[constantcrying]

The world was a much better place when engineering was done by men in dress shirts, who saw technical excellence as their professional obligation, but then returned home to their families and could leave their professional life behind.

People like this make me hate everything to do with software. Software should be an engineering field, which exists to help humans, not as some personal art project for your self expression. I do not want to interact with these people at all. If you derive your identity from being a programmer you are actually harmful and I hope that I will never have the misfortune of having to work with you.

And yes, if you do not capitalize properly, then I do not see you as fully human. And if you keep swearing you sound like a twelve year old.

[brazukadev]

> People like this make me hate everything to do with software

Well, the people that code for fun (and profit) think you, the men in suits, ruined everything so at least the feeling is reciprocal.

[constantcrying]

Well, since those men in shirts built the whole thing up, I am not disappointed that they are hated for it by the right people.

>suits

shirts was what I said. Not suits.

[FatherOfCurses]

Are you seriously writing on ycombinator that the zenith of computer engineering was the early 70's when HP, Digital, and IBM ruled the world?

[mackeye]

> If you derive your identity from being a programmer you are actually harmful

why mandate compartmentalization to this extent? what is so harmful about software as art (or expression, etc.)? if i write a weird personal project, what "misfortune" would i bring to you as a coworker, lol

[jynelson]

> Software should be an engineering field, which exists to help humans, not as some personal art project for your self expression

it makes me sad that you see these things as somehow in conflict with each other :(

[constantcrying]

It fills me with joy to know that those are irreconcilable. It lifts the burden of having to reconcile these things and I know that my self expression can be directed elsewhere.

Whatever beauty exists in engineering comes from the purity of it. A fighter plane or a microchip looks beautiful, not because it was designed to be so, but because of the purity of the functionality, the harshness of the requirements. If you turn a fighter plane into an art project, then it will be inherently ridiculous. It will make a mockery of its own purpose, looking at it will be like looking at a cripple.

[jynelson]

i think you would be interested in demoscene, it’s about exactly this thing: making art out of extremely harsh requirements.