Just a few questions for you guys:

1) Are most of the jobs in the industry business app development?


2) Is it any fun or do you find your hobby projects more interesting?



I ask this cause my main programming interest are in games, graphics, and game technology using c++. I did some business-esque programming in a c#, making drag and drop window apps. It was nothing I would jump up and down in excitement for. On the other hand, I've bought a bunch of gamedev books in the last few months and I am having a blast. Its so much more interesting researching terrain generation and finite state machines rather than developing a payroll app that determines your yearly tax returns lol.
What do you guys think?

Well, for starters, IMO it's as fun as you want it to be.

1) I've never worked for anyone else developing except myself, so I can't accurately answer this.

2) That can vary depending on what company you're working for, and if the games they create are interesting to you. I won't say which game I'm talking about, but there's a Dreamcast game that I was fortunate enough to see the source code of, and I ended up reading some VERY angry source comments by a few developers who didn't like the company they were working for. One was ready to walk out, but didn't because he valued his team and co-workers. Needless to say, lots and lots of profanity! It was worse than Aliens versus Predator's source code, which was known for it's heavy usage of the F word in it's comments due to frustrations. So, any company that consistently mismanages it's projects won't be so much fun, especially when it comes to crunch time.

Unless you're running a company yourself, chances are you may not have to deal with all of the boring stuff (assuming you have the position you want that is). It's much more common to have a few guys dedicated to gfx, a few more for audio, then gameplay, etc. Back in the day, there would be one guy coding the entire game doing everything (1970s and 80s; Atari era), then a decade or two later, had maybe 5-10 people doing a bit of everything programming related. These days, they have programmers and other people dedicated to one thing while working together with others.

Shogun.

6 of 1 and a 1/2 a dozen of another. Business application work, sounds like a job, and while challenging at times it may never seem to be exiting.

For now, game programming is a hobby, so for you a hobby is something for fun, therefore, it is exitingwhen completing a goal.

Should game programming become your job, the pressures of a deadline would become a job and possibly allot less exiting. Modifying Business Applications keeps me working. Tweaking and inventory related program for a client to meet his individual needs is satisfying when you get the paycheck and a thank-you. Exciting ? No.

Work is Work otherwise it would be called FUN!!

I worked for about 4 years doing your basic enterprise shit: database stuff, web apps, code cleanup on a few hundred thousand lines of outsourced legacy crap, blah blah blah. I found it extremely boring; like, head smashed on desk boring. But my partner in crime, Abe, found it fascinating.

Of course, even game development has its boring aspects. For me, writing any kind of "engine" code (rendering, basic kernel tasks, stuff like that) is boring, and things like AI are fun.

Your mileage may vary.

Really depends on the company, not the product the company makes. I'm current employed as a QA contractor working with dozens of different companies, and there is a good mix across various fields.

One of the worst companies to work with were game developers. Managers literally patrolled the office, sticking their noses in everything, snapping at anyone who wasn't meeting quotas and Hourly deadlines. You were there to bang out code to spec as according to management, and god help you if you took an unscheduled break or laughed at something. You were given your tasks in the morning, and an expected number of lines of code to complete it in... Once saw a programmer finish his morning task early, with half his allotted line estimate and tested to meet specifications, get chewed out for not following his directions and the "Plan".

The most fun project I've been attached to was actually a system related to nuclear materials, and it was a blast. Flexible hours, assignments were submitted for peer review "When they are done" in a reasonable time, management often cooked elaborate meals, weekends were officially from midday Friday to midday Monday, and you required sign off from your team lead to work between those hours. Coders were happy and productive, and were randomly invited away from the coding rooms to ping pong and pool tournaments whenever someone felt they needed a social break.

You were also issued a small pistol style nerf gun when you entered the office, and employees were "Strongly encouraged" to invest in "increased firepower".

The most fun project I've been attached to was actually a system related to nuclear materials, and it was a blast. Flexible hours, assignments were submitted for peer review "When they are done" in a reasonable time, management often cooked elaborate meals, weekends were officially from midday Friday to midday Monday, and you required sign off from your team lead to work between those hours. Coders were happy and productive, and were randomly invited away from the coding rooms to ping pong and pool tournaments whenever someone felt they needed a social break.

You were also issued a small pistol style nerf gun when you entered the office, and employees were "Strongly encouraged" to invest in "increased firepower".

I think we might have worked for the same company. Did it's name start with an R?

Business programming's a great career. You can get paid tons for knowing way less (compared to a game developer). Is it exciting? Kind of. I've worked in a top level bank as a head of the performance testing lab, and I was honestly bored. Now i'm the CTO for a growing company and I'm enjoying my job immensely.

It's work though, work's meant to pay the bills, not be exciting or fun.

The most fun project I've been attached to was actually a system related to nuclear materials, and it was a blast. Flexible hours, assignments were submitted for peer review "When they are done" in a reasonable time, management often cooked elaborate meals, weekends were officially from midday Friday to midday Monday, and you required sign off from your team lead to work between those hours. Coders were happy and productive, and were randomly invited away from the coding rooms to ping pong and pool tournaments whenever someone felt they needed a social break.

You were also issued a small pistol style nerf gun when you entered the office, and employees were "Strongly encouraged" to invest in "increased firepower".

I think we might have worked for the same company. Did it's name start with an R?

No, the name of the company didn't start with an R.

And if more than one company dealing with nuclear related systems development commonly has mock battles with nerf guns in their office space, then I'm more than a little scared for world health and safety...

I did a brief stint at a corporate bank. The work was nothing like game development but as I pretty much had free reign (sole developer on internal software) I enjoyed the challenge. Still didn't like getting up and going to work each morning as I didn't enjoy the challenge that much as I didn't really like the corporate environment.

I started Lucidchart, which is basically business programming. It's the most awesome project I've ever worked on, because

• The problems to be solved are difficult and interesting
• The people I work with are the smartest developers I've ever worked with

I think that if those two requirements are met, any real programming job (games or otherwise) will be fun and rewarding. Also, having five monitors is nice :-D

FLeBlanc, on 29 Mar 2013 - 10:22, said:
I worked for about 4 years doing your basic enterprise shit: database stuff, web apps, code cleanup on a few hundred thousand lines of outsourced legacy crap, blah blah blah. I found it extremely boring; like, head smashed on desk boring. But my partner in crime, Abe, found it fascinating.

Of course, even game development has its boring aspects. For me, writing any kind of "engine" code (rendering, basic kernel tasks, stuff like that) is boring, and things like AI are fun.

Your mileage may vary.

+1.

@OP:
Pretty much there's no way to know if you'll enjoy/hate the work, unless you try it. People can come through and tell you all the aspects they love/hate. But that's the problem, They enjoy different things. Nobody can tell you if you'll find the work to be boring unless you actually do the work.