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Ask HN: How happy are you working as a programmer?

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Re: Ask HN: How happy are you working as a programmer?

#491

Post by therealdrag0 »

bobwaycott wrote: post #266
lhnz wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My suggestion is actually not to find interesting clients. My suggestion is to find high-paying clients and then to become your own 'interesting' client (aka, reduce your lifestyle cost to a point in which you're able to use this money to sustain months of self-directed work). Nothing is perfect and I've no idea whether this particular idiosyncrasy would suit other people - I'm still undecided whether it's for me.

Exactly this. I've been consulting with various clients for the last 4 years. I make a few multiples more than I need to survive, and do not work more than 50% of the working days per year. This is relatively easy to achieve: - I have no debt outside of a couple school loans, which I prioritize paying down to zero. Everything else is either living expenses, or discretionary spending. - I ensure my clients pay for eve…

Can you give more specifics on the typical project you take on? Genre/technologies/size/price.

Re: Ask HN: How happy are you working as a programmer?

#492

Post by therealdrag0 »

herval wrote: post #320
lhnz wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My suggestion is actually not to find interesting clients. My suggestion is to find high-paying clients and then to become your own 'interesting' client (aka, reduce your lifestyle cost to a point in which you're able to use this money to sustain months of self-directed work). Nothing is perfect and I've no idea whether this particular idiosyncrasy would suit other people - I'm still undecided whether it's for me.

That's basically what I've been doing. I'm not convinced that's the only possible way, which is why I asked. Working on pointless projects is fine for a short period of time (at least for me - I tried that approach multiple times in the past), but a potential source of burnout in the long run...

Have you considered taking a pay cut to work more full time but at a company that you think is doing valuable work? There are a lot of companies trying to "change the world", surely one lines up with your values. Though sometimes the skills they want are more specialized than generic software development (which is what I have :( ).

Re: Ask HN: How happy are you working as a programmer?

#493

Post by therealdrag0 »

vdnkh wrote: post #187
phatbyte wrote: post #121

Move! Here's the thing: I love programming, I've been working has a web dev since I was 18 (34 now), but I always loved design and creating desktop apps. And recently I've been learning Swift and mobile design. This year, the startup I was working with went bankrupt, and I just dive into depression and self-confidence as a developer. I couldn't stop thinking to myself: "oh no, not again all those web dev interview pr…

I'm just the opposite - I was going mad making microservices with C# and have jumped ship to being a full stack webdev guy. I love JS, it feels so freeing and easy after working with such a heavy compiled language (I still like C# though). I really enjoy doing front-end work and I feel that I can utilize my creativity in ways I couldn't working on the backend exclusively.

How did you get into JS? I have avoided throwing myself into the "front-end" because I feel like I don't have any artistic bent and I don't enjoy pixel pushing.

Re: Ask HN: How happy are you working as a programmer?

#494

Post by antb123 »

LesZedCB wrote: post #278
MichaelBurge wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'Needs of the capitalists'... You mean like plumbers, grandmothers, schoolteachers, homeowners, and software developers?

What? Have you ever participated in a criticism of capitalism before? Capitalists are by definition people who own and profit from private property (which includes things like small businesses, large businesses, land that is rented out, etc, and does not include things such as your personal home, your car, your laptop). All the people you listed are likely not capitalists in any sense, other than your simplistic anal…

pension funds are the largest owners of companies - generally owned by middle class

Re: Ask HN: How happy are you working as a programmer?

#495

Post by vdnkh »

therealdrag0 wrote: post #493
vdnkh wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm just the opposite - I was going mad making microservices with C# and have jumped ship to being a full stack webdev guy. I love JS, it feels so freeing and easy after working with such a heavy compiled language (I still like C# though). I really enjoy doing front-end work and I feel that I can utilize my creativity in ways I couldn't working on the backend exclusively.

How did you get into JS? I have avoided throwing myself into the "front-end" because I feel like I don't have any artistic bent and I don't enjoy pixel pushing.

I pushed for a project at work for months. Practised JS/web dev for about a year before that - when the time came I was ready. I go to a lot of JS meetups and I'll be speaking at my first this month!

Re: Ask HN: How happy are you working as a programmer?

#496

Post by LesZedCB »

antb123 wrote: post #494
LesZedCB wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? Have you ever participated in a criticism of capitalism before? Capitalists are by definition people who own and profit from private property (which includes things like small businesses, large businesses, land that is rented out, etc, and does not include things such as your personal home, your car, your laptop). All the people you listed are likely not capitalists in any sense, other than your simplistic anal…

pension funds are the largest owners of companies - generally owned by middle class

Pension funds (as far as I know, please correct me if I'm wrong) are financial instruments which are meant to be used for future consumption during retirement. They are not financial investments that are used to generate more capital. This makes them distinct from capitalist investments which are used for the purpose of increasing their capital wealth, most of which is unable to be consumed.

Re: Ask HN: How happy are you working as a programmer?

#497

Post by tim333 »

LesZedCB wrote: post #240
lhnz wrote: post #182

I enjoy programming but 'working as a programmer' is infuriating. There are so many interesting product ideas yet 'me-too' CRUD app recreations of previously successful incumbents products are highly desired. This is particularly true in the startup ecosystems where kids talk about 'interesting' problems and finding 'purpose' and yet are blindly following the mantras and motivational speeches of trite capitalists. I…

I enjoy X, but 'working doing X' is infuriating. I would bet that most people feel this way. Maybe we should consider alternatives to wage labor that better meet the needs of people instead of the needs of the capitalists...

Some of the alternatives that seem to work are better capitalism such as YCs "build something people want" model. I'm not sure socialist approaches work very well for programming apart maybe from academia.

Re: Ask HN: How happy are you working as a programmer?

#498

Post by chiaro »

marknutter wrote: post #478
cgopalan wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good question. I am not opposed to the killing of animals, just the torture involved in the killing. If you see videos of how animals are farmed in slaughterhouses and warehouses, you wonder how humans have degenerated into something so vile that they dont even consider the pain and conditions these sentient beings go through.

I'm fairly certain spiders are not concerned about the suffering of the butterflies they consume..

Spiders lack moral agency.

Re: Ask HN: How happy are you working as a programmer?

#500

Post by tim333 »

bsenftner wrote: post #265

Been coding professionally 37 years. Started as a self taught video game developer back in the Apple II, Commodore era. I loved it at first. University had me working at a 3D graphics research lab with Mandelbrot himself, later on I was an OS developer for the 3DO and the first PlayStation. I worked on tons of high profile video games, and later transitioned to VFX for film, and worked on a ton of popular blockbuster…

Cool about page https://3d-avatar-store.com/about
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