Ask Slashdot: What Are the Hardest Things Programmers Have To Do? 473
itwbennett writes "Software development isn't a cakewalk of a job, but to hear programmers tell it (or at least those willing to grouse about their jobs on Quora and Ubuntu Forums), what makes programming hard has little to do with writing code. In fact, if the list compiled by ITworld's Phil Johnson has it right, the single hardest thing developers do is name things. Are you a software developer? What's the hardest part of your job?"
Documentation (Score:5, Funny)
Their laundry (Score:3, Funny)
Their laundry
Easy solution. (Score:5, Funny)
I name all of my classes and variables "George." Problem solved.
I had to put down my 15 year-old dog. (Score:5, Funny)
That was hard. I loved that dog.
only two hard problems (Score:2, Funny)
There are only two hard problems in Software Development. Naming things, cache invalidation, and off-by-one errors.
Re:Easy solution. (Score:2, Funny)
And your namespace is "Jungle", right?
Re:Easy solution. (Score:4, Funny)
Ah, a perl user. my $my;
Re:Estimation (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Two sides of the coin (Score:5, Funny)
"there are two hard things in computer science: cache invalidation, naming things, and off-by-one errors"
Re:Solving real world problems (Score:4, Funny)
I suppose its better if 100,000 people from each side ran at other with swords until one side is dead?
“You mean, you'll put down your rock and I'll put down my sword and we'll try and kill each other like civilized people?”
Re:Amazing (Score:4, Funny)
I actually agree with that list.
I don't.
The most difficult task for a programmer is Personal Grooming, followed closely by eating Healthy and getting enough Exercise.
Re:Programmer Troubles (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Programmer Troubles (Score:4, Funny)
Yeah. I had a boss that after watching Independence Day couldn't figure out why we couldn't just wirelessly connect to anything without any setup or passwords like they do on the movie. And when we told him it was impossible, he thought we were just being difficult. I hate that movie.
Oh, but it is very possible, but security doesn't permit it for one obvious reason: so our primitive enemies can't connect to our space age equipment and turn off whatever vital systems keep them from blowing up our space ships or other valuable infrastructure.
But if he ignore the lessons that could have been learned from the villain's mistakes, then you can still use it to your advantage. Explain that what they did in the movie is commonly termed "infiltration and hacking," and if he wants me to fly into our rival competitor's headquarters and install viruses on their computers; well, that's not my specialty and is illegal, but I'm pretty sure I could do that faster and derive more excitement from it than converting the tabbed based interface we have to whatever interface paradigm was in vogue this morning that you'll change your mind about this afternoon.