[wildcow]

Stop hunting programmers. Many of us actually don't care about the deadlines, the users etc. We just love to program. We don't care about stand-ups, story points or whatever the business uses to convert complexity to billable hours.

http://programming-motherfucker.com/

[sirsinsalot]

As both a programmer and manager of teams of programmers, this take is wrong.

Don't use "we" when you mean "I".

If I interviewed a programmer who had this view point, they wouldn't get the job.

Good (not necessary) processes manage risk. Risk needs to be managed whenever money changes hands in exchange for goods and services. These processes ensure you get paid.

It's a profession. Just as a builder or architect shouldn't hate plans and drawings, programmers need to care as much about the surrounding engineering processes as the "hammer and nails" act of coding.

It's the difference between a professional engineer and an arrogant, hobby hacker.

[H8crilA]

You are absolutely right. But I will fake my way into your company on the whole business thing and still remain an arrogant, hobby hacker. But not too arrogant. You simply need my technical skills and I need the $$. Plus the job is often fun, at least a good portion of it. At least for a while.

I am really happy there exist more business people that look after processes and whatnot, because it does seem like we (society) need it, to some degree.

[cube2222]

There's a difference between programming, the hobby, and programming, the job.

In one of these you're paid to care.

[jmclnx]

Well here is the thing.

At work all we hear about is "put the customer (user) first" which is great. But in reality you get 'dinged' if you really do that. In the 80s and very early 90s, I would work directly with the user to give them what they want. The users would see real progress so was kept happy, no matter how long it took. You just had to prove to them why you are having issues. Not a big deal.

Then the methodologies came in, far more than I can remember. Now, god forbid I forget to keep Jira updated. Also, I have not talked to a real user in many years. The outcome, the real users are frustrated because they get their statuses from their managers who attend meetings that show meaningless 'high-level' presentations.

The web site should add a line for "high-level", meaning "I am too dumb to look at details, here is a pretty picture". When I hear "high-level", I know the meeting will contain no real information.

You can see this with Opensource too, in the Early Days of Linux, if a user had a problem, Linus or someone close to him, would respond directly and it would get fix rather quickly. Now companies run the show, so we get things we really do not want. But to be fair, I think Linus still tries to cut through the bureaucracy when he can, with little success.

[vaylian]

True. But it would help some managers to understand that there is more to programming than just achieving business goals.

[sensanaty]

More like paid to pretend to care :)

[Night_Thastus]

Well, I sort of disagree with part of this. There is a line between useless complexity and useful complexity.

Code review, having a clear software development lifecycle (not rigid, just clear), testing, good and frequent communication between developers and from developers to the higher levels, and spending more time on design are not bad things. They can save a lot of time and frustration in the long run.

[pcthrowaway]

I can't fathom how a software dev could not "care about users".

Like, what, are you building software in an ivory tower for yourself? It's such a self-centered attitude.

What do you care about other than 'tinkering'? Surely you have to care about at least delivering the bare minimum of results, or you wouldn't be valuable on a team.

[moffkalast]

Have you met users? All they do is break stuff and complain, injecting complexity because of their varying platforms that need to be supported and features they thought would be neat. Writing code for yourself is the best.

[spritefs]

> I can't fathom how a software dev could not "care about users".

In a large company, there are so many layers of abstraction between you and the users that it's difficult to see how something could benefit them.

Also on top of this, I don't think that showing users more ads is supposed to "benefit" them. There are so many orgs like this, where you hear this claptrap about "benefiting the user" when it's really just showing them more ads or something like that

At this point, what else is there to care about other than just writing good code and making sure it's correct?

[janee]

I think the fact you mention billable hours is telling. What about caring about problems and their solutions?

Because that's the core driver for me. I often feel other programmers fall into this trap of technology usage for the sake of technology usage and less about solving real problems.

I think having a distaste for process is justified when working in environments where there's no buy in from the team...but don't assume that applies to "many of us"

[BillyTheKing]

Those comments against pair-programming, or testing, or PR reviews etc. just make me wonder about the industry the author is in. I used to think similarly, but after working in and on Fintechs for a while I just totally disagree. Small bugs can have crazy costs - there's literally a price-tag on those. So minimising bugs in production makes a lot of sense both for the company as well as the developer's mental well-being. I assume it's similar for programmers in the health-care, or aviation, etc. industry.

It probably matters a little less for programmers in the ad-tech industry, in which case it's fine to be more risk-taking in your programming. Programming != Programming, different approaches make sense for different products and industries.

[meindnoch]

Finally, a movement I can identify with!

[tjpnz]

Not only will I be buying that t-shirt, but I'll also be wearing it the next time I get asked to interview someone. That'll teach them.

[sakisv]

Assuming it's not a joke site, I could kinda agree with some of the "values" but not with the "pointless tests".

I mean, I agree that some tests are, indeed, pointless, but I wouldn't trust someone who "just wants to program" to decide which tests are useful and which are pointless.

[ThatOneUnityGuy]

Wow, seems like this guy really knows something.

Hey look, he even sells "learn it the hard way" books for $29.99!

[tester457]

Unironically his free books are okay