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Ask HN: I’m falling out of love with coding

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Re: Ask HN: I’m falling out of love with coding

#61

Post by noufalibrahim »

That's a stupid piece of advice floating around "Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life". That's the problem.

The correct approach is to keep your love and job distinct (though perhaps intersecting). This keeps your love your love while still allows you to work.

Re: Ask HN: I’m falling out of love with coding

#62

Post by pearjuice »

I've completely detached coding for fun and coding for a client/employer. For fun? I write (almost) everything in a single file or however I seem fit, git commit -am "asdf" and use a bare-bones deploy script on a 10$-or-so VPS on which I can ssh and update an nginx config manually if I want to. For work? I jump through whatever hoops the latest CI/CD Kubernetes configuration expects from me, combined with a multi layered microservice architecture and write enterprise-grade Java with Amazon Managed Grafana monitoring in HIPAA ISO SCAMPI compliant environments.

I'm not saying working can't be fun but I have a mental model of what "most fun" I can extract from "coding" and whatever nets me the highest amount of money in the shortest amount of time.

Re: Ask HN: I’m falling out of love with coding

#64

Post by lightbendover »

I moved back to an IC/Architect position at a BigTech co and I now have the opportunity to code again if I so choose but I honestly can't stand to work through the boundless configuration and plumbing hell it is. If I decide to take on a personal project in my free time, I feel 100-1000x more productive than I would ever feel in the corporate setting. I would say I fell out of love with enterprise code years ago and I would almost certainly have remained a manager if that was my only option as an IC.

Re: Ask HN: I’m falling out of love with coding

#65

Post by sodapopcan »

ajmurmann wrote: post #57
pigsty wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. Key thing is to make small game projects that you aim to finish in well under a year. Once you embark on a big project and feature creep sets in, you’re back to avoiding programming.

What libraries or engine do you recommend to build on for fun of programming?

If you're _totally_ new to game programming (like me), I found tic80 [0] or pico8 [1] (I think the latter is more popular) a really nice introduction to game programming. They are simulated "fantasy consoles" that come with a whole wack constraints, so you're somewhat limited in what you can build, but it leaves a lot of room to grok core concepts that you could then take over to Unity or Unreal or the like.

There is a third one too, I can't remember what it's called though. I think it has "Love" in the name.

[0] https://tic80.com/

[1] https://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php

Re: Ask HN: I’m falling out of love with coding

#66

Post by ricardobayes »

Middle management usually doesn't grasp this complexity and apart from safety critical applications things are usually not tested enough. Being an embedded C programmer I didn't have this feeling at all, where every small feature was tested for 3-4 months in a simulated setting and another few days in-car. Being a web dev is completely different mentality (management and testing wise), since generally there are no real-life consequences. Add monitoring, and test some more on your own.

Re: Ask HN: I’m falling out of love with coding

#67

Post by blastonico »

I'm 40+ yo, work for a faang, and feel the same.

Problem is that, at my age and experience, this bureaucracy is expected from the industry.

I'm learning - psychologywise - to deal with it. But, I'm frustrated to be honest.

My "side job" is to invest the more I can, aiming to be able to retire in my early 50ies and, finally, be able to be a programmer again.

Re: Ask HN: I’m falling out of love with coding

#68

Post by cnity »

sodapopcan wrote: post #65
ajmurmann wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What libraries or engine do you recommend to build on for fun of programming?

If you're _totally_ new to game programming (like me), I found tic80 [0] or pico8 [1] (I think the latter is more popular) a really nice introduction to game programming. They are simulated "fantasy consoles" that come with a whole wack constraints, so you're somewhat limited in what you can build, but it leaves a lot of room to grok core concepts that you could then take over to Unity or Unreal or the like. There is…

It is literally called Love (or LÖVE): https://love2d.org/

Re: Ask HN: I’m falling out of love with coding

#69

Post by lightbendover »

actsasbuffoon wrote: post #12

That doesn’t sound like you’re falling out of love with programming. It sounds like you’re frustrated with the red tape at work. Try working on something fun on the side. Make a game, or a mobile app, or something you’ve always been curious about that doesn’t have anything to do with your job. You might be amazed by how productive you feel when you work on something ambitious that doesn’t involve all of the corporate…

The only time I coded anything in the last 3 years (been a manager) was during a hackathon -- I made a videogame that integrated our technology in a novel way to expose a new market segment. It was by far the most engaged I have ever been to the extent that I booked weekend nannies around the clock to get more time put into it, probably 130 hours spent that week. The end result was something I was actually proud of, which is something slinging ads has never been [for anyone]. Afterwards, I fell into a depression, told my manager I was switching to an IC role, and even debated quitting entirely to pursue indie game dev (just about financially independent, would easily make it to a supply-side-favored environment should I wish to return to corp nonsense). Unfortunately, it's difficult to give up mid 6s for what would most likely be 0 income ever even if it meant being content.

Re: Ask HN: I’m falling out of love with coding

#70

Post by l5870uoo9y »

if i were to read a bit between the lines here, i would say i detect a code smell and that the real problem isn't so much that developing, testing, and deploying code requires multiple services, not to mention gathering analytics, but that the basic code structure is unmaintainable. you have a lot of badly structured legacy code that has broken before? that causes developer anxiety.

as a freelancer i have fled from one project due to code base complexity, consistent need for hot fixes, and developer anxiety

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