewarding for me.
So, yesterday was my last day as professional programmer and today is my first day as “professional” trader. This is attempt #2
But I must mention that having programming skills is a good safety net in case things don’t work out again
That's a nuance that @terr has missed. I do a lot of programming for myself so I'm not mad at programming per-se. It's the continuous churn combined with corporate politics that makes me sick.
So, yesterday was my last day as professional programmer and today is my first day as “professional” trader. This is attempt #2
But I must mention that having programming skills is a good safety net in case things don’t work out again
Well, congrats! Also, 3'rd time is a charm
I'm gonna start a series to debunk some nocive myths propagated by the software development industry, as you'll see, not by naivety but by nefariousness.
1) Theorem (Hanlon): "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
When you apply the theorem in the specific context of the software development industry, you'll get two new cases:
A) For software developers. Lemma (Aquarians): "Never attribute to geniality that which can be adequately explained by malice".
B) For managers. Corollary (Aquarians): "Never attribute to stupidity that which can be adequately explained by malice".
I'm gonna come back with concrete examples and an attempt proof. Feel free to debunk them.
1) Theorem (Hanlon): "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
When you apply the theorem in the specific context of the software development industry, you'll get two new cases:
A) For software developers. Lemma (Aquarians): "Never attribute to geniality that which can be adequately explained by malice".
B) For managers. Corollary (Aquarians): "Never attribute to stupidity that which can be adequately explained by malice".
I'm gonna come back with concrete examples and an attempt proof. Feel free to debunk them.
Let's start with a simple case of "frameworkitis". Frameworkitis is a brain disease that affects software developers and manifests a lot like the Stockholm Syndrome. Original developers are almost always pure evil (terrorists). But true evil develops once their former victims fall in love with the aggressors.
I would have liked to point you to a classical reference, Benji Smith's post on joelonsoftware forum: "Why I Hate Frameworks" around 2005. Some of us were around and active on Internet forums back then too! In fact Elite Trader is a lot more like the joelonsoftware forum than modern alternatives like Twitter or Facebook. I'm a dinosaur. Not a good comparison. I prefer to think I'm a survivor and evenmore, like many of my kind, someday our time will come back.
Anywayz, you just learned a valuable lesson in owning the physical copy of a work as opposed to relying on the "cloud". There's no "Why I Hate Frameworks" article anymore on the easy to find internet around me and I can't find it on Wayback Machine either.
So I hope at least a few of you read it back then when it was still available (uncensored) and reached some conclusions from it.
Anywayz, you just learned a valuable lesson in owning the physical copy of a work as opposed to relying on the "cloud". There's no "Why I Hate Frameworks" article anymore on the easy to find internet around me and I can't find it on Wayback Machine either.
So I hope at least a few of you read it back then when it was still available (uncensored) and reached some conclusions from it.
Use case: a developer is assigned to work on a high profile project and by definition, a very difficult one. Even understanding the problem is a hard task, let alone come up with a solution.
Do you think this ever deterred geniuses from writing code? A lot of code. A framework? NEVER IN THE HISTORY OF SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS HUMANITY.
So fast-forward: instead of solving the original hard problem (deliver the project to the customer), he shits some framework for supposedly doing that in a superior manner and of course, leaves. If he's a contractor then that's their modus operandi and no point holding grudges but more often than not it's a regular-employed "star" from your own company who does just enough work to be promoted away from it when shit hits the fan.
Memes of the software industry:
1) The original developer was a genius who was just too bored to actually provide a "boilerplate" solution (boilerplate == factory work), so instead he spent his precious brainpower inventing a different kind of factory (a framework) where the not so gifted followers can happily work as in write 2 lines of code and deliver the solution to the customer. Of course after implementing the genius framework the genius became bored again in using it himself so he left for higher challanges, leaving it to us minions.
2) The manager in charge of the genius who wrote 95% of the required code while consuming 200% of the budget (salary) we minions get while never of course exceeding the delivery date of 3 years, only leaving the project / company at 2 years and 11 months before project delivery date. Well he's convinced the guy was a genius who already wrote not 95% but 99.98% of the stuff for us and it's only our retarded and overpaid brains who are not able to deliver the remaining 0.02% in the remaining month till shuttle leaves for Mars and there's no way backand we'll be sued billions if we don't deliver.
Do you think this ever deterred geniuses from writing code? A lot of code. A framework? NEVER IN THE HISTORY OF SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS HUMANITY.
So fast-forward: instead of solving the original hard problem (deliver the project to the customer), he shits some framework for supposedly doing that in a superior manner and of course, leaves. If he's a contractor then that's their modus operandi and no point holding grudges but more often than not it's a regular-employed "star" from your own company who does just enough work to be promoted away from it when shit hits the fan.
Memes of the software industry:
1) The original developer was a genius who was just too bored to actually provide a "boilerplate" solution (boilerplate == factory work), so instead he spent his precious brainpower inventing a different kind of factory (a framework) where the not so gifted followers can happily work as in write 2 lines of code and deliver the solution to the customer. Of course after implementing the genius framework the genius became bored again in using it himself so he left for higher challanges, leaving it to us minions.
2) The manager in charge of the genius who wrote 95% of the required code while consuming 200% of the budget (salary) we minions get while never of course exceeding the delivery date of 3 years, only leaving the project / company at 2 years and 11 months before project delivery date. Well he's convinced the guy was a genius who already wrote not 95% but 99.98% of the stuff for us and it's only our retarded and overpaid brains who are not able to deliver the remaining 0.02% in the remaining month till shuttle leaves for Mars and there's no way backand we'll be sued billions if we don't deliver.
Know what? Back in 1984 when I was cheering "Hail Ceaușescu!" and right now in North Korea when people say they hate capitalism and Americans, the lie was more transparent than the world of corporate software development today.
The amount of doublethink and posturing makes Orwell's 1984 look like some silly kid's book.
The amount of doublethink and posturing makes Orwell's 1984 look like some silly kid's book.