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An outrageous, insightful, and sadly accurate commentary on programming. I found this an extremely entertaining read and agree with most of it. It doesn't offer solutions, but certainly highlights a lot of the problems.
"Double you tee eff?" you say, and start hunting for the problem. You discover that one day, some idiot decided that since another idiot decided that 1/0 should equal infinity, they could just use that as a shorthand for "Infinity" when simplifying their code. Then a non-idiot rightly decided that this was idiotic, which is what the original idiot should have decided, but since he didn't, the non-idiot decided to be a dick and make this a failing error in his new compiler. Then he decided he wasn't going to tell anyone that this was an error, because he's a dick, and now all your snowflakes are urine and you can't even find the cat.
Personally, I think things will only get better (including salaries) when software development is treated like other engineering disciplines.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by drk9000 on Thursday May 01 2014, @10:25PM
I am from the other side of the spectrum, let's call it "physical world engineering" and I can assure you, it isn't the wonderland full of simple, obvious decisions and sane management that it seems that some programmers make it out to be. I do know how to code (almost all competent engineers can nowadays) and although I have never worked on a massive code base that I had written less than even half of nor do I consider myself a professional programmer, I can parallel many themes of the article with frustrations that I do have to deal with.
Many times, before even starting a design I might have to read 10 different, snore inducing standards, created by different standards bodies who probably all have not heard of each other and then choose which of the conflicting standards are most relevant. Team members on projects frequently go rogue, eschewing best practices because they were under a tight deadline or because they had lost all interest in doing their job correctly and many, many things have to be revised and usually not just once. There are layers and layers of bureaucracy too and managers (usually who got the job through connections) capable of stupidity and counter-productiveness that is nothing less than astounding. I would also add that many of our functions (that probably should done with code) are typically done with a mind blowing number of Excel files that are as a rule never: documented, have any relevant function, organized in a logical manner or even named correctly with anything other than a date stamp and a one word description like "Materials". And to boot, at the current moment we are having a much harder time finding work and when we do the pay is not nearly as good.
If you knew the kind of organizational chaos that went into the design of the fancy airplane you are boarding for your family vacation you would probably never step foot onto it, I personally have to be medicated before putting myself on a plane as a direct result of working with Boeing for years. Yet, airplanes are a safe, affordable means of travel, and will remain so. I think what you are all complaining about is not an exclusive problem for programmers. You should be payed more, but don't argue it by badmouthing other professions and making them to seem less complex, we are all in this mess together.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday May 02 2014, @02:57AM
I think that's generally true of any industry where one side of the table gets to say what they want and how they want it, and the other side of the table is tasked with implementing it but lacks authority to change what doesn't work.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.