I feel I sit in the same boat, although I simply got severely bored with the mundane repetitive tasks that we all need to do just to keep things working. I am so glad copilot came along to help me with the mundane tasks so that I can focus more on the things that matter. I think that will probably keep me going hopefully for the next 10 years.
On Mon, 7 Oct 2024, 1:08 pm Dr Greg Low via ozdotnet, <ozdotnet@ozdotnet.com> wrote: > Good luck with it, Greg. I will miss your emails here. I read your email > below and can relate to 99% of it. > > > > In particular, it’s ridiculous what now passes for software engineering. > The engineering aspect seems long gone. > > > > “Oops something went wrong” is now standard error handling. I also learned > to use systems in the days where, when something went wrong, people wanted > to know why, and they fixed it. It’s probably increasing complexity that’s > stopped real exploration of issues. > > > > And the dependency pain is also beyond crazy. Every time I open a VS > project that I haven’t opened for 3 months, I know I’m going to spend > hours, just trying to get back to where I was last time I opened it. I had > one recently that I just couldn’t solve. After 4 hours, I felt I was > further from where I started. It was just endless circular dependencies in > libraries that I didn’t write, and that the authors had used “to save > time”. Initial development time is always the metric, never ongoing > maintenance and development. > > > > The other big aspect is the churn. You mentioned web apps. I’ve watched > those teams constantly rebuilding what they already had, endlessly for over > 20 years. It’s interesting to imagine where we could have been if they’d > just kept moving forward instead of in a constant rebuilding mindset. > > > > I’m just glad that I’ve been spending most of my time in data and > analytics, but sadly, those teams are now affected by the same illness. > > > > Regards, > > > > Greg > > > > Dr Greg Low > > > > 1300SQLSQL (1300 775 775) office | +61 419201410 mobile > > SQL Down Under | Web: https://sqldownunder.com > <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__sqldownunder.com_&d=DwMFAg&c=euGZstcaTDllvimEN8b7jXrwqOf-v5A_CdpgnVfiiMM&r=2rgtwrXggQFZiZbisdwDooYFalucb-vLhjG0McaanBZKn0UVuognuHqfHnjp2AVc&m=I23jyX4AKIv9q2x7A3CQAer9PGCjq8R6DwW7BE1IAhZ1JbigKMrMPRCjs6AqW7h3&s=o3oFliHztOF8D9Nbqaa7KQdqC-zkQNXWl4IqnEG58Wc&e=> > | > About Greg: https://about.me/greg.low > <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__about.me_greg.low&d=DwMFAg&c=euGZstcaTDllvimEN8b7jXrwqOf-v5A_CdpgnVfiiMM&r=2rgtwrXggQFZiZbisdwDooYFalucb-vLhjG0McaanBZKn0UVuognuHqfHnjp2AVc&m=I23jyX4AKIv9q2x7A3CQAer9PGCjq8R6DwW7BE1IAhZ1JbigKMrMPRCjs6AqW7h3&s=NsAibgiqfCxsyc8m2DBKogKQcs3OqE3mkyCjmpoYxTk&e=> > > > > *From:* kirsten greed via ozdotnet <ozdotnet@ozdotnet.com> > *Sent:* Monday, 7 October 2024 12:49 PM > *To:* ozDotNet <ozdotnet@ozdotnet.com> > *Cc:* Greg Keogh <gfke...@gmail.com>; David Burstin < > david.burs...@gmail.com>; kirsten greed <kirsten.gr...@gmail.com> > *Subject:* Re: Approaching obsolescence > > > > Indeed. Who is going to pick up the batton of being so eloquently pissed > off? > > > > On Mon, 7 Oct 2024 at 12:30, David Burstin via ozdotnet < > ozdotnet@ozdotnet.com> wrote: > > I will very much miss you Greg. Your anger at the things you mentioned > acted as a proxy for mine, so I didn't have to get angry myself. Whenever I > was frustrated, I knew I wasn't alone. > > > > Thank you for always taking the time to list your trevails. I learnt quite > a few things along the way. > > > > Good luck with all you do and I genuinely hope you enjoy your time in the > garden. > > > > Cheers > > Dave > > > > On Mon, 7 Oct 2024, 12:09 Greg Keogh via ozdotnet, <ozdotnet@ozdotnet.com> > wrote: > > Hello everyone, it's not Friday, but I have an announcement and tale that > might interest you. > > I’m easing into retirement. > > Companies I’ve been working for are being sold, retired or are no longer > developing new software. Running out of legacy work would drive a regular > dev to seek new work, but in my case, I declined to create a LinkedIn page, > or send out feelers through contacts for new work, because… I’m burnt out. > > Why? > > I learned to code in 1975 and became an official programmer in 1981. I > wrote FORTRAN, ALGOL, COBOL, assemblers and various JCLs and scripting > languages on Honeywell, FACOM and IBM mainframes. Things were simpler back > then of course because you moved inside the ecosystem of a particular > manufacturer and had high-level support and voluminous and accurate > documentation. If you wanted to solve a problem or do something edgy, then > an answer was nearby. It was a different simpler world, but … everything > worked. > > Now, well into the 21st century of IT, everything doesn’t work. My wife > often hears me shout from the other end of the house “Everything f***ing > doesn’t work”. I also only semi-jokingly say I’ll have these words carved > into my gravestone: “Everything f***ing doesn’t work all the f***ing time”. > > Overall, what has burnt me out is *complexity *and *instability*. I’ll > break those topics down a bit. > > Everything in modern IT is *complicated *and *fragile*. Every new > toolkit, platform, pattern, library, package, upgrade, etc is unlikely to > install and work first time. I seem to spend more time getting things > working and updated than I do actually writing software. In a typical > working month I might have to juggle Windows, Linux, Android, iOS, macOS, > Google, Amazon, Azure, .NET, Python, PowerShell and C++, and they all have > different styles and cultures. Software engineering has fractured into so > many overlapping pieces that I’m tired of trying to maintain competence in > them all. > > That leads naturally to the problem of *dependencies*. Just having so > many moving parts with so many different versions available produces > dependencies more complex than abstract algebra. How many times have you > hit some kind of compile or runtime version conflict and spent hours trying > to dig your way out of it? (A special salute to Mr Newtonsoft there!) Or > you install A, but it needs B, which needs C, and so on. > > I often hit incomprehensible blocker *problems *for which web searches > produce absurd and conflicting suggestions which don’t work anyway. All I > can do is futz around and change things randomly until things work again. I > don’t know what went wrong and I don’t know what went right. > > *The Web* -- Browsers, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, the HTTP protocol, JSON and > REST can all burn for eternity in fusing hellfire. About ten years ago I > told my customers I refused to write any more web UI apps. However, I was > forced to do so a few times and I’m still scarred by the horror. It’s just > over 30 years since the web became public and we’re still attempting to > render serious business apps using dumb HTML. HTML5 is the joke of the > century (so far). I still lament the loss of Silverlight. > > *Git *-- Someone is lucky I don’t own a gun. > > *Fads *-- An exercise for the reader: name all the platforms, kits, > patterns and frameworks that you know were once the coolest thing and now > might only be found in history articles. An advanced exercise is to > speculate on which currently cool things will be gone soon. > > Finally, here is a list of typical things that give me the shits, just as > they pop out of my head. > > - Attempting to compile projects that have been idle for a year or > more will usually fail due to changed dependencies or deprecations and it > can take hours to get them going again. > - I develop and test something with great care, then deploy it and it > crashes. This is part of the general “it works on my machine” disease. > - I can stop successful work on Friday night, then resume on Monday > morning and everything utterly fails. > - My USB microscope and music recording both stopped working recently, > and it took me a week to discover that it was a block by Windows 11 app > security (I thought it was a hardware or incompatibility problem due to > lack of clear error messages). > - Security! Walls, barriers and hurdles of security everywhere to > crash through. Yes, I know we need security everywhere to stop the black > hats, but it’s also stopping developers. Lord knows how many times I’ve hit > run or debug on my own PC and I get “Access denied” and hours of research > will be required. I’m also fed-up with ceaseless 2FA requests via email or > SMS. > - Everything about mobile devices. The ludicrous variety of devices > and brands makes app development a nightmare. Then you must struggle > through the variety of labyrinthine publishing processes. > - My final entry is simply the tiny “thousand cuts” that torture you > during development: version mismatches, inconsistent behaviour, strange > errors, editor quirks, missing files, etc. All the little personal problems > that slip between the cracks of bigger issues I’ve previously mentioned. > Your mileage may vary. > > > > In summary, being a software engineer is now so exhausting that after 40+ > years of a generally enjoyable career immersed in programming and computer > science I’ve reached a point I never thought would arrive… I’m burnt out. > Even working on my hobby projects has become a burden because they suffer > from many of the impediments previously mentioned. > > I still plan to attend some upcoming conventions and Meetups, and I’ll be > watching the forum, but my posts will diminish because I’m probably out > trying to prevent the garden and house from disintegrating back into the > earth from whence they came. > > *Greg Keogh* > > -- > ozdotnet mailing list > To manage your subscription, access archives: https://codify.mailman3.com/ > > -- > ozdotnet mailing list > To manage your subscription, access archives: https://codify.mailman3.com/ > > -- > ozdotnet mailing list > To manage your subscription, access archives: https://codify.mailman3.com/
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