Been here 5 days and I hate it already, I understand this vacancy now.
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I started my programming career teaching myself to script and code to write tools to automate large aspect of my electrical engineering job. Eventually I hit the point, where my tools were getting huge and complicated and I realized that my professional software skills were lacking and I couldn’t just keep producing this untested spaghetti code and hope to actually get things done in manageable way.
I then left for the world of professional software engineering, and in the time since, I’ve seen two companies that actually build software properly, and three companies producing worse code with worse practices than my self taught code from years ago.
Quite frankly the world of software development is downright embarassing to work in at times. I don’t think we necessarily need to gatekeep software development with engineering degrees, but I do think that all developers should be required to take engineering ethics courses to understand their own responsibilities to push back and say no, this is not done and shippable until it’s properly built and documented.
I wish I had some hippocratic style oath I could lean on to not release unsafe, unoptimised, barely tested, possibly maintainable code.
Alas all I have is good, verbose comments and an email here or there expressing my concerns.i started in a similar fashion (but through IT instead of electrical engineering) and i’ve also left the world of professional software engineering a couple of months ago, but not because of the bad code bases.
it feels like bad/spaghetti code with bad practices are more common than not and i’ve always wondered if the relatively intense level of gatekeeping in the software engineering field is a manifestation of a false mass belief that an engineering degree will automatically result in better code.
I see it as the continuation of a very old problem. Old school engineering didn’t have any standards until a bunch of people died over and over and the public demanded change. The railroads, construction tycoons, factory owners, mine operators etc all bitterly fought, and still fight, engineering safety requirements. Computer industries have continued this. They all oppose public action, hide negative information, and try to pin blame for conspicuous failures on individuals rather than systemic rot.
I think also because of the relatively less visceral nature of software catastrophes we don’t have a culture of safety. That’s not to say software errors can’t cause horrific accidents but the power grid going down and causing a dozen people in the service area to die is less traumatic than a bridge collapsing and sending a dozen people into an icy river. That’s an extreme example but my point is that humans undervalue harms that are seen as less acutely, physically brutal and software just seems more abstract.
Most of us aren’t working on power grid either, so when you start trying to quantify our software’s risks you have to speak to “harms” rather than just crimes like negligence, and then you expose this huge contradiction about how responsibility is allocated socially. Like, not only should engineers, pilots, and doctors have higher responsibility to prevent harm, but so should cops, journalists, politicians, billionaires, etc.
So the risks are undervalued and both intentionally and unconsciously minimized. The result is most of us who’ve seen the inside are quietly horrified and that’s the end of it.
I don’t know what the answer is except unignorable tragedies because that seems to be the only thing powerful enough to build regulations which are constantly being eroded.
… my point is that humans undervalue harms that are seen as less acutely, physically brutal …
i think you’ve excellently summed up the reason why horrible things like a genocide are allowed happen; so long as we’re not allowed to witness the atrocities in the media and we dehumanize them, we will never understand the needful visceral reaction to stop it.
So the risks are undervalued and both intentionally and unconsciously minimized. The result is most of us who’ve seen the inside are quietly horrified and that’s the end of it.
i wonder if something like the Hippocratic Oath could help; but then again the same physicians to took the oath committed atrocities & human rights violations under the eugenics programs/pushes that that the united states suffered from in the early to mid 20th century.
i’ve also left the world of professional software engineering a couple of months ago
What are you doing now? 🙂
I have no intention of leaving my web dev consultant career, I’m loving it, regardless of poor practices (it’s not so bad in the places I’ve been). But I’m curious what kind of careers people find after software development.
my experience suggests that they usually either go into consulting or software sales/relations; it went back to IT because it’s easier to find work due to the lower levels of gatekeeping, which helps ensure that i meet my need to remain in the place i’ve chosen to live out the rest of my life.
If nobody else understands it, you can make up literally anything you want about how much more complicated it is than initially thought.
I realize that this is a humor post, and not necessarily the right place to provide advice, but never underestimate the power of adding a Q&A meeting to someone else’s calendar. Someone doesn’t want to make time to explain mystery tool? Well you just made it for them. Usually I try and be polite by asking before I arrange something.
Sage advice. In the meeting I will assume positive intent, like he’s protecting me from mummy’s curse.
Consider opening up Ghidra and solving the mystery yourself, and if something goes wrong down the line just blame the guy for never training you
Ya I will figure it out, it’s just another clown lording over an imaginary fief.
Can’t wait for code review lol.
I heard somewhere mysterytool.exe solves everything so get to it and obviously if it does not its because you are not a good enough technical guy.
5 days ain’t enough for this shit.
