Programming Sucks

I needed to hear this today.

Today I was presenting a training session on some advanced modelling techniques to a group of users who usually only meet once a year, and had tested the demo to death over the preceeding months. I'm aware much of the process relies on how tight the string between the two cans is pulled, and do my best to work around it. Just last week our main dev for modelling, who had written the code in the MOD-L language, did a mic drop and left.

Last night a patch was pushed out to users that updated their modelling program, and caused the xml output structure to vary. This morning, at about 3am during some last minute testing I discover that this means nobodies models will run when we import them into the new stuff today, except a backup model I had saved. So, we went from a live demo and potential UAT session, to "look at this shiny thing we built for you, but you can't have".

Shoestring, bubblegum, string joined tin cans, and a legacy of R&D that pretends to be production but is actually just a noose, hangman, and gallows in a peppa pig costume.

This was from way back in 2014.

Luckily things have gotten unspeakably worse since then...

It's because you're living in a simulated reality in which problems are created (holes) so that they may be solved (fills). These problems are not real problems. But, someone pays you a lot of money to fill the holes, so you don't think to yourself, "is what I'm doing necessary at all? There seems to be a better way, but I'm very busy right now. Hey, it seems to be a network problem, maybe we should centralize some of these problems." Let me say in no uncertain terms that you are kept busy to legitimize this process and to legitimize the monetary gains its financiers feel entitled to recoup. Let me also say that centralization isn't a magic solution, but creating an EXPLICIT flow from multi-faceted experimentation, risk, and uncertainty to low-risk, low-return, centralization is a GOOD thing, and instead of filling holes, we should use our free time to dream and to suffer and to love and to live, instead of sacrificing the whole of the lot to the self-eating, self-immolating hanged-man false god of sole self-interest.

If you like this kind of dark cynicism about our profession as much as I do, you might also enjoy the essays and talks of James Mickens. Here's a collection of his work:

https://medium.com/@soobrosa/my-humble-james-mickens-shrine-...

Surprisingly well written and entertaining!

“What walkways? Well Fred made a good case for walkways”

If the sense of wonder is gone, you're doing it wrong.