
The Delight of Development - zan
https://markan.me/the-delight-of-development/
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troughway
I wish people would write blog posts about doing things they “love” without
trying to underhandedly sell something.

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I’ll see you next time!

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otaviokz
As soon as read "hacking" being used as a synonym for coding/development, I
started to get angry. I still read it just in case I was wrong, just to end up
being right, and angry.

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proverbialbunny
Hacking traditionally refers to prototyping like, "quickly hacking something
up" and was pretty common in the Perl/dot com bubble days where everything was
some clever hack, just to get it out the door as quickly as possible.

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wiz21c
I love software development as a _creative_ task. It means, I love it when I
do _create_ , that is, when I make something that is the fruit of my
imagination.

Development is a nightmare for me when I have to develop someone else's (i.e.
my company) idea. At that point, it's not creation anymore, it's execution.

~~~
proverbialbunny
Me too. This is why I went into data science years ago. It's more difficult,
but when correlated with difficulty you can get a good feel how creative the
project is going to be.

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vharuck
Don't you have to make analyses and reports "production quality?" I found that
fun at first, but now it's annoying when 25% of my code is formatting and
capitalizing.

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proverbialbunny
No, I'm not a machine learning software engineer, so no productionization on
my end. I do find paths forward for the companies I've worked at but a report
usually consists of a 1-to-1 with a c-suite pitching the project. If I've
written a model, the notebook speaks for itself and naturally looks glorious
with plots and what not. I have been known to create power point slides or do
larger presentations. It is part of the job but I've never associated the
terminology "production quality" with a presentation.

>25% of my code is formatting and capitalizing.

I haven't personally used it because by default I tend to write reasonably
clean code but
[https://github.com/ryantam626/jupyterlab_code_formatter](https://github.com/ryantam626/jupyterlab_code_formatter)
or similar might help.

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truth_be_told
Ah yes; a fluff piece with nothing in it.

Article is named "Delight of Development" but of course the author is "not a
developer anymore".

>My focus now is less on building software myself, and more about enabling
others build better software.

Translation: I don't produce anything but lord it over people who do. What the
hell is "Developer Relations"? Has the industry gone mad?

Most of us got into programming because we enjoyed it; until the "Industry"
with its useless "managemeent" layers destroyed our motivation/enjoyment of it
and turned us into unhappy drones.

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kharak
I really like to hear more from people who don't care about coding or software
development in general.

I'd assume the majority of developers is not doing coding at home, as long as
they don't have to learn a new skill for their next job. They neither hate nor
love coding, they tolerate it as a means to an end.

I also assume that those developers rise as much through the ranks as the love
coding kind. At least that's my observation so far. Or to be more precise, I
belive they more of the not loving kind rise through the ranks.

But it's rare hearing from them. They don't care too much about what they do
at work, at least not as a trade, hence no blogging. And we all feel that it's
unwise to be open about not being pashioned about your work.

~~~
karatestomp
> I'd assume the majority of developers is not doing coding at home, as long
> as they don't have to learn a new skill for their next job. They neither
> hate nor love coding, they tolerate it as a means to an end.

Coding's fine. Sometimes fun. Our tools mostly suck though. I'm done fucking
around with broken technology in my spare time, since I get more than enough
of that at work (at this point I'd prefer zero time doing that), which means
I'm mostly done with tech shit. These days I'd even get rid of home Internet
if no-one in the house needed it for work or (increasingly) homework. Can buy
more media than I need for the cost of broadband + media services, libraries
exist, and books are better besides (one of the most truly valuable parts of
the Internet is Library Genesis, which is illegal anyway, and is all about...
books and journals).

I was all about this stuff as a teenager. Now I wish I could find something
that pays even close to as well that never, ever involved looking at a glowing
screen. I'd absolutely love to go weeks without touching a computer.

~~~
kharak
Write me if you find something we'll paid outside of tech. I'd love to get
out, but nothing (I could do without years of training beforehand) would pay
the same.

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gazzini
I think these types of reflections are generally important — “the unexamined
life is not worth living” and all that. Thanks for sharing!

I was surprised by this sentence:

> My measure for a well tested system? One that lets you deploy at 5pm on a
> Friday before confidently heading to the pub for a few pints with the team
> that just shipped.

It feels... optimistic.

