

Top Things That Annoy Programmers - superberliner
http://www.kevinwilliampang.com/2008/08/28/top-10-things-that-annoy-programmers/

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wynand
Being thought of as a "subordinate" (I mention this, because he talks about
programmers as being subordinates).

Am I the only person on earth that rails against this? I trade my time for
money, but I am no-one's "subordinate". To me, a manager is someone who makes
sure I can get my work done and checks on the overall progress.

I guess I'm asking for a mighty downvoting but I really want to know if others
think its okay and why its okay to be a subordinate (especially when the
superordinates are so often less than impressive human beings).

~~~
filosofo
That's funny, because "subordinate" has replaced the previous generation's
"inferior" as the commonly-used term for an employee down a step in the org
chart.

However, to answer your question: if someone can determine whether you get to
keep your job, whether you like it or not you are that person's subordinate.

~~~
Tichy
"if someone can determine whether you get to keep your job, whether you like
it or not you are that person's subordinate."

Trying to get my head around this. What does "keeping one's job" even mean?
isn't there still a mutual contract, and both parties can break out of it? So
the boss can act on behalf of the company, and you can't. But presumably you
can still quit the job on your own decision. Does that make the boss your
subordinate?

It seems the boss has more leverage, as the worst you can do to him is quit,
whereas he can fire you. But both parties can hurt each other.

I hope I'll never have to enter such an environment again.

~~~
filosofo
_Trying to get my head around this. What does "keeping one's job" even mean?
isn't there still a mutual contract, and both parties can break out of it? So
the boss can act on behalf of the company, and you can't. But presumably you
can still quit the job on your own decision. Does that make the boss your
subordinate?_

No, but I suppose it might imply that you could be your own subordinate. Since
the boss can fire you, but you can't fire your boss, you have a subordinate
relationship.

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hellotoby
I would actually say that my #1 is when a client (non-programmer) will tell me
how easy or difficult it will be to perform the task that they have just
assigned me, in an attempt to have their fee waived/lowered.

A typical conversation would involve them saying something along the lines of:

"I just need you to do this (insert non-trivial task) for me. It's really
easy, it should only take you about five minutes."

~~~
dfischer
Amen. I hear this all the time.

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anatoly
Top-ten lists have been getting more and more annoying to this programmer.
They're surely somewhere in the top ten by now.

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ErrantX
Interruptions - absolutely the worst thing ever (Im surprised it was only #9)

I have the somewhat mixed fortune to be currently living with my parents
(hmmmm) - which has it's advantages but, man, the interruptions. I have to go
to a coffee shop or my girlfriends at weekends just to be able to do an hours
coding in peace :D

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nollidge
What annoys me is being thrown on to projects without asking what _I_ am
interested in doing. I don't intend to do a shit job, but you're not going to
get my best work if I'm not creatively invested in my work.

~~~
coderdude
You could learn to love the mundane aspects of your job. Seriously though, no
one expects you to be creatively invested in that fix to the contact form, but
that's the work people need done.

~~~
jrockway
This is thinking like a user, not thinking like a programmer. As a programmer,
you don't want to fix the contact form, you need to fix the need to fix the
contact form. This is how you avoid deathmarch projects; you program away the
tedious parts so that you have a functioning system instead of a bunch of code
that does stuff.

Just sayin'.

~~~
coderdude
I'm thinking as an employee, and not as a dreamer living in a world where the
boss asks you what sounds like fun.

~~~
jrockway
But programming actually ends up taking less time than coding. Coding a page
takes an hour. Coding twenty pages takes twenty hours. Programming a page
maker takes a day. Making a million pages then takes no additional time.

Unless you really only have one page that never needs to change (and when has
_that_ ever happened?), programming is going to beat coding every time. And
it's more fun!

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scorpioxy
I don't think that programmers should be writing user documentation. API
documentation, yes. But not documentation geared towards users. It should be
reviewed by the programmers who wrote the system, but they shouldn't write it.

One thing that annoys me are arbitrary deadlines. I once had a "manager" tell
me that to help me out in working faster, he's going to put a deadline on the
project.

Of course that's why the project was late! It's because I had no deadline.
It's not because it needed 10 programmers and I was the only one working on
it. Needless to say, I didn't work there for long.

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coffeeaddicted
My old code is fine, so let me put in there a new number 1. "How long will it
take?" - there's nothing I fear and hate more than having to do time
estimates. And yes, I know that they also help me ...

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edw519

      10. Requests that begin with, "All you have to do is...".
      9. Deadlines fabricated by others.
      8. Single character variable names.
      7. Being spoonfed requirements on a need-to-know basis.
      6. SQL Selects within iterations.
      5. Requests that describe how, but not what.
      4. Variable names that don't describe what they are.
      3. Meetings without beer.
      2. Dropping everything for the emergency du jour.
      1. Top 10 Lists that infer that all programmers think alike.

~~~
harshpotatoes
You get meetings with beer? What is this? Madison Ave where everybody has a
bottle of scotch in their drawer?

~~~
rpledge
Meetings with beer work well as a time limiter if you don't let people leave
to use the washroom. The lenght of the meeting becomes bounded by the
participants bladder size.

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joe_the_user
_"Management that doesn’t understand programming"_

Huh? My worst managers have programmers trying to break into management while
keeping their hand in programming by telling me how I should structure my
programs. My best managers were non-programmers who had deep understanding of
the development process and thus would get out of the way while did my thing.

~~~
LiveTheDream
Semantics, not pedantics. The article means "management that doesn't
understand programming" in the sense of enabling development, not in the sense
of "I wrote quicksort once".

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SandB0x
Coding standards documents written by people who can barely program.

~~~
Silhouette
Coding standards documents written by people who think coding standards are
about which side of the * the space goes on. :-)

------
newobj
"Can't you just..."

