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Things That Scare the Bejeezus Out of Programmers

Posted by Soulskill on from the it's-just-a-matter-of-code dept.

itwbennett writes "Software developers are, by and large, a cool and analytical bunch, but there are a handful of things that strike terror in their hearts. Phil Johnson scoured developer forums looking for an answer to the question: What's your biggest fear as a programmer? The answers clustered into 5 broad groups ranging from being forced to learn or use a specific technology to working for and with incompetents. What's your biggest fear?"

25 of 641 comments (clear)

  1. Outsourcing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Because I'd rather work at McDonalds for $8/hr instead of $2/hr as a programmer, but then again I'd probably just go live in solitude in the mountains somewhere, away from technology should she betray me in such a way.

    1. Re:Outsourcing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I've heard a lot about outsourcing but from my personal experience outsourcing in real life is pretty much akin to the $5 hair cut. If you don't know what that is basically: A guy runs a barber shop and charges $20 per haircut. He notices that a barber shop is opening up across the street with a big sign that says "$5 Haircuts". So instead of panicing and dropping his price the expereinced barber puts out a sign that says "We fix $5 haircuts".

      And in my experience that's usually what happens. Someone gets the idea that outsouring a project would be cheaper and just as good as hiring someone experienced to do the job. To go and take the bargin basement bid from some Indian firm, then inevitably the project goes over deadline, the developer requires more and more money to finish the project, and then they finally bring in a consultant to look at the project, they request the code and the code is usually an unsalivagble mess. Experienced developers fix $5 haircuts, or crappy outsourced code.

    2. Re:Outsourcing by Zalbik · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I've heard a lot about outsourcing but from my personal experience outsourcing in real life is pretty much akin to the $5 hair cut.

      Funny, my experience has been more with the $300 salon that takes 3 hours to do the job, and still screws up.

      The outsourcing firms I've worked with have typically been the larger three-acronym types, working for clients who have become so terrified over IS and IT solutions that they outsource the whole thing to a big, well known firm and pay a pretty penny doing so.

      I've found the technical people at these firms are often either
      (a) right out of school, and just earning their stripes until they can find a decent job.
      (b) new immigrants, and just working their until they can find a decent job
      (c) outsourced entirely, with all the disadvantages of communication and time zones
      (d) terrible at what they do, and just hiding out

      I've seen a few good people, but the firms always seem to add a bureaucratic mess of processes that do nothing but slow down the projects and increase the billable hours for the outsourcer.

      And what do these companies offer to command such high rates?
      Better salespeople.

      I'm convinced that many outsourcing firms spend far more time and money hiring and vetting salespeople and PM's than they do on technical resources.

      They one thing they are fantastic at is convincing upper management that projects:
      (a) will take longer than expected
      (b) will be more complicated than expected
      (c) need more resources than expected
      (d) fail due to circumstances entirely outside their control

  2. No backups by blackpaw · · Score: 5, Insightful

    And all the corporate client data gone ...

  3. Ghosts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    also, Spiders and Bees

  4. So many fears.... by mendax · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There are many things to be afraid of. I think my biggest fear is being irrelevant, something I feel greatly sometimes as the young hotshots come up from below and as more gray hairs appear. And because of my ADHD and dyslexia, I fear not being able to use my intelligence when I need to use it because my brain refuses to work.

    But there are more terrible things to fear. The wrath of my evil cat when I step on her tail and what she leaves in the kitty litter that I have to clean up are two such horrible prospects. And when I was married, my wife was quite scary at times.

    But really, when one looks at the big picture, the only thing to fear is fear itself (as FDR said). Accepting life on life's terms and not wasting time on trying to change things that can't be changed is what's important to me.

    --
    It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
  5. Stupid people by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    They're impossible to code for, or cope with.

    "Enter date"
    >cat
    "This value is invalid"

    "Hey your software is broken! It doesn't stop me typing "cat" in a date field!"
    What did it say?
    "value is invalid"
    There you go then!
    "But it didn't stop me typing it!"
    Because it assumes you are not a moron? You're right, it is "broken"...

    1. Re:Stupid people by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      They're impossible to code for, or cope with.

      "Enter date"
      >cat
      "This value is invalid"

      Tomcat here. What's wrong with having a date with a cat?

  6. I fear... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ITIL

    1. Re:I fear... by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 5, Insightful

      ITIL, and redundant processes in general, are part (or the result) of one my fears: the dumbing down of my job to the point where there's no need for or chance to excel (as in doing a good job and making a presonal difference, I don't mean spreadsheets!). Large organisations need process and structure; they do not need ITIL.

      ITIL is still very much around though. Many large companies are reorganising IT and other knowledge work, creating increasingly specialisatized and compartimentalized jobs and teams that appear to be easy to plan, manage, measure and outsource (but aren't in practice). Much of IT is being turned into an assembly line, which might be ok for making cars (although even that industry has thought better of dumbing things down too much, a long time ago), but in my experience works very poorly for knowledge work. It's an attempt to reduce some of the inherent uncertaintly in our line of work, and the effort of managing a diverse set of highly skilled people, by dumbing down the work and replacing intelligent decisions and judgment calls with process and SLAs. Someone coined the term "predictable mediocrity" for this. The result sucks but you know what you're getting, and most managers (the MBA types) actually prefer this.

      This way of working adds red tape and communication overhead, as you'll be dealing with more and more specialized teams, and reduces project buy-in: no one gives a damn about any single particular project anymore. I've recently been involved in a project where the ratio of process to doing actual work was around 20:1, I kid you not. And I do include producing useful documentation, agreeing on a support model, and hammering out specifications in the definition of "actual work" here. My fear is that this is the future of IT.

      --
      If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
  7. Absence of a test suite by bheading · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Being given a big pile of code and being asked to maintain it with no test suite.

    Each time you change it you could theoretically be breaking a ton of features. But there's no way to be sure.

  8. Things that scare developers, by mjwx · · Score: 5, Funny

    Snakes,
    Loud noises,
    Social contact,
    Drinks machine being out of soft drinks and/or chocolate,
    Google being down,

    --
    Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
  9. Velociraptors by Arancaytar · · Score: 5, Funny

    (obviously)

  10. Bad multithreading by bertok · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Debugging multi-threaded code liberally sprinkled with delays instead of locks. I still have nightmares!

  11. My Biggest Fear by Common+Joe · · Score: 5, Interesting

    To not make the difference in the world in the way that I envisioned. It's everything at once and nothing specific. My betterment of the world doesn't even have to be in programming, although programming is where my best talents are. I've always wanted to leave the world a better place than when I came into it. Unfortunately, I can't say that I feel that way so my biggest fear is coming true and I'm having to learn to cope with the idea that I cannot fix the injustices of the world.

  12. Re:getting raped at your work seat by ciderbrew · · Score: 5, Funny

    Still working at EA?

  13. Re:Biggest Fear? by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 5, Funny

    Velociraptors - That's why I never use a "GOTO" ...

    --
    It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
  14. Being stuck by rvw · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Being stuck at a job, because you drifted away from your main skills, and now have difficulty to catch up. Or more specific: being stuck at a job where you don't want to spend another year or even longer. In the company I'm working I stand alone, being the only programmer, so no support from other programmers. I find it hell to get my skills up to date while doing my job properly.

  15. Average programmers writing parallel code by thisisauniqueid · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Average programmers being forced to write parallel code scares me more than anything else. "The multicore dilemma is actually a substantially worse problem than generally understood: we are headed not just for an era of proportionately slower software, but significantly buggier software, as the human inability to write good parallel code is combined with the widespread need to use available CPU resources and the substantial increase in the number of scientists with no CS background having to write code to get their job done." --The multicore dilemma (in the big data era) is worse than you think

  16. Web Programming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Seriously, web programming is for chumps, and it just keeps getting worse and worse.
    Let's talk about having to support multiple version of multiple browser on multiple versions of multiple operating systems on multiple platforms, all with multiple sized screens.
    Let's talk about the expectation of being an expert at a horrendous number of technologies like HTML, CSS, Javascript, Ajax, GWT, Java, JSP, EJB, XML, JSF, Facelets, JPA, JPQL, EL, SQL, PL/SQL, Regex, BASH etc. etc....for the one fucking project!
    Let's talk about the expectation of being an expert at optimising different servers like Apache, Tomcat and JBoss.
    Let's talk about the expectation of being an expert at load testing using various load testing suits.
    Let's talk about the dismal state of Flash and Java Applets and HTML5.
    I pity the poor web programmer (such as myself), for his or hers is surely a tortured life.

  17. Re:getting raped at your work seat by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 5, Funny

    Debasement in the basement?

    --
    Ezekiel 23:20
  18. Forgetting the 'where' clause by fiddyschmitt · · Score: 5, Funny

    Running an SQL update statement without a where clause and seeing '47,982 rows updated'.......bonechilling

  19. Doesn't anyone remember FDR? by jellomizer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There is nothing to fear but fear itself.

    What does that mean. We as a culture have gotten very fearful within the past Decade. The fact that we are afraid of so much stuff has created more problems to be fearful of.

    Polarized Government: With people so fearful about a lot of things they will try to pinpoint the government as the major contributor. If you are right of center than Big Government is out to make your lives worse. If your are left of center then it is those Corporations that are out to make your lives worse. Those people who support your opposing side must be corrupted in some way. So they need to be stopped!

    Obesity: Lets not leave the confines of our own homes because there are dangerous people around the corner who wants to kill, abduct or mug us. So you stay inside where it is "Safe" after a while you start getting out of shape, then you don't want to go out even more because you are out of shape and are afraid of being insulted by people who don't like the way you work. You would go to the Gym, but only after you lose 20lbs first (so you are not the Fat Guy at the Gym), but losing those 20lbs is hard because you are not going to the gym.

    Economy: We need small businesses who can innovate (and much more than silly mobile apps). However people are afraid to start businesses because there is a chance that they will fail. Or get some lawsuit for stepping on some bogus patent or make a product that someone misused and hurt themselves. Combined with the fear trying to meet current regulations that you don't know about. Also fear of looking for an other better job because of uncertainty on how well other companies will last combined with companies fears about the same thing preventing them from hiring.

    --
    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  20. A faulty test suite by Richard+Kirk · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Remember when the Hubble telescope first went up, and could not focus? It had all been tested on the ground on an artificial star target. Unfortunately, the test rig had a plate that was about half-an-inch thick that should have been subtracted from the optical path. So they had a mirror that was accurate to about 1/100th of a wave but half an inch in the wrong place.

    There was a rocket where the guidance for the two stages had been coded separately. One stage used a value of -9.8 m/s2 for 'g' because it measured heights upwards and the acceleration was downwards, while the other used a value of +9.8 m/s2 and flipped the sign in the equations. When the rocket took off, the first stage was fine but the second stage suddenly flipped over.

    That's what I dread: thinking I have checked everything, and thought of everything, and then finding out publicly and expensively that my regression tests were worthless all along.

  21. Stupid bosses, office politics by bzipitidoo · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Office politics. Just lovely when the management fucks up through sheer stupidity, but still has the cunning to find some way to blame you for it and make it stick.

    I'll whip out a car analogy. The bosses direct the driver down the wrong road. The driver questions this, but is told to shut up and drive, he doesn't know what he's talking about. 100 miles later, they realize they're not on the right road, and the screaming starts. They blame the driver for taking the wrong road, and fire him. They hire a map reader. They turn to the mechanic and demand he get 200 mph out of the engine, no excuses will be accepted and if he can't do it, he will be fired and they'll get someone who can. Never mind that the car is a cheap econobox that can't even do 100 mph. The mechanic manages a miracle and coaxes 120 mph out of the engine, and is promptly fired because that's not good enough. Over the protests of the map reader, they elect to take a desperate shortcut on a dirt road, to try to get back on track, and end up stuck in the mud. They fire the map reader, but are still stuck in the mud. With no one left to get them out, and no one left to blame, they finally lose their grip. Customers and supporters abandon them.

    --
    Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"