jobSecurity

Mysterious Code Functionality: Code often behaves in ways that defy documentation and expectations, leading to frustrating debugging sessions. "Yeah. You think A==B, the comments say A==B. The documentation says A==B. But it turns out A==Holy mother of GOD WTF is going on here."
"Vibe Coding" and its Consequences: Sometimes code that "looks stable on repeated tests" is committed, only to reveal deeper issues later. This approach, often called "vibe coding," can lead to unstable applications.
Ignoring Issues Until They Explode: Programmers might ignore potential memory leaks or other problems until they become critical. "There is no memory leak if you do not check for it."

Unmaintainable Older Systems: Dealing with old code that is difficult to understand and modify is a common struggle. "I once came across to a legacy code of single file, 10 000 lines, all static functions and comment: // Do not even try to understand this."
Replacing Optimized Solutions with Simpler, Slower Ones: Sometimes, highly optimized, complex code gets replaced by simpler, less efficient solutions as hardware improves. "Some years later, I discovered the entire thing had been carved out and replaced by bubble sort."
Uncovering Hidden Bugs: New validations can reveal long-standing, critical bugs that management may prefer to ignore. "Apparently we had been reimbursing wrong for years. Management talked to legal and then asked me to revert my validation."

Challenges for New Graduates: Entry-level positions can be hard to secure, with many graduates struggling to find work. "Now I'm stuck in postal service warehouse."
Importance of Soft Skills: Beyond technical knowledge, strong soft skills are crucial for success in programming roles. "You can't work with people that cannot communicate and can't be nice and semi-normal."
Misconceptions about Programming Careers: There's a prevailing notion that everyone should learn to code, but many find it difficult or unfulfilling. "'Everybody should learn to code' is a shit statement and I've been against it even before LLMs."

Are these programming struggles relatable to your experiences?