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by pengaru 1123 days ago
> I kind of feel I have wasted my time/life on this career.

Software development has squandered the brightest minds on pointless work for decades. Your feelings are not wrong IMO.

Even back in the 40s this threat to Real Work posed by the computer's infinite ability to steal time from bright minds was basically already identified:

  > It's a very serious disease and it interferes completely with the work. The
  > trouble with computers is you play with them. They are so wonderful. You have
  > these switches--if it's an even number you do this, if it's an odd number you
  > do that--and pretty soon you can do more and more elaborate things if you are
  > clever enough, on one machine.... If you've ever worked with computers you
  > understand the disease-the delight in being able to see how much you can do.
  >
  > - Richard P. Feynman
1 comments
fsckboy 1123 days ago
>It's a very serious disease and it interferes completely with the work.

what he noticed is playing with computers can steal time from your other work, yes... but if your work is the computer it's not stealing time from anything

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pengaru 1123 days ago
I'd argue that he was already catching a glimpse of the engineer trap that is a machine you can spend all your time playing with "engineering" in plain sight because there's no physical waste byproduct for everyone to see is clearly happening.

What amount of "software engineering" actually ship in products that see the light of day? How many "real job" programs have been written that were executed in production for longer than it took to implement them?

There's an endless mountain of wasted "work" in this field. The computer provides this infinite engineering puzzle and IMNSHO it largely serves as a huge mental effort sink depriving the rest of society of bright minds that could be doing something far more productive.

Software folks are regularly burning endless hours on effort to make something nobody knows ever existed six months later.

How many major projects has Google alone funded development of then terminated?

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