Comments on: Why Software Engineering Sucks

By: Rambo

Rambo — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 06:20:52 +0000

@Jerry Cheung Agile is a joke for large distributed projects. Corporations are sold on it. But on very large projects, it is not a feasible solution. It ends up being a bunch of developers hacking together code, missing deadlines (oh wait, there are no deadlines)... What about inter-dependencies between teams? The bottom line, agile DOESN'T scale. So, what works? I would argue some type of hybrid waterfall iterative approach is the best with distributed global teams. I'm living through this now, and agile is not a silver bullet. In fact, it turned out to be a bunch of rogue developers hacking code.

By: RAfael

RAfael — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 15:11:23 +0000

Most people prefer to adapt other people´s processes to their need, than to create and map their own “organically grown” process. If your process is so good as not to need to do that, then is perhaps time for you to map it and share it with the world. You can write a book, sell it and make money out of it.

By: CaptainReality

CaptainReality — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 08:43:52 +0000

Software engineering stinks.

The pay is abysmal considering the effort and education required.

Seriously, get qualified in almost anything else. You’ll get more pay for less work.

Plus, it’s boring, and full of nerds.

I’m leaving this awful so-called ‘profession’ (it isn’t a profession, because there’s no body of knowledge, and no standards).

By: Tristan Yates

Tristan Yates — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 04:40:32 +0000

There’s a word for people who follow the commands of others rather than exercising their own intelligence and free will. Just go through these comments and see who it applies too. This is bigger than software. As Andrew Ryan says, a man chooses. Good luck, Brian. You deserve it and you’ll need it.

By: Nihil

Nihil — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 00:23:18 +0000

Agile process’s only work in theory but not in practice. I have seen so many projects go horribly wrong, because people didn’t take the time in the beginning to actually map out Business Logic Process’s in the beginning and to really understand them in a “real world” sense, that is how the process the software is trying to model occurs and is “abstracted” from real world scenarios. An example is writing Stock Trading software, without yet working out transaction flows and the way orders are moved from Broker to Trader and finally how the Clerks on the floor account for each trade on paper. I used to believe in Agile and that “brilliant” programmers won the day, but I have seen such people totally muck up a project because they wanted to get into programming it too fast. Unit testing only goes so far also, if badly written business logic is still valid in syntax and form it will pass most QA, but it still is twisted logic. Everything appears fine until the Client actually uses the software and it does not produce the desired results.

In reality the entire Software Development culture is wrong, it needs to apply standard Engineering methodologies and concepts and cannot continue to be “half way in the lab and half way in the hobby house.”

By: nickels

nickels — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 22:38:17 +0000

Real problem lies in the fact that management is naive and condescending about software engineering. It is widely known by software people themselves that good software is a form of art as much as a form of engineering. People are the most important part of programming, and having the right people working together and communicating successfully is everything.
Management, on the other hand, wants to make sure that software engineers are plugable and playable, and they think naively that process will get them there.
This discipline is an artform and we are artists and craftsman. But we are treated like widgets.
Hence, as you note, software engineering sucks!!!

By: aj

aj — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 00:52:01 +0000

I’m just a student with some work experience and I think that you are right in a way. Software Engineering is a little over blown (and its boring), it doesn’t encourage innovation. However if you needed to design a software system for a nuclear power plant or the space shuttle then you would definitely need the software processes.

For the space shuttle software, they have no choice but to produce pages and pages of documents and specs so that even monkeys could code it. The processes helps Lockheed Martin produce good quality software, the current system has 420,000 lines of code and only 1 error. The last 11 versions had only 17 errors (this fact I got from an article, the link is below). If I were writing space shuttle software I would definitely use the software processes.

Check Out: http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/06/writestuff.html (‘They Write the Right Stuff’).

By: Rick

Rick — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 03:44:47 +0000

lol, so you have what… 6 months or so experience in the real world?

Does your employer embrace your philosophy?

By: Brian

Brian — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 02:15:07 +0000

@Rick: Thanks for the commands…I’ll keep that in mind.

Well, I’m out of school, have a job, and work with 70 developers. You’re reading a year old article.

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001288.html

Yup…totally alone.

For the record I don’t bother conversing with closed-minded extremists who won’t consider other views constructively. Have fun commenting on my insignificant little blog.

By: Rick

Rick — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 20:32:29 +0000

Get out of school, get a real job, work on a project with 100+ other developers for a few years, then get back to us…..

You’re alone on an island with this idea…..