If I spend a couple hours or more doing "deep work" writing code, I often find I need an hour or two of cool-down time before I can really have much in the way of emotions again.
Ask HN: How does programming affect your emotional state?
11–15 of 15 posts
Re: Ask HN: How does programming affect your emotional state?
#12[dead]
Re: Ask HN: How does programming affect your emotional state?
#13I'm fucking livid right now because I have to rebuild my local dev env because the django project we use is installed locally and _something_ _somewhere_ made it so I couldn't run migrations any longer. No worries, our operations teams made a set up script that bootstraps the project. Except it just totally borked my entire environment and the script is failing over itself possibly due to some env vars set in some other script, utility, or dotfile.
I want to just get some shit done. And I have now spent 5 hours trying to patch up a problem that should never have even existed. I work at a place with 50+ eng teams sharing this code base. This simply shouldn't even be a thing. I should be able to clone, run a setup script, and just code.
So, yeah, I'm in a shit-ass mood now. And the worst part is that my feelings are totally self-imposed. _I_ want to feel productive. Apparently the org doesn't really care, so if they want to pay me to not be able to work, so be it I guess? I don't like it.
Re: Ask HN: How does programming affect your emotional state?
#14I've actually noticed some things make me disproportionately upset.
If I hit a wall working on coding logic, I kind of get annoyed and take a short break and come back and try some more.
If I'm doing _anything_ involving databases and API calls I get actually ANGRY when something doesn't work.
My theory: Explaining logic in syntax feels natural, since we do it talking to each other all the time.
Exchanging information in structure feels unnatural, since we don't do it in interpersonal communication. If we're talking about a subject we don't have to first define a schema and endpoints. Our brains do all that automatically.
Imagine trying to use migrations and API routes to represent the memory access, changes in data, and relation mapping our minds do when studying new subjects or learning new information about old topics.
I HATE DATABASES.
Re: Ask HN: How does programming affect your emotional state?
#15It is called simulation problem.