I have a cto that only wants to communicate through the gitlab board and actively avoids 'tech discussions' as he views them as attak on his decisions. I envy military tech devs, at least they get to develop solutions against the problem at root.
Ask HN: Losing all interest in programming, what now?
151–160 of 178 posts
Re: Ask HN: Losing all interest in programming, what now?
#152This sounds like the beginnings of burnout or depression... do you find joy in anything else? Does anything motivate you? I went through this for about 3 years after my divorce. I couldn't find motivation or joy in anything. I turned to helping other people solve their problems because at least I was helping others to get through what I couldn't figure out how to get through myself. There was a lot of time spent in r…
100% agree about this sounding a LOT like burnout. I'd strongly recommend the OP go though the list of symptoms listed here. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/high-octane-women/20... most people who are suffering have no clue how badly they have it. I felt very similarly. My wife and I were both VERY burnt out. Quit work and just lived on savings for far too long. We just couldn't find _any_ desire to do the ho…
Wow that was me at my last job. I wanted so badly to perform but I couldn't. I thought I was a terrible programmer and a terrible person for not being able to deliver. Looking back it wasn't a great environment and after a change I can think and learn again. It's great.
Re: Ask HN: Losing all interest in programming, what now?
#153Oscar Wilde said: "Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul". My reaction when I start feeling similar situation is to jump in real physical new situation (new sports, new outdoor exploration, DIY new manual project and similar). The key concept is take a break from intellectual and abstract things and dedicate to new physical and concrete ones.
Re: Ask HN: Losing all interest in programming, what now?
#154This is the thing I had. You described my exact feelings. I think this is the beginning of the burnout. What helped me was quitting my job and focusing on myself for a bit.
After about 6 months I was sick of not doing "my thing", then found a new project and now all is well. I regained my enthusiasm about programming.
I wish you luck
Re: Ask HN: Losing all interest in programming, what now?
#155This is perfectly normal. Software programming is all but commoditized at this point unless you're in some super specialized field. Personally, I've been considering some sort of sales role in the future. Those people seem to be way over paid, better paid than me anyway and I'm doing okay. Note, this would be at a major firm rather than a startup.
This is so true. I'm sick of hearing how well we developers have it when we cannot manage to get 6 digit salaries* yet I know people in sales that are making MILLIONS in commissions out of comfortable clients in the automotive industry.
* Speaking of the EU. And no, I don't want to hear about your Swiss salaries.
Re: Ask HN: Losing all interest in programming, what now?
#156I’m in the same boat. I know it’s not depression because I’m overall happy, I cook and exercise and spend hours every day learning Chinese. I’m pretty sure it’s burnout.
Re: Ask HN: Losing all interest in programming, what now?
#157I recommend to go easy on yourself and expect less. Break stuff down into the tiniest of bites. Today I’ll install webpack and check out some of its options. That’s it for today. Tomorrow I’ll try to compile a single index.js hello world file etc. Get a tiny momentum going, enjoy getting less done but consistently.
Then choose projects that don’t need complicated stacks. I recently did a birthday app purely front end and purely in tech I know .
So go easy on yourself and break things down into bites. Take time off as much as you need from side projects. Or some weeks maybe just watch videos on some interesting projects and don’t code. Get inspired that way.
Good luck!
Re: Ask HN: Losing all interest in programming, what now?
#158From what you wrote I get the sense that you may be underestimating the time, effort and money often required to make software of a certain size so that when those facts start becoming apparent they are a blocker to you continuing.
I have been there. Where every project involved grand architecture or lofty feature ideas, both of which are easy to imagine but harder to put into action. Which in my case caused and utter lack of velocity, and the closure that comes with finshing something, for my side projects.
My way of getting out of this never ending cycle was to narrow the scope as much as I could, painfully so. All the way down to either weekend projects or even something that only takes a few hours.
Just as a simple starting off point I would recommend looking into "Project Euler", just to get the cycle of starting, finishing, dopamine hit going.
Re: Ask HN: Losing all interest in programming, what now?
#159I used to be a "grand project dreamer", believe me I know the feeling. The feeling of reluctance I think is from your subconscious questioning whether half the stuff you think you need is actually required and then you're stuck wondering what exactly you do need whether you realise it or not. I've found it much easier to avoid "architecting" and instead within a project pick 4-5 different starting points and try to i…
I do this strategy, and I recommend it. I vote we call it Yak Farming as it's designed as a way to get around the problem of Yak Shaving. You simply build a series of inter-related and mutually beneficial but somewhat loosely coupled projects under the umbrella of one over-arching project. Because each project makes the others more valuable, if you get stuck need to do some Yak Shaving on one particular project and i…
yes, you've articulated it better than I did. It took me a long time to come to shift to this way of working and it made a huge difference to my productivity and stress levels.
Re: Ask HN: Losing all interest in programming, what now?
#160Sounds like you don't know how to work and tackle complex thing and you get overwhelmed. Find perhaps a partner to work with together or an accountability partner to keep each other in check if you prefer solo projects.