How do programmers cope with the triviality of it all?

[godelshalt]

Let's face it, most of us don't work on cancer treatments, cutting edge machine learning, or NP-problems every day or even once a year.

Is it just me, or do others sometimes feel like they are just moving data from here to there, buttons from there to here, colors from this to that, extra fields in services, oh a neat opportunity for caching, and so on...? And then there's just work we make for ourselves, maybe to do something interesting for once like switch to some new framework, switch up to a functional programming style, join some religious coding cult over here, then switch to over there, google "how to do X in Y language/framework" and so on again.

It has left me wondering, are we all just McEngineers serving up soft-serve and fast-food for fat executives and fickle users? Sure, we can make this polynomial busy-work interesting, but after awhile doesn't it get old and do you find yourself just copying and pasting from SO to get on with it? How do you cope with this, or do you reject it for some reason?

[nostrademons]

How do cancer researchers and machine-learning engineers cope with the triviality of it all?

(My brother-in-law works in cancer research. Most of his daily job consists of drawing blood samples, growing cell lines, killing mice, and managing lab techs. He has had one paper published in Nature [1], which, if you read the abstract, will make your eyes glaze over. I work in machine-learning. My daily job consists of labeling training data, debugging ETL code, and looking at relevancy scores and figuring out where I went wrong.)

I think it helps to realize that this is the human condition - big developments are built out of little developments, and often aren't recognized as such until years after the foundations are laid. Usually, when we think of big prestigious work, it's because of an information distortion in our brains, which aren't equipped to track the minutiae of all the little steps it took to build something we notice, and so only latch onto the thing as a whole and whatever names we can attach to it.

If you're bored at work, quit! Start working on some hobby projects where you're doing what you want to be doing, and then look for people that might have money and be willing to pay you for it. But basically all important work consists of 90% drudgery; you have to enjoy the drudgery and believe enough in the whole that it makes it worthwhile.

[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-00493-9

[grageth]

You either need to get out more or maybe re-evaluate if software development is for you.

I might just be lucky but I've never really gone more than 3 months where I'm not creating something new birthed from some idea of my own or someone else.

Personally, I love my career choice because I believe I get to create from nothing almost daily. Do I sometimes string together something I've used before? Sure. Are there times I get bored? Sure. But I find that's usually a state of mind and get over it pretty quick, or find some side project to feed my creative and problem-solving side while "going through the motions" that bring in the paycheck.

The way you phrase your statement reminds me of an interview I had with a guy that was constantly quitting jobs because he "Wasn't making a real difference and that's what he wanted in a job". That's a pretty big ask, and if you really feel that way start an organization that will do that. Or better yet. Keep moving that data, those buttons and tweaking those colors, earning money and then contribute to the causes you care about. Because I'm damn sure you'll be earning at least 20% more doing what you're doing now than you would be working for that non-profit. Take that extra cash and some of your free time and donate it.

To be a bit brutal, stop bitching. Life is what you make of it, either find the joy in what you do or go find something else that brings you joy. But don't belittle what people are doing. One of the people out there doing entry-level menial work is building the skills they need to one day build something that will benefit mankind.

[FroshKiller]

Time is precious. The tasks I work on, no matter how trivial they seem to me personally, will save time in aggregate for all my users and the staff that supports them. I'm humbled by the trust they place in me to shift a widget, because they judged it would help them make better use of their time, and they believe I can help them achieve that.

As far as we know, we're alone in the universe. Programs are for people. We're counting on each other. To me, that's enough. Vent about a nuisance, fret about unanticipated consequences, but don't lose sight of that essential truth of programming.

[jssupreme]

As long as the paychecks keep cashing, I'll make those CRUD apps.

[coldtea]

>It has left me wondering, are we all just McEngineers serving up soft-serve and fast-food for fat executives and fickle users?

Yes.

[krapp]

You shouldn't have been downvoted, you're right. Most programming work is the software equivalent of assembling fast food according to spec, and maybe occasionally having to dump out the grease trap.