Is Programming Boring?

In another thread Tim Bradshaw repeatedly claims: "programming is
*hard* and
*boring*" I'm okay with "Hard" because it's relative to your skill
level, so I know that he's wrong from the outset. But I've never ever
heard anyone (at least not a programmer) say that programming is
boring! Oh, sure, there are times when I have to slog through some
standard piece of code for the tenth time that I wish was built into
the language, but, actually, I can think of nearly no other domain that
is less boring than programming. Take, for example, the other things
that I do on a regular basis: molecular biology (wet lab), statistics,
mathematical modeling, reading and writing technical papers. You want
boring? The only thing more boring than reading other people's
technical papers is having to write my own, and try piptetting clear
liquids into clear liquids for 8 hours straight every day!

Programming is, at least for me, the most exciting thing that there is!
I get to make the highest tech machines there are do my will; I get to
create new things that no one has ever created before -- even if
they're spread sheets! -- I get to amaze my colleagues and lab mates,
and save them hours, days, years of what would be REALLY boring work
for them, and I get to live inside a real detective story (with bugs,
not killers). The only think that I can think of that's more exciting
than programming is flying gliders upside down. But no one pays me to
do that!

So, does ANYONE (aside from Tim) actually think that programming is
boring?!?!?

> So, does ANYONE (aside from Tim) actually think that programming is
> boring?!?!?
>
When I once met John maddog Hall a few years ago (when I was even more
naive than what I am today) I asked him why he began studying Electrical
Engineering and why he liked programming.
His answer were only two words: "Instant gratification".

I think that's pretty much what programming can give you .. instant
gratification. Don't know if there's something more instant which is not
x-rated.

>> So, does ANYONE (aside from Tim) actually think that programming is
>> boring?!?!?

Yep, me.

But let me explain a bit.

It was the reason I gave up programming almost completely about 15-20
years ago. I found that there weren't very many really hard or
interesting problems (to me). Of course the world was a lot simpler
then. The internet hadn't been really "born" then or was only
considered a good source of porn and not much else :-) Windows was a
joke. I had never really got into UNIX at all as all my work had been
in DOS otherwise I might have felt otherwise. I had written my own
device drivers, my own Chess program, knew C backwards, understood the
intimate workings of computers extremely well etc etc. In short I
couldn't really see anything I couldn't do and facing a lack of
challenges I moved to other pastures.

To me programming was simply the menial part of the job. I loved the
problem solving and algorithm design but after a few years it got a bit
boring.

Of course things have changed hugely since then and I am getting back
into the game - this time as a hobbyist and not a pro. I am greatly
looking forward to new challenges now.

So maybe more correctly I should have said yes - I used to find
programming boring but I think I will find it very interesting going
forward. :-)

JShrager@gmail.com wrote:
> In another thread Tim Bradshaw repeatedly claims: "programming is
> *hard* and
> *boring*" I'm okay with "Hard" because it's relative to your skill
> level, so I know that he's wrong from the outset.

ha ha. Well, I'm sure you are much better at it than me. Really.

The point you missed (which I admit was implicit, and it's dangerous to
leave anything implicit when talking to programmers because they
generally are basically marginally autistic) was `for ordinary people'.

--tim

> The point you missed [...] was `for ordinary people'.

But this can't be true as a blanket statement either. Others have
pointed out that one is programming all the time. Whenever you tell a
freind how to get to your house, you're programming. (You might find
this boring, but it's certainly not hard!) Whether programming is hard
is a matter of whether and to what extent you understand the domain and
the programming language, and whether you have the more-or-less general
skills associated with clearly expressing instructions and debugging
them when they go wrong. Now, you're right, I admit that there are
programming concepts which some unusually stupid children of ten might
find a little puzzling. So I guess I have to admit that prgoramming is
not easy for EVERYONE, and not exciting for EVERYONE, but this seems
hardly worth discussion.

"Tim Bradshaw" <tfb+google@tfeb.org> writes:

> JShrager@gmail.com wrote:
>> In another thread Tim Bradshaw repeatedly claims: "programming is
>> *hard* and
>> *boring*" I'm okay with "Hard" because it's relative to your skill
>> level, so I know that he's wrong from the outset.
>
> ha ha. Well, I'm sure you are much better at it than me. Really.
>
> The point you missed (which I admit was implicit, and it's dangerous to
> leave anything implicit when talking to programmers because they
> generally are basically marginally autistic) was `for ordinary people'.
>

If you define 'ordinary people' by 'people thinking programming is
boring', you are right...
(Yes, explicit is better than implicit)

I know a lot of people who like finding solutions to problems, and
sometimes the process they use is really close to 'programming'.

--
Thomas Samson
All God's children are not beautiful. Most of God's children are, in
fact, barely presentable.
-- Fran Lebowitz, "Metropolitan Life"

JShrager@gmail.com wrote:
> So, does ANYONE (aside from Tim) actually think that programming is
> boring?!?!?

The part of programming that is figuring out the algorithms and data
structures for accomplishing your goal is great fun.

The part of programming that is figuring out how to translate your
logic into a programming language is fun -- except when your language
makes you jump through stupid hoops. Hoop-jumping is boring. (That's
why we like Lisp, right?)

The part of programming that is hooking up your snazzy logic to
incredibly poorly designed interfaces via utterly asinine (and usually
under-documented) APIs is kinda fun when you're in the right state of
mind, but is often frustrating and boring.

Unfortunately, I think most of the programming that people actually do
is hoop jumping and interfacing.

<JShrager@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1157555544.685325.20690@i42g2000cwa.googlegro ups.com...
> In another thread Tim Bradshaw repeatedly claims: "programming is
> *hard* and
> *boring*"
...
> So, does ANYONE (aside from Tim) actually think that programming is
> boring?!?!?

Programmers are the ditch diggers of the technological age.

joh wrote:
> JShrager@gmail.com wrote:
> > So, does ANYONE (aside from Tim) actually think that programming is
> > boring?!?!?
>
> The part of programming that is figuring out the algorithms and data
> structures for accomplishing your goal is great fun.
>
> The part of programming that is figuring out how to translate your
> logic into a programming language is fun -- except when your language
> makes you jump through stupid hoops. Hoop-jumping is boring. (That's
> why we like Lisp, right?)
>
> The part of programming that is hooking up your snazzy logic to
> incredibly poorly designed interfaces via utterly asinine (and usually
> under-documented) APIs is kinda fun when you're in the right state of
> mind, but is often frustrating and boring.
>
> Unfortunately, I think most of the programming that people actually do
> is hoop jumping and interfacing.

Well, with Lisp we literally create the hoops: ()

Mike Thomas wrote:
> <JShrager@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1157555544.685325.20690@i42g2000cwa.googlegro ups.com...
> > In another thread Tim Bradshaw repeatedly claims: "programming is
> > *hard* and
> > *boring*"
> ...
> > So, does ANYONE (aside from Tim) actually think that programming is
> > boring?!?!?
>
> Programmers are the ditch diggers of the technological age.

You really think this, or are you being cute?

On 2006-09-06, JShrager@gmail.com <JShrager@gmail.com> wrote:
> In another thread Tim Bradshaw repeatedly claims: "programming is
> *hard* and *boring*"
[snip]
> So, does ANYONE (aside from Tim) actually think that programming is
> boring?!?!?

I dislike the phrasing of this question. Most statements of the form
'X is Y' ignore various kinds of X's or various kinds of Y's, or
ignore the dimension of time. My chair at time t0 differs from my
chair at time t1. "Is" it the "same" chair?

When you say, "is programming boring", you imply that all activities
bore people equally and that the question has a single, yes-or-no
answer, thus provoking instant argument in those that disagree.

Ask, instead, "does programming bore YOU? why or why not? When? Do
you know people that find programming boring? Can you describe why?"
Or make some other statement: "I believe that programming bores some
people, in some situations," and describe the set of people and
situations.

Anyway, sometimes, some of the programming I have to do bores me, yes.
Sometimes I can change my point of view so that I approach a problem
that used to bore me in such a way that it doesn't any more.
Sometimes it seems like something bores me, but only because I've hit
a problem that I just don't know how to solve yet, and really it
frustrates me, so I avoid it.

When I had it posted, my resume on monster.com began "Problem solver
seeks interesting problems". Diddling the umpteenth Excel spreadsheet
at work, arguably "programming", rarely interests me. I automate what
I can, and that usually interests me, at least insofar as it allows me
to indulge my natural laziness, even if the problem itself doesn't
innately light my fire.

"Programming is hard" == "some programming requires great effort".
Surprise. "Programming is boring" == "some programming bores some
people in some situations". Surprise. If you ask people "do you want
to learn to program?" they yawn at you. If you ask them "do you want
to learn how to never diddle that spreadsheet the same way ever
again?" then their answers might change (but only if they diddle a lot
of spreadsheets .

-- Larry


p.s For more on the problems of "is", see
http://www.esgs.org/uk/art/epr1.htm .

JShrager@gmail.com wrote:
> In another thread Tim Bradshaw repeatedly claims: "programming is
> *hard* and
> *boring*" I'm okay with "Hard" because it's relative to your skill
> level, so I know that he's wrong from the outset. But I've never ever
> heard anyone (at least not a programmer) say that programming is
> boring!

Everything depends upon your personal motivation towards a task. If you
are using a technology (language, OS, library, etc) that you like, and
the task interests you, then programming can be fun. If you are doing
something you have no interest in, for someone else, in a language you
don't prefer (ie, 50-80% of most jobs... ) then programming can be
boring.

Like everything in life, this goes in cycles.

-Jason

JShrager@gmail.com wrote:
> In another thread Tim Bradshaw repeatedly claims: "programming is
> *hard* and
> *boring*" I'm okay with "Hard" because it's relative to your skill
> level, so I know that he's wrong from the outset. But I've never ever
> heard anyone (at least not a programmer) say that programming is
> boring!

The vast majority of industrial programming is boring. "Industrial
prorgramming" is a never ending ritual of looking up stuff in some API
that some bonehead got paid to make you suffer through. It's piles of
stuff that doesn't work because it hasn't been tested. So you get to
do the hard work of making it work and getting it tested. There is
generally no elegance or aesthetic satisfaction in any of this. It's
just reams and reams of "ad hoc" engineering problems.

I get through that crap by focusing on what my strategic goals are,
setting milestones, and attacking the slog problems micro-incrementally
using source control. When I check something in, I have a small
satisfaction that the morass isn't as bad now, that I've made an
improvement. Done persistently over a long period of time, large, very
boring problems can be overcome.

I'd like to start getting paid for my skill at this, however. The
support burdens of open source have gotten old.

Because industrial programming is so boring, I have a strong resistance
to technologies that don't solve any of my problems. That's a lot of
the Microsoft and Java universes, for instance. Actually if someone
wanted to pay me to learn that stuff and bother with it, I'd do it for
a time. I have plenty of value add to offer, I think it's a fair
trade. But what I'm not willing to do, is front an exceedingly
time-consuming learning curve on my own nickel, for industrial
programming paradigms which suck + don't solve my own problems. So if
a job says Java or C# on it, I just have to let it go. I put enough
into C++ over the years and I Won't Get Fooled Again.

There are aspects of programming I actually like. I always liked
assembly language because it's simple and performance oriented. It's
possible to engineer an aesthetically / mathematically pleasing result
in a small loop kernel. Generally when I like programming, it is
because I can design something elegantly. I think my CMake build for
Chicken Scheme is a likeable build, to the extent that anyone is going
to like a build. Builds are really not very likeable compared to other
things people can do with software. But, they are important for
actually getting anyone to use your stuff.

My hope is that I'll eventually create a codebase where I'm no longer
working with external ad hoc dependencies, and where my coding
expressions will have some ongoing elegance. As well as being useful
and powerful.

> Programming is, at least for me, the most exciting thing that there is!

Well, you're probably not doing "real work" then. By that I mean, the
sheer grunt stuff that is required to make the software work for
thousands of people. If you don't have to be responsible for the
results of your engineering, yeah programming is fun. Try this
childhood favorite:

10 PRINT "SHIT"
20 GOTO 10

"Real work" in programming is like your pipettes in chemistry. Deadly
boring.

> I get to make the highest tech machines there are do my will;

Oh really now?? You're definitely not a build engineer.

> I get to create new things that no one has ever created before

Industrial programming is usually creating something that the Nth slob
has already made for the Pth time. Only this time it has to be owned
by Microsoft. And it has to be the new API rather than the old API, so
that Microsoft can force people to fork over for upgrades. "Churn" is
the most boring thing in programming of all. It keeps people stuck at
the ad hoc engineering level indefinitely.

> -- even if
> they're spread sheets! -- I get to amaze my colleagues and lab mates,
> and save them hours, days, years of what would be REALLY boring work
> for them, and I get to live inside a real detective story (with bugs,
> not killers).

There's a lot to be said for problems that are at the difficulty of a
mere scripting language. One gets a lot of new functionality for not
much work. This has been part of what has enabled me to cough out a
CMake build over the past 10 months. It's scripting; if it had been
some kind of arcanely painful C++ interface, I wouldn't have done it.

> So, does ANYONE (aside from Tim) actually think that programming is
> boring?!?!?

Yep. You have a very skewed perspective on programming. Judging from
your examples, I would say that you have done no real systems
engineering.


Cheers,
Brandon Van Every

JShrager@gmail.com wrote:
> > The point you missed [...] was `for ordinary people'.
>
> But this can't be true as a blanket statement either. Others have
> pointed out that one is programming all the time. Whenever you tell a
> freind how to get to your house, you're programming. (You might find
> this boring, but it's certainly not hard!)

Actually it is hard. You've got people who are good / bad at giving
directions, and people who are good / bad at following them. You've
got people like myself who read maps almost perfectly, and you've got
people who get emotional and flustered about it, like when it becomes a
Mom / Dad argument about who knows how to read a map. I just end that
nonsense by saying, "Give me the map." I'm the 3D spatial math whiz of
the family, I'm the kid who took all his Atari joysticks apart and so
forth. A lot of people can't handle the plugs on a VCR. It's not fair
to call such people stupid, as they may be very intelligent in other
areas such as interpersonal communication, etc. But clearly, they lack
spatial reasoning skills.


Cheers,
Brandon Van Every

mrcsparker@gmail.com wrote:
> Mike Thomas wrote:
> > <JShrager@gmail.com> wrote in message
> > news:1157555544.685325.20690@i42g2000cwa.googlegro ups.com...
> > > In another thread Tim Bradshaw repeatedly claims: "programming is
> > > *hard* and
> > > *boring*"
> > ...
> > > So, does ANYONE (aside from Tim) actually think that programming is
> > > boring?!?!?
> >
> > Programmers are the ditch diggers of the technological age.
>
> You really think this, or are you being cute?

I absolutely agree with his statement. The vast majority of paid
programmers *DO NOT* do anything interesting. They are industrial
cogs.

Now, it is possible to rise to the top of the heap and be the designer,
not the grunt. Make other people swallow your code. Be the Alpha
Programmer, have the dominance. Get all the resource benefits, and all
the chicks. But just being somewhere along the long chain of needed
industrial processes, sucks. You get people's shitwork.

The reason I can justify the shitwork for Chicken Scheme, is I do have
ownership of the product. It's BSD licensed. If I want to run off on
my own and do something commercial with it someday, there's nothing
stopping me. I can design compilers at some point in my career if I
want to, nothing will stop me.

I can justify plenty of shitwork in a paying job, if they're paying me
enough. I'm pretty good at aesthetically encapsulating all the shit,
which offers some satisfaction / alleviation from what it all is.


Cheers,
Brandon Van Every