361–370 of 570 posts
Jamie Zawinski[0] gave up professional programming[1] to manage a lounge[2]. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Zawinski 1. www.jwz.org/gruntle/nomo.html 2. www.dnalounge.com/backstage/log/1998-1999.html Edit: jwz hates HN; made the links non-clickable. Thanks @Jtsummers.
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> without having to play the development workflow game with the daily standups and so on? It never used to be like this. I think management has reacted to the traits they perceive in programmers - get distracted too easily, work on things that don't need doing, take too long, cannot provide work-time estimates, etc - by putting in place this micro-managing approach: "only do it if it's on the kanban and tell us each…
I believe Agile (at least as thought of by management) is designed to make programmers interchangeable. If programmers are interchangeable, they are easily replaceable. We just started doing "by the book" Agile with daily stand ups. Now that you mention it, it does feel like I'm being micro managed. Put in your time every day so we can email everyone the burn down chart. Lets add some more pressure to the job if you…
At the end of the day programmers are mostly just factory workers of the 21st century. The best ones are perhaps closer to the mechanics of the industrial revolution.
On top of that I think I'd like to own a cafe or roast coffee or something.
But ultimately I got into development work because I was so motivated that the time it took to build experience on my own came easy. And doing the work day in and day out comes _pretty_ easy as well.
Though of course sometimes your interest wanes a little. But I know that it's a lot more satisfying than any job I've ever had. And I haven't thought much about others that I hear about.
In addition to that I just honestly don't think I'd make as much money anywhere else. So as long as I'm into it and it's the best place to make money, I don't see why I wouldn't keep at it.
I just hope I can try to do my other interests in my off time, which over time has become a lot harder than it felt previously.
Computational cognitive science. I'm in the process of going back to studying. My employer knows this, as well as most my friends and peers. I plan to spend the next two scholar years (starting in 2017) to take a master in cognitive science. I have worked for 3 years in web development since graduating and have enough money stashed to make the transition. I'll likely write a lot less code, and more maths and english.…
Too bad modern AI developments have absolutely nothing to do with "cognitive science"
I currently work in a good environment where I'm appreciated and paid well. Not many people in the world can say that, so I have a lot to be thankful for. Programming has done good by me. But I don't love it. Alan Kay is right, it's like building "an Egyptian pyramid with millions of bricks piled on top of each other, with no structural integrity, but just done by brute force and thousands of slaves". There's no eleg…
Well, I have an opposite problem. I work in a different industry, but completely adore programming and solving variety of problems that involve data processing or connecting various systems together.
You work in a particular field, is it possible to take your knowledge of the "daily grind" to one of the development houses making tools you use? Is there some software that would be particularly useful that doesn't yet exist? Can you write plug-ins for existing tools (and sell them, a friend did that for audio processing software)?
You have domain experience, you don't have to forfeit it if you make the switch to programming.
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I can, but it does mean starting from scratch.
Wow, so the credits are really that thorough? That's awesome to hear. I also now have new respect for movies with really short credits - I'd wondered if there were any positions deemed "too irrelevant" and not included. I'm also particularly curious about the "no formal education in CS" bit - for various complicated reasons I haven't (yet?) completed basic HSC, and am wondering how to break into the industry in gener…
I got my job by getting noticed through my GitHub blog, to which I dedicated only about a half hour every other night for a month or so.
One night I got an article at the top spot of HN's front page. I had a great job offer within hours from a dev at a company which I've always respected.
Content on my blog was self taught, 99% of what I do at work is self taught. Formal CS education is still useful, but the ratio of cost/reward is terrible.
I currently work in a good environment where I'm appreciated and paid well. Not many people in the world can say that, so I have a lot to be thankful for. Programming has done good by me. But I don't love it. Alan Kay is right, it's like building "an Egyptian pyramid with millions of bricks piled on top of each other, with no structural integrity, but just done by brute force and thousands of slaves". There's no eleg…
> "an Egyptian pyramid with millions of bricks piled on top of each other, with no structural integrity, but just done by brute force and thousands of slaves" True for outsourced departments of big corporations (Java chicken farms). Not everywhere creating the software is at this stage of development though. There are many creative and agile (not necessary "Agile") businesses and places where creating the software ev…
The idiom would be monkeys, so monkey typewriter farms?
centers of typewriting excellence?
I think about leaving programming every day. I love programming, but I'm not sure I enjoy software development as a career. I enjoy coding and understanding how computer systems work, but I don't care for the constant changes in tools and techniques in certain domains of development. I'd rather practise with and improve my existing knowledge of a subject, instead of constantly playing catch-up with someone else's too…
Software dev is less about enjoyable hacking, and more about "housekeeping", or a million yak-shaving data management tasks that you are paid to care about.
I'd sooner do something else that merely involves software, but has some other domain of knowledge, and keep the majority of my coding as off-work hobbying.