Ask HN: I've been slacking off at Google for 6 years. How can I stop this?

Re:Ask HN: I've been slacking off at Google for 6 years. How... by not_kurt_godel on Sunday January 05, 2020 @02:02PM (#21963153)

While I agree that there are parts of software engineering that are merely 'tedious' rather than 'hard', there are definitely parts that are legitimately 'hard' too. Just because you've had a particular set of experiences that you've classified as tedious doesn't mean your perspective represents the totality of the industry.

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Re:Ask HN: I've been slacking off at Google for 6 years. How... by jcims on Sunday January 05, 2020 @04:55PM (#21964427)

The problem here is that 'hard' is dimensionless and relative. There are people in Australia right now storming the gates of hell with a shovel and a hose because that's the job they signed up for. If that type of work is on the spectrum, I can't really think of anything in software/systems engineering that's 'hard'.

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Re:Ask HN: I've been slacking off at Google for 6 years. How... by codr7 on Sunday January 05, 2020 @05:32PM (#21964639)

That sounds more like courage to me. Many of those shovel and hose carrying people would not make very successful software developers from my experience.

It takes a certain kind of mindset; attention to detail and an ability to visualize and work at high levels of abstraction.

To do it well, that is. Copy-pasting framework cruft until it sort of works is simply boring and the world would be a better place if we stopped doing that.

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Re:Ask HN: I've been slacking off at Google for 6 years. How... by sweeneyrod on Sunday January 05, 2020 @05:36PM (#21964662)

Hard as in unpleasant, obviously not. Hard as in mentally challenging, obviously yes.

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