Software engineers hate code

The author reveals a surprising secret in the software engineering profession – engineers hate code, especially code written by others. They prefer working on greenfield projects without existing code to maintain. Microservices have become popular because they allow engineers to pretend that their old code no longer exists. Engineers often turn to Stack Overflow to find code solutions without having to analyze extensive code themselves. They dislike reviewing other people’s code and may approve pull requests quickly without thorough evaluation. However, engineers love writing code and could spend hours doing so. The author mentions the frustration caused by meetings, documentation, testing, and other tasks that take away time from coding. Senior engineers, though, have learned the value of reading, understanding, modifying, and even deleting other people’s code. They aim to minimize the amount of code in production and appreciate the elegance of solving complex problems with concise code. The author advises engineers to be mindful of the cost their code incurs and to only write new code when necessary.

https://www.dancowell.com/software-engineers-hate-code/

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