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Ask HN: I love programming but hate the industry. Can anyone relate?

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Re: Ask HN: I love programming but hate the industry. Can anyone relate?

#191
"""Programming as a profession is only moderately interesting. It can be a good job, but you could make about the same money and be happier running a fast food joint. You’re much better off using code as your secret weapon in another profession.

People who can code in the world of technology companies are a dime a dozen and get no respect. People who can code in biology, medicine, government, sociology, physics, history, and mathematics are respected and can do amazing things to advance those disciplines."""

Zed Shaw. Advice from an Old Programmer. Final chapter of "Learn Python the Hard Way"

Re: Ask HN: I love programming but hate the industry. Can anyone relate?

#192
I can definitely relate. The disparity between the enjoyment of the craft and the experience of applying it is particularly vast in this industry.

My recent experience is probably a fluke and would therefore be unhelpful, but I finally optimized job selection exclusively by pay rate, accepting a role in a tech stack I have no experience with and honestly, very little interest in, and yet the engineering culture and overall experience are turning out to be the best in my recent memory.

Re: Ask HN: I love programming but hate the industry. Can anyone relate?

#194
I don't have any advice, unfortunately, but I can offer words of empathy and say that I definitely relate to you.

And I've been at it for 25 years. Part of the problem is that for 15 of those 25 years I was full-time self-employed. It was immensely rewarding owning my own company and being self-sufficient. And I still own the business, it just wasn't making me enough to money and I started to lose my passion for what I was making.

I'm a maker. I like producing things whether it's wood-working, producing a magic act with my wife (which, when you're making everything from props to costumes involves a ton of DIY in all sorts of skills), producing music etc.

So for me, I care a lot about what I'm producing and how I'm producing it. I don't care too much about what programming language or "tech stack" I'm using, although I can't stand trend-driven software development. I'm all about choosing the right tool for the job and thinking about the self-life of the software I'm making. But it also matters to me what I'm making and the craftsmanship that goes into it.

The things that are burning me out in the industry are:

1) There is next to nothing being produced today that I care about at all. I don't play games, I hardly ever use my smart phone and I really hate SaaS and Cloud for the most part as a consumer. I'm a hacker, a tinkerer. I'm something of a contradiction because I like "high level" programming (Java vs C, frameworks vs ground-up) but I also like being close to my machine. As a programmer I'm supposed to be the master of the machine. I don't want to program for some Amazon service running on some VM in a foreign data centre. I want to code for a machine that I can touch. As an end user I want to own and control my software and hardware. I don't want to be constantly hitting some remote server and keeping all my data there. I want to control and own my computer. I want to touch it. I want to be able to customize all the software on it. I want to be able to use it completely offline / air-gapped if I want to.

2) I try to bring a sense of craftsmanship to my work that is under-appreciated by businesses. All they want is cheap labour who can get a rapid prototype out the door in time for "deadline" and then that rapid prototype becomes permanent, tech debt is ignored and the long-term consequences aren't realized by those who have cashed out, moved on and left those behind holding the bill.

3) Trend-based design decisions drive me crazy. Part of the problem is that we have a younger generation of engineers who only know what they know, and they need us old timers to teach them. But they have this attitude that "new = better, always." So we see Cloud-based everything complete with the vendor lock-in and complexity that using a million different proprietary weirdly named services employs, GraphQL as a solution for every problem, microservices where monoliths make more sense, monorepos where micro-repos make more sense etc. (But Google is doing it so it must be the best solution for every problem!)

I used to be a very high-tech person, relative to my peers. I was the kid who knew computers and spent every waking hour installing various *nix OS's to play with them, teaching himself to code, writing games (I don't play games anymore and the horror stories from the industry are enough to make me not want to go anywhere near it), starting tech businesses etc. These days when I clock-out of work I don't go near anything high-tech. I'm starting to appreciate the outdoors, producing things with old-fashioned skills. I can't stomach the idea of writing a single line of code when I'm not on the clock. It's really sad.

Re: Ask HN: I love programming but hate the industry. Can anyone relate?

#195
post #149
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have to work on weekends to meet deadlines, have you considered that the problem is not about yourself but about the deadline?

It's not necessarily "working weekends" that's the issue. You can have a job that requires you to work 2 hours per day and still work 6-7 days a week. It's more the constant backlog of stuff that needed to be done yesterday, more than a deadline for a specific feature(s). I have zero control over that, which inevitably leads to the stress of work spilling into my personal life, weekends etc. I'll feel the need to do…

You have control, it's managements problem to descope or hire more staff if they have more tasks than people.

Re: Ask HN: I love programming but hate the industry. Can anyone relate?

#197
post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So basically no-code can be used as a foot in the door strategy? Like, hello I offer you some training for this great no-code tool and help you build exactly what you want, then I stick around to round the unavoidable rough edges?

The problem is if you started with no code, can you round the rough edges? One reason we use code instead of no code is so we can extend the product in any direction that is necessary, not just the few that were anticipated by a tool.

Many are impressed by the no-code claims and start that way only to get bitten after a few minor successes by said rough edge - then what else can you do than try to soften your current investment's thorns. And arguably anything can be addressed, given the right motivation/time/money.

Re: Ask HN: I love programming but hate the industry. Can anyone relate?

#199
post #124

I had(have) the same problem but I'm successfully resolving it. In the last 10 days I made more progress than 10 years combined before. Why? Because I realized that the problem is inside of my mind. What is causing me to not finish/doubt my own projects? There are many reasons, each unique to each persons's mind. One must brutaly focus in on the specific reasons and resolve them. The solution that is working for me:…

Great comment. Thank you. I'm currently reading "Manifest. 7 steps to living your best life". It's pretty much exactly what you've described. It sounds like you're going through an amazing transformation. Embrace it and change your life. They don't come round often. Give that book a read when you get the chance :)

One word of warning though, this was a mistake that derailed me over and over again: don't get lost in self-help books.

The solution is in your mind, not in the books.

Very few books/people tell you that.

They sell you habits, methods of planning etc... but did you notice that somehow that never ends up working?

Sitting alone and examining the mind was the only thing that worked for me.

The gains were exponential. Well, compared to all other self-book, where the gains were zero, I guess I can say that the gains are infinite compared to any self-help book.

Re: Ask HN: I love programming but hate the industry. Can anyone relate?

#200
I thought I loved animation but I learnt that I mostly love drawing, and hate the animation industry. I left twenty years ago and forged a career as a freelance illustrator, mostly drawing porn. It makes less money than working long hours for a corporation, but I’m making a lot of individual people happy with my work.

Very few passions survive contact with the industrialized version of their craft.

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