the strange part is that we believe software engineering is a lot more logical and less social and chaotic. Turns out it's not that different from car repair or plumbing, always dealing with fragile assumptions. It's indeed very toxic, it's like constantly lifting weights with the wrong posture.. you harm yourself, even though you could do the same amount of work, or more, if you were on a stable bench.
Social is the key word. The author presumes the end goal of programming is overcoming all sorts of technical obstacles to deliver a working solution in a problem domain. But who defines working? The stakeholders. Ultimately, programming work is about pleasing the product owner, manager, or users. The "power through the obstacles" approach arises when there is a communication breakdown between software engineer and stakeholder. Why should programmers expect to work until 2 AM but not plumbers or electricians? Granted, software projects are more difficult to estimate, but when other types of engineers run into obstacles, they typically go back to the customer to renegotiate. Software engineering would benefit more from improved communication than herculean efforts or early retirement.
I don't really see what part of software development is toxic? For me, it's analogous to solving interesting puzzles with peers, except you also get paid for it. It sounds like we have a very different experience, so I'm interested in hearing why you feel that way.
I feel like it's entirely dependent on the environment people are working in. I've been in places that makes me feel empathy for both the articles author and the one you responded too. Constant grinds and battles for small gains, where it does feel toxic. However, I've also worked in places similar to what you described. It turns out, the place you work with and the people you work with are a whole lot more important then what you're working in.
It's my personal state in a company setting, I'm simply in pain, I can't think straight, I struggle with mundane things, I lost taste and desire to craft nice solutions.
Made me question my skills for a bit, until I realized that when outside my job, I enjoy reading/thinking about what I'd consider non trivial topics (parsing techniques, state machine minimizations, ...) and in these moments, it's nothing but joy, even when it's hard it's a positive feeling. And it yields long term enlightenment.
There's no such thing when you finally found why lib-a doesn't work well with lib-b anymore, or if lib-c will be compatible with the previous ones.
Now you mention 'solving interesting puzzles with peers' maybe my puzzles are not interesting and i can't rely on my peers to find interesting ideas :)
Also there were topics on how companies mis-apply agile development, which end up in this never-ending bug chase and cramming half features in an application. But based on conversations around me, it seems that a lot of people live in this average.
