Tinkers
Unless you are balls deep in a large modern system you cannot comment on modern development.
I deal with millions of lines of code (done over 20 years by 100s of guys in many different styles, so most of which i didn't write) that I have to constantly move forward under time pressure without breaking anything. And then hundreds of millions of pounds go through that code every day. If I break it, bad things happen.
Tinkering in your bedroom with a ZX81 30 years ago,
or knocking up a bit of VB to help out a spreadsheet, or writing a query to get some info from a database - is a completely different kettle of fish. It's fun, it's not stressful, and it's low complexity. You won't get called at 3am by a trader in Honkers who has spotted a spike in profits due to something you did 6 months ago. And he's been trading off that position for weeks thinking it was correct (this happened to my.. err..pal).
Unless you are balls deep in a large modern system you cannot comment on modern development.
I deal with millions of lines of code (done over 20 years by 100s of guys in many different styles, so most of which i didn't write) that I have to constantly move forward under time pressure without breaking anything. And then hundreds of millions of pounds go through that code every day. If I break it, bad things happen.
Tinkering in your bedroom with a ZX81 30 years ago,
or knocking up a bit of VB to help out a spreadsheet, or writing a query to get some info from a database - is a completely different kettle of fish. It's fun, it's not stressful, and it's low complexity. You won't get called at 3am by a trader in Honkers who has spotted a spike in profits due to something you did 6 months ago. And he's been trading off that position for weeks thinking it was correct (this happened to my.. err..pal).
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