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Comment by thewarrior | Hacker News Reader

Does software engineering sound boring ?

Yes. Sometimes, when my spouse is really having trouble sleeping, she asks me to tell her about something I'm working on. About 30 seconds in, dead asleep.

When I have trouble sleeping I stay up to read HackerNews to find out what others are working on :P

the opposite for me: reading HN before bed just make me feel like a lazy slob and makes me feel motivated and demotivated at the same time

Yes and it's 7AM. Hackernews is interesting

Sure, people don’t get excited and ask me more when I say I work on mortgage software.

If I said I’m a game developer you can bet that’d be way less “boring” sounding.

Mortgage software actually sounds interesting and complex.

Game developer working for someone else sounds boring.

There is no way that being a game developer does not sound interesting and complex. I say this as someone that doesn’t even play many games! But it’s something almost everyone has a point of reference for and has (hopefully?) enjoyed at some point in the past.

I would say it depends. Never say never.

Personally mortgage software sounds complex but boring to me.

Game developer sounded interesting and complex before I knew more about it. Now it's more boring as in after knowing the death march culture I don't want to know more. I guess your parent meant that too by 'boring'. If you work for yourself or with like minded indie developers that sounds more interesting to me.

It can definitely be complex.

Having also worked on mortgage software, there are ways to "sell" it -- the people your software helps are getting homes when they might not otherwise have been able. That's pretty exciting for them.

Working by yourself (or with friends) you get to make the engine and that's where the fun is. You can write really unique stuff that may or may not work.

Working for a big studio is like creating a movie with directors and for some that feels like fun but working on mortgage software is about data normalization which can offer it's own high.

Not to the average person. Even CS freshmen seem to think game design means playing early prototypes of Grand Theft Auto 6.

Yes, it's boring as hell. But I value stability more than a stimulating job.

A vast majority of software engineering jobs do.

It doesn't have to be boring to you. But I will admit that as a college student, when I had a summer internship in a government computer facility, I came away with the impression that while I enjoyed programming when I could do it on my own terms, an actual programming job would be boring.

But instead of boring, you could substitute unpleasant or unglamorous, and the point still stands pretty well. For instance, fixing a toilet is usually not particularly hard, but something that most people are repulsed by.

It doesn't just sound boring, it is boring.

I think it depends. The problem solving aspect of software engineering is definitely exciting to me.

> boring

In 1983 I spent a few months working on a crud app. Finished it and never worked on another.

What have you done since?

Electronics and firmware. I'd be better off financially if database stuff didn't make my eyes bleed.

What about SQL makes your eyes bleed?

Everything. It certainly isn’t as sexy as CSS and JavaScript. It doesn’t have the arcane mystical aura of Haskell and Brainfuck. Nor the fanatic intensity associated with Rust and C. Nor the stupid simplistic charm of Go and Ruby. “Select a from b where x join blah blah”. What about that isn’t boring? It’s like ordering around a servant who has to do the real planning and stuff.

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