Discuss: What’s your greatest challenge as a software developer?

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To a non-developer like myself, learning to code seemed like fighting a 500-pound fire-breathing tentacle-waving beast with a toothpick.

Until I found out that one of the greatest challenges of software development has nothing to do at all with software.

It’s dealing with people.

According to Håkon Hapnes Strand, who has been in the business for 20 years, software development is the easy bit. Throw other people who have a stake in the project into the mix, and things get complicated.

He’s not alone.

According to the Stack Overflow Developer Hiring Landscape 2016 Global Report, which surveyed 56,000 developers from 173 countries, these are some common challenges developers face.

Image credit: Stack Overflow Developer Hiring Landscape 2016 Global Report

An overwhelming majority of the challenges cited can be boiled down to “because, people.”

While the top challenge developers appear to face is dealing with unrealistic expectations (34.52%), other common challenges include “Interacting with stupid people” (20.15%) and “Trying to be nice” (8.09%). Just saying it like it is.

Challenges in communication come in many forms. Strand lists several reasons why the expectations of stakeholders are at times hard to meet:

• The requirements are not clearly defined.
• The requirements are defined by people who don’t understand software.
• The requirements are clearly defined, but then changed in the middle of development.
• The requirements are not defined at all.
• The requirements are defined, but not communicated properly.
• You’re being forced by management to work on more projects than you have time for.
• You’re being forced by management to use a certain set of tools even if you know they’re not the right ones for the job.

Let’s discuss