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Ask HN: Losing all interest in programming, what now?

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Re: Ask HN: Losing all interest in programming, what now?

#171

Post by JSavageOne »

giantg2 wrote: post #123
JSavageOne wrote: post #20

I personally think 90+% of the work in this industry is very boring. At this point many will say "well why are you working in this industry then"? Well I tried the alternatives, and they were way worse. I need money to survive in this world, and programming gives me the best bang for my buck. Most other industries require working longer hours doing less interesting work making less money with less freedom. If it's re…

Longer hours than IT? It seems the industry is known for working long hours to meet deadlines and of course on-call schedules.

I've never worked more than 10:30-5:30pm in a full-time job in this industry, and of those hours I'd say the real "work" part has generally never exceeded 4 hours/day. I don't even think it's really possible to do more than 4 hours/day of deeply focused, productive coding.

The job is not really stressful because at the end of the day, it's just software. Unless you're working on life-critical medical stuff or something, if the site goes down, nobody dies. Also I've never had an on-call job.

Name me an industry that pays more with less work and less stress.

Re: Ask HN: Losing all interest in programming, what now?

#172

Post by yamrzou »

jaquers wrote: post #51
LeifCarrotson wrote: post #34

Been there, done that, got the T-shirt. It sucks, I don't wish it on anyone. Highly recommend taking some significant time off. Like, off , off, not "I'm behind at work and behind on my hobby projects and behind on home maintenance and behind on my personal exercise goals, gonna take 24 personal hours Mon-Weds next week, I should be able to renovate my guest bath in that time, it's needed work for 3 years". During th…

> Later, it optimizes the process to reward you earlier for just planning to do the thing - sketching, architecting, dreaming, writing task lists. Eventually, it gives you the same "I'm really proud of that accomplishment" reward for just watching someone on Youtube do it (you don't even have to look at all the off-camera drudge work). I'm deep in the depths like OP and I can relate to this, like, a lot. Do you know…

Not exactly this behaviour, but somehow related: The Shallows by Nicholas Carr. Also this video: https://youtu.be/5B1YXRiN784

For search terms maybe: instant gratification, short term rewards, dopamine.

Re: Ask HN: Losing all interest in programming, what now?

#173

Post by superiorflush »

masukomi wrote: post #90
balabaster wrote: post #5

This 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…

Diagnosed burnout here. It takes WAY longer than months to get back to where you once were (if you ever get there). Its been 7 years for me. (Thanks, Academia.)

Re: Ask HN: Losing all interest in programming, what now?

#175

Post by sidcypher »

valenterry wrote: post #140
rrradical wrote: post #37

A lot of these answers are about finding things other than programming, and I think that's great. But as some additional perspective- I believe I was in a similar position to you, and what saved my career was functional programming. Basically I had grown really tired of solving every problem in the same way (create a new class, getters, setters... the same ol' object oriented stuff). And so I dove into Haskell which…

Was similar for me. The drawback is, once you get back your passion by finally understanding why many things have been so pointless without functional programming, your job options are now severely limited.

Same for me, learned Haskell a year ago. I have to note that your options only feel more limited if you refuse to look back and acknowledge the "wrong" ways. Your job options were always numerous, you just filter out the unattractive ones, leaving them to the people who don't have that luxury :)

Re: Ask HN: Losing all interest in programming, what now?

#176

Post by sidcypher »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #104

I'm kind of in the same boat. I've got plenty of project ideas, but when I start thinking about working on one of them I invariably get to the "What's the point?" stage. Now, normally I'd say we need to push through this. But I think instead we need to give ourselves some space given the current circumstances: We're in the middle of a global pandemic and in the US we're in the middle of some political and epistemolog…

I've read both a lot of Less Wrong (and the R:AZ book) and Soviet dialectical materialism (Marx and Lenin), and I've found a surprisingly large amount of overlap in the philosophical foundations. The way the notion of truth is handled, with the material world being the single-level territory, and the (conscious?) mind being the multi-level map of it, is surprisingly reinvigorating to read - especially when considering how different those sources are, separated by almost a century.

The insights about the epistemologically different modes of thinking of various groups of people under widely unequal material circumstances does shed quite a spotlight on both the "how we got here" question, and, more importanly the "where to go from here" one.

"Don't try to force it - it's like falling asleep" advice reminded me of vipassana practice - it does usually clear up my brooding, so that the "What's the point?" question dissolves into clarity of the source of intent in general. While still on the topic of history and politics - "Meditations On Moloch" by Scott Alexander is a great re-read.

Re: Ask HN: Losing all interest in programming, what now?

#177

Post by tome »

rrradical wrote: post #37

A lot of these answers are about finding things other than programming, and I think that's great. But as some additional perspective- I believe I was in a similar position to you, and what saved my career was functional programming. Basically I had grown really tired of solving every problem in the same way (create a new class, getters, setters... the same ol' object oriented stuff). And so I dove into Haskell which…

nthing this. I think I would have given up programming a few years ago if Haskell didn't exist. (Maybe I could have settled for OCaml or Clojure.) Probably I would have gone into management but I certainly wouldn't still be enjoying being an individual contributor!

I'd also like to reiterate your final paragraph, in case anyone misinterprets you and thinks that Haskell is just about novelty or doing things a "different" way. For me it's about doing things a way that actually makes any sense at all.

> The thing I loved was that it allowed and encouraged me to find the _best_ solution to a problem, as opposed to just 'something that works'.

Re: Ask HN: Losing all interest in programming, what now?

#178

Post by treg »

Sounds like me 7 years ago. I ended up quitting and going back to Uni. I got through Uni with a complete left of field job as a retained firefighter and now work as a Registered Nurse. No regrets, life is so much better now.

Only you can decide your next move but when you do, don't prevaricate just commit. Good luck.

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