Either a chef or a lawyer. Maybe both.
Why chef? sounds interesting and fun
Well, I do a lot of good cooking for relatives and friends (as a hobby). I have often thought it would translate well into a food truck business.
Ask HN: Have you ever thought of leaving programming for something else?
421–430 of 570 posts
Re: Ask HN: Have you ever thought of leaving programming for something else?
#422Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, that is also an option. In fact intersection of two or more mediums is incredibly satisfying, if you can actually achieve it and be "successful" at it (whatever metrics you measure success in). Elon Musk's wife calls this "Idea Sex". > Choose one thing and become a master of it. Choose a second thing and become a master of that. When you become a master of two worlds (say, engineering and business), you can brin…
Nothing like another rich person coming in telling you how making money isn't the goal and not important to them. What's really important is idea sex! "Just become a master at that one thing, and then become a master at another, and viola! Idea sex. Then you'll really be rich! lol!" Gee, if only I had married Elon Musk.
> "Just become a master at that one thing, and then become a master at another, and viola! Idea sex. Then you'll really be rich! lol!"
And sooner than you think, you'll become a "Jack of all trades and master of none".
Re: Ask HN: Have you ever thought of leaving programming for something else?
#423Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was referring to the capital intensive nature of the business. My fairly lucrative programming career is what keeps my farm operating. Being able to leave programming to farm is a long way off for me yet. If you have family willing to hand down the business or already independently wealthy, then maybe leaving programming to farm is more realistic.
Good point; farming definitely is not profitable these days (without the large holdings/mechanization ...).
I have noticed that the agriculture market has seemed to settle on an average of about 2-3% ROI. Meaning, for every $1 you invest in your farm business, you can expect to get 2-3¢ back each year profit-wise. On average. Some years you will make more, some years you will pay to get rid of your product. Right now is closer to the latter of those two.
If you come to farming with $2-3M cash in hand, you will typically be in pretty good shape (~$60K average yearly income based on the above assumptions), assuming you have figured out the management aspects. But most don't have $3M lying around doing nothing, and that's the real challenge. The way forward seems to be to hold another job (programming in my case), and take all you can from that job and put it into the farming business until you have built up enough capital that the farm becomes self-sustaining.
It's a long road, but hopefully worth it. As they say, if it were easy, everyone would be doing it.
Re: Ask HN: Have you ever thought of leaving programming for something else?
#424I 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…
> I would prefer, if I could retire, to make short films and maybe to write plays. But I can't retire yet. So I'll push stones. It pays well. Please don't stay because of the pay. You won't look back in 25 years and say "I'm so glad I bought a new iPhone in 2016, but didn't do the things I wanted to in life" The last company I worked for was full of people only staying because retirement was "only" 10-15 years away,…
That's great for you, most people don't have nearly enough money saved to spend 2 years not working.
Re: Ask HN: Have you ever thought of leaving programming for something else?
#425Not really. For me programming isn't something I do for money, but something I like to do, which just happens to make good money. I do semi-boring stuff for money, but do fun stuff (game development) at home. I don't see myself burning out any time soon and looking for something else. Also programming fits my personality type, allowing me to avoid too much contact with people :)
Re: Ask HN: Have you ever thought of leaving programming for something else?
#426It's interesting how many of you guys have other interests, but stick to programming since it solves a paycheck problem.
Google fails me now but there was a survey/study that showed most polymaths are ending up in CS or engineering.
All I can find via the google is a harvard business review article by the ifixit guy claiming its common knowledge/everyone knows the above and now boring suits can have this secret knowledge, which is not exactly rigorous proof.
Famously there was a clustering in the 70s where the Venn diagram of hobby photographers, ham radio guys, and home computer guys was ridiculous near perfect overlap. Obviously, the guy wire wrapping a Z80 board carried a Pentax Spotmatic whenever he went outside (that was the thread mount, not the K mount variant, my dad had a spotmatic I had a K1000) and spent the occasional weekend working DX on 20 meters probably CW. If you were wealthy enough to own a floppy drive in 1982 you had a minimum of 3 interchangeable lenses for your SLR and at least two ham radio antennas on your roof. If you had a compuserve account in '84 then you almost certainly were capable of developing your own black and white film. Also you probably either wanted to, or did, sail or pilot general aviation aircraft or both. That's just how it was back in the old days. It all intermixed too, my dad built a large box of SSI TTL logic to implement a timer for his darkroom enlarger, back then that would have been, I donno, a 20 hour project maybe.
I would theorize that whatever genetic "something" makes programmers able to problem solve also makes them polymaths. Or polymaths naturally drift into programming as an easy source of cash.
Re: Ask HN: Have you ever thought of leaving programming for something else?
#427Earlier quoted context omitted.
> an Asperger profession could you, please, elaborate on this meme? And that pyramid, well, it definitely is the way how a corporate and enterprise Java software has been and still being made. Java itself is an ecosystem for creating coding factories - to parallelize the process of coding (one cannot honestly call this programming) among teams of easily replaceable, uniform (in terms of abilities) cheap workers. Ever…
At least pyramids will be remembered, most software has a shelf life of a couple years.
Pyramids are nothing. Judging how things are going, I'm sure in a far distant future on the most advanced spaceships in the galaxy there will still be a Windows XP workstation running some critical machinery.
And they'll have a couple cryogenically frozen 20th century sysadmins in case the thing breaks.
Re: Ask HN: Have you ever thought of leaving programming for something else?
#428All the time.
I'd love to change to working in 3D, preferably with Rhino (which I have a license for). But, that's not what a career is made of and lacking any practical experience pretty much means I'm stuck.
I'm not opposed to starting over at the bottom, as long as the work is engaging. Unfortunately, there's not much call for people with only minimal experience in Rhino3D, that I've found.
Re: Ask HN: Have you ever thought of leaving programming for something else?
#429Want to know really the only thing all of us have in common today? We're all alive. Think about it. Tomorrow for at least one or more of us, that may not be the case.
Despite many great comments from those in the profession or not, go with your gut instinct. When you get to the point where you are thinking of leaving what you do for something else, it doesn't matter whether or not other people got to the same point.
Trust your gut and go with it. Usually, it knows what's best for you.
Re: Ask HN: Have you ever thought of leaving programming for something else?
#430Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a law student, I experience this a lot. Computers and programming were/are my only passion and obsession. My life is dedicated to computers, but professionally I have to be a lawyer. I just had an interview at an IT Law Firm, and made a fool of myself. That's why I completely agree that, we as "people who are good at computers" need to keep seperate identities. Because if you go full Aspergers, you make yourself v…
Why do you have to be a lawyer?
It's the only way to afford law school.