Why Are You Making Programming HARDER?

I hear a common complaint that programming has gotten harder over the years.

The more years I spent in software development, I fell into getting frustrated and blaming other people, or the technology.

But I realized that I was a big part of the problem - though it was hard to admit.

In this video, I share some things I didn't realize at first that I was doing to make my job harder than it needed to be.

0:00 Introduction
01:55 A History Dev Innovation Theory
04:44 Gut Checking Complexity
06:11 The Framework Explosion
09:00 Why Are We Making Dev Harder?
09:06 #1: Fear Of Career Irrelevance
09:48 #2: Underestimating Learning Costs
11:37 #3: Intellectual Masturbation
13:09 #4: Immaturity in Technology Selection

Related Videos:

"Technology Addiction | Materialism in Software Development":

"Are You A Perfectionist Programmer?":

#programming #career #complexity

[HealthyDev]

How are you coping with our need to grow without making programming harder?

Skip to points:

01:55 A History Dev Innovation Theory
04:44 Gut Checking Complexity
06:11 The Framework Explosion
09:00 Why Are We Making Dev Harder?
09:06 #1: Fear Of Career Irrelevance
09:48 #2: Underestimating Learning Costs
11:37 #3: Intellectual Masturbation
13:09 #4: Immaturity in Technology Selection

[zackplauche]

I don't think people will understand how amazing this video is. He just saved you years of your life.

[ManojSingh-dmjy]

Man, you are the only person telling truth about software development. Rest of experts are just fanning latest tech hype to earn money, and attend technical conference in Las Vegas. I find your videos as stress buster. You will not get money by telling truth, but you will definitely get blessings of many software developers
, around the world.

[dhruvshetty]

This reminds me of how now everyone’s trying to solve every business problem with machine learning or deep learning algorithms because they can and it looks sexy when they can just define the problem and hypotheses better and use linear regression or trees or even sql queries which are faster, use less resources, interpretable, you get the gist because it’s like us software developers are just not used to think about outcomes.

[basteagui]

this is the guy that really speaks what you need to hear on youtube about these topics.
i don't listen to advice just from any of these youtubers but this guy really knows what he's talking about

[edcoronado]

I’m 7 years into my career and recently became dev manager and these are all great things to look out for in senior+ devs. Great content.

[davethorn]

This is good dust, I am so guilty of this. As a self taught guy, I know modern frameworks but man I've only realized I need to go back to basics and learn that

[alexplay]

Completely true. The thing is today, the majority wants to apply all existing frameworks into 1 project just for the sake of using the latest, instead of stopping and asking the question: do I really need this new technology?

I feel I still can defend myself with the bare basics, and just integrating very specific tools and frameworks to the projects. If it ain't broken, don't fix it, unless it can really be optimized, and if such optimization is worth it.

In the end it's a productivity killer, having to juggle so many different concepts just to do simple things, it's mentally taxing.

[jamesbond_]

Amen to this! I just hate when coders do "science fair" projects -- where they shoehorn in some new tech or stack or whatever just so they can put something on their resume, regardless of the cost to the rest of the team in terms of complexity, lost productivity, maintainability, etc. I've been at this industry for almost 40 years as a full time professional, and I've seen this time and time again. When I see is happening now, I try to snuff it out (nicely, but assertively) as fast as possible because I know how this story inevitably plays out.

[careya]

I’ve worked with developers who always want to write their own custom packages instead of using existing libraries. It’s fun for that developer, and a great learning experience for that person, but it’s usually a disservice to the project, the business, and fellow programmers.

[monad_tcp]

Some time ago I realized that removing things, libraries and striking for the most simple solution is actually hard to pull and if there's a skill worth developing is that (tools and frameworks come and go anyway, even languages nowadays).
This resonated with me.

[brettsartain]

This was really great! Thank you for saying this. As a Front End/Mid-Level dev, I can't begin to tell you how complex the projects I work on because the Seniors who wrote it think it's cool. Like you said, the point is to get the job done and leave behind something others can understand.

[olegsuprun]

Jayme, this is pure gold. The industry of fresh devs (like i am) needs you and your wisdom! You went throught all the hard work and frustration, to teach the younglings and move the industry forward. Thank You!

[eritert]

I came from a design background and it’s the same thing there, you have to escape your ego and be able to discuss your own work objectively in order to really flourish. I still have not done that in coding but now that i have seen this video i know what to work towards. Thanks.

[CreepyCreedy]

There's 2 problems I see that exacerbate the issue:
1 Resume-Driven Development gets more promotions
2 Businesses are more apt to give adequate resources when you're introducing "shiny new thing"

It's also a lot easier to convince people that something will magically solve their issues when they're constantly hearing buzz about it in the industry (block-chain, ML, agile). It's a lot harder to convince them that they just need to give reasonable timelines and staff to a project and adjust the timeline when they inevitably change their mind about the number of features included in the project.

[ThunderhorseGuitar]

I'am by far not as experienced as you are(almost 6 years in this career) but i recently get more and more the feeling my code must be easy readable for consultants who may not know coding or have older code knowledge. So programming can have kind of social quality too. Thank you for your insights.

[minjadavidovic]

It also seems that a lot of technical decisions are heavily influenced by marketing.

[Novacasa]

Thanks for this. Many videos on coding are pretty much solely focused on the technical side of things and this is really helpful for me since Im struggling with a start up. My business partner gets very alpha and domineers over me while I'm trying to code and to compensate I subconsciously go for more complex and pretty patterns etc in order to compensate for his belittling demeanour. Its not helpful for either of us to behave like this but I can only control myself.

[Cons-Cat]

Wow! Every single point here hits me way too close to home. XD

[ryanbell]

Wow. I love your outlook on CS. Great content, I can't wait for more!