Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[GlyphGryph]

...

[LordBucket]

I've increasingly found that as technology marches on they become ever
more frustrating, disorienting, and complex to use

Everything just seems so needlessly difficult. Everything is hidden, obfuscated...

I've found this to be increasingly true in recent years, too.

It seems like a lot of things try so hard to "be helpful" that they make them more tedious and difficult. For example, you mention gmail, so I went to gmail just now to check. It happens that multiple gmail accounts are accessed from the the computer I'm on, and apparently gmail now does this new thing where it remembers previous logins...so to sign in with an account other than one previously logged on, it wants to me to click "sign in with a different account" and then "add an account" to add the account I want to log in with to some list so that I can log on with it.

What, am I supposed to "add account" on every computer I check my email on? Every time I do that is my account going to be added to the list so every other user of that machine can see it? Why? What's the benefit of adding this extra step? The whole point of web-based mail is the ability to access it from anywhere. What was so terrible about the old method of, you know...enter user name and password to log in?

Software design is recent years reminds me a lot of the old pc vs mac debate. Before the "I'm a PC and I'm a mac" commercials. For example, used to be that the power button on a pc was a hard power button. As in, you push the button, power to the computer was physically cut. Whereas on a mac, the power button was a request to the computer to turn off...if it wanted to. PCs and pc software design has gone that route in many ways. Want to look for a file? Haha, no. System files and anything the OS doesn't want you to see is hidden by default. Want to delete a file? Haha, no. Windows is notorious for not letting you delete things. Go to a command prompt to manually remove the read-only attribute on the file? Haha, no. Need to access elevated administrator access first. Sometimes even that doesn't work. Access tour process list and try closing processes you don't like sometime. Routinely it won't let you.

So much design now seems to come from the angle of "the user is an idiot. You are the user. Therefore you're an idiot and in need of hand holding." Very often that's frustrating. I come from a command line background. I'm used to be able to simply do what I want to do. Not having to "issue requests" to a computer that it will maybe consider doing if it feels like it.

Add to that, like you say, there's been a huge trend in obscuring even things that users reasonably should be expected to want to do. For example, hotmail. To login, I click the obvious "sign in" button. Used to be if you wanted to log off, basically it was the same thing: click log out. Now, no...there's my account name seamlessly merged into the interface bar in such a way as to look like plain text, and even if I mouseover it it still doesn't show up as a menu. I have to click on my account name to bring up a drop down menu to find the logout button. I used to administer networks for a fortune 100 mortgage company. I worked with dozen million dollar databases. And yet it literally took me minutes just to figure out how to log out of youtube recently after they switched to their new design.

Why? Why do things work this way now? Why so many extra step? Why don't computers do what we tell them to instead of interpreting "commands" as mere requests to be ignored?

There's been a massive move in recent years to less user control, less user feedback, and having the software do and decide what it's willing to allow to happen. I could give so many examples of this. I agree. I don't like the trend.

[nenjin]

I suppose you could just drill down on what you already know, and make a game. On the off chance it's good, you could deal with that $30,000 student debt pretty quickly. But that IS technically the gamer's fallacy, that they'll make something and it will make money.

But honestly, that's your only recourse if you want to make use of the skills you paid for. Because I can tell you, your attitude will not get you anywhere at a software company. Around here we say "The people that last are the people who are willing to learn something new, or figure out something they didn't understand." It sounds like you've lost that critical motivation. Which is understandable. But if you're capable of working in software, you'd better be capable of making something with the skills you already have......or start looking for a soul-crushing 9-5.

[GlyphGryph]

Working in software IS a soul-crushing 9-5. It's just one that pays better than most of the alternatives.

[gigaraptor487]

Yeah I have found that the software has become more complicated and disorienting. I think it may be idiot-proofing, as I saw when I worked In a computer shop for a week. Dozens of people came in with malware from things that they had downloaded, and in spite of modern systems being very popular it seemed to be mainly XP systems(this was last year) and some 7 as well. Many of these people were painfully stupid (sad but true, this is the average modern computer user). One had even broke their USB 2 keyboard by trying to plug it into the HDMI (mind you it was an OAP).

tl;dr I think that the new systems are designed for the lowest common denominator to a point where they are simply overly complicated babysitters, and even now people seem to ruin them. Believe me, it is even worse with simpler and platforms that are easier to develop for and are in theory easier to learn.

[/close rant]



As for the debt, It Isn't that bad (I know many In far worse positions and they don't even care). It is tbh to see a major developer of such a brilliant game (C:DDA) to feel stupid and unable to adapt. I couldn't even hold a candle to that games achievement with my experience in programming and I have been doing it for a few years. To be honest I think it maybe a case of impostor syndrome

What you could do Is to develop more software at a lower level (OSdev, drivers for DOS) as there seems to be a lack of lower level programmers in the software industry at the moment and that would be a good way to cut your teeth in that field.

I also get a lot of morons around me who know a little bit of PHP or have written websites and suddenly think that they are the world authority on computers (even facepalming when I explained that a C program (compiled of course) can run a C program within it, even though If they slightly knew anything about programming they would know that interpreters work that way).

So as a final note, don't feel stupid because your achievements online clearly show you aren't and you can solve the problem. I don't know if this sounded like a rant but these were just some ideas.

[LordBucket]

Working in software IS a soul-crushing 9-5.

Do you want alternatives? How willing are you to jump headfirst into the unknown? Would you be willing to teach english in a foreign country? What about on an Alaskan oil platform? Cruise ship? Ski resort?

Other lifestyles are available.

[GlyphGryph]

Do you want alternatives? How willing are you to jump headfirst into the unknown? Would you be willing to teach english in a foreign country? What about on an Alaskan oil platform? Cruise ship? Ski resort?

Other lifestyles are available.

They are, and I am, but there are two constrains when discussing alternatives:
I need to be able to pay off my debts.  This means I need at least $250 dollars on top of living expenses each month to simply break even, since that's how much it costs to have them in the first place, and significantly more than that if I ever want to get rid of them. Right now I'm putting a good deal more than that into it, which is why it's down from 50k+ (after three years of effort) to the 30k-35k range. Once that is paid off, there's suddenly a lot more leeway to take risks and seize opportunities... presumably.

Second, I'm married, which means that anything I need do needs to make acknowledgements to that fact. Teaching english in a foreign country and skit resort plans would probably fail on the first bit, and I can't imagine both the marriage and the cruise ship plan surviving together.

I don't know enough about Alaskan Oil Platforms to know whether or not that might work, heh.

[nenjin]

Working in software IS a soul-crushing 9-5.

Let me give you a counter case. I work in a software company of ~15 people. Most of the programmers here own the code they're working with. They're engaged, maybe not entirely, but to a large degree with the work. Making customers happy, making their workflow better and just writing better, smarter, sexier code than they did last year. That is why they can do what they do, because they have the personal investment in both the project and the outcomes. We've had several new hires (all who claimed to be competent programmers) who couldn't hack it here, because they walked in with zero appreciation of the business or the software and treated the job exactly like a 9 to 5. You have to be self-motivated as a programmer.

Instead of swearing off programming (which is one of the most in-demand skill sets in the world), maybe try to find a piece of software you want to work on, that you feel good about working on, that engages you intellectually. Maybe it's the investment fallacy, but were I you, I wouldn't turn my back on it. I feel like I lack the intelligence and the discipline to be a good programmer most of the time, so it's not something I would ever turn my back on had I managed to grok it. Then again, I see all programming as one day leading toward making a game were I to learn. Something fun and engaging and personal.

I mean, I get your reluctance to stay with it. I see people burn out regularly because programming for a business is always kind of a grind. But being able to program competently literally puts you in a class above the vast majority of the world. You might be like "well, so is an Astrophysicist", but compare how big of an impact on the world they can have vs. what a programmer can these days.

I dunno. You seem to be having a crisis of confidence, which I basically just got through the last year at my job. (You feeling of looking like an idiot in front of your coworkers for not knowing what they know easily, struggling with tech....been there, done that, still doing it. Trying to learn MySQL and failing regularly in front of my coworkers may be one of the most emasculating experiences I've had.) I'd like to think that really, motivation is key to everything, problem-solving most of all. You've settled on the tech as the problem but, with motivation and time, most tech problems can be figured out. Did this loathing of new tech precede your lack of motivation....or was it the other way around?

[BFEL]

I would like to chip in that yes, this new trend is incredibly stupid and I want to install my fist in the face of the people in charge of it. And I'm not even anywhere near an actual programmer, the best I can do is some VERY simple text editing (I once tried to mod Mount & Blade, but its not just "open files, edit values" and instead requires you to seemingly reroute 90% of your computer functions to their official editor in a set of stages that I fully understood conceptually, but weirdly couldn't get to work)

Er, so yeah, even people who are more in the "casual user" category find this lack of control incredibly obtuse.

As for why, its probably so the government can spy on us better. After all, if we could just DELETE things on our computer how would they get their grubby NSA hands on our fapping preferences?

[LordBucket]

I'm married

I advise you to talk with your wife about it then. If her husband is enduring soul crushing (your words) for 8 hours a day, that affects her as much as it does you.

it's down from 50k+ (after three years of effort) to the 30k-35k range. Once that is paid off, there's suddenly a lot more leeway to take risks and seize opportunities... presumably.

Ok. But 50 - (30 to 35), divided by three years is ~$5800/yr. At that rate, it would take ~5.6 years to pay off the rest. Are you willing to spend nine years of your life working a:

soul-crushing 9-5

?

Six years from now will you have children? A mortgage? More debt? And thereby possibly be stuck for the rest of your life doing what you're doing now? If you spend six more years doing what you've already been doing for three, what possible reason will your wife have to think that it's not a lifestyle you're willing to live for the rest of your life?

I advise you to deal with this sooner rather than later. But caveat emptor. You're the one who has to live your life, not me.

[kaijyuu]

I'm married

I advise you to talk with your wife about it then. If her husband is enduring soul crushing (your words) for 8 hours a day, that affects her as much as it does you.

Of all the things I've ever read from LordBucket, I can't think of anything I agree with more.

Your wife is presumably there to help and support you. She can be of massive assistance as you crawl your way out of this hole.