I've been coding for less time than you. What I've told some people is that I love coding, but I'd rather code solutions for problems I find interesting, like side projects, than to code professionally.
Ask HN: Is it normal to fall out of love with coding?
71–80 of 124 posts
Re: Ask HN: Is it normal to fall out of love with coding?
#72Here's my two cents
I haven't so much fallen out of love with coding, but fallen out of love of shiney new things. The last truly "new" thing I jumped on was C#. At the time C# was first released, I was also playing around with Smalltalk, and that actually destroyed me. I couldn't understand why people were excited about all these features in C# as they weren't new.
I became seriously disinterested in new tech, web 2,0, full stack bullshit.
Now I work in Delphi, and I actually love it. All the other guys in my team hate Delphi and would rather be working in whatever is the latest and greatest.
The problem with that is that everything just gets reinvented, and stuff that was old is new again, and the cycle repeats.
That's why I have fallen out of love - I've become a bitter old coder who just uses (and does) whatever requires the most minimal amount of work
Re: Ask HN: Is it normal to fall out of love with coding?
#73Maybe you should try: - switching from back-end to front-end coding or vice versa? - switching from plumbing/glueing libraries to applied algorithms research? - switching from basic administrative software to numerical/scientific computing? - trying out a new field like machine learning? - try embedded programming or robotics? - switch languages, and try something completely different like Haskell?
Have you tried turning it off and on again?
Re: Ask HN: Is it normal to fall out of love with coding?
#74Anything you do for work eventually wears out and becomes "just work". That's why it's called "work". Hobby coders can escape into the unrestricted world of building stuff without limits to satisfy their imagination and curiosity. They can also change hobbies and increase or decrease the amount of time they want to spend on coding to stay in the sweet zone. Paid coders can only carve out little, temporary nooks of fr…
"Anything you do for work eventually wears out and becomes "just work". That's why it's called "work"."
So true. As someone that likes to watch Twitch, it is not uncommon to see streamers abandoning a game they have streamed for years, even if it means taking a huge hit in terms of viewership.
Even playing a game can be work, if done for work.
Re: Ask HN: Is it normal to fall out of love with coding?
#75It can happen. In my early career I was in the non-profit/NGO space, primarily working with people but then transitioned to a tech role in a couple very large companies. Very recently I have felt the draw back toward a less tech focused, more people focused role. Working on that transition at present.
Re: Ask HN: Is it normal to fall out of love with coding?
#76Here's my two cents I haven't so much fallen out of love with coding, but fallen out of love of shiney new things. The last truly "new" thing I jumped on was C#. At the time C# was first released, I was also playing around with Smalltalk, and that actually destroyed me. I couldn't understand why people were excited about all these features in C# as they weren't new. I became seriously disinterested in new tech, web 2…
hah, i am making the same experience with smalltalk. but i haven't let it destroy me. instead i use it to help me focus on learning languages that actually are different (like haskell).
meanwhile i accept that the languages i use daily like javascript aren't special because of their features but because of their position in the programming ecosystem. knowing smalltalk and common lisp also helps me appreciate the few rare cases where a language is showing a feature that is uncommon in most other languages. javascripts prototype based objects for example.
Re: Ask HN: Is it normal to fall out of love with coding?
#77It's a sign of burning out. I've felt the same way many times during my career. I started making websites when I was 15 (I'm 33 now) and moved to a management role. When I wasn't coding for the last few months, I realized I missed building stuff. I just quit my job this month and now looking for contract/freelance work. One thing I realized very late was I needed some kind of hobby outside writing code and spending t…
Cooking is a great suggestion. Especially if you live with someone else (family, spouse, housemates). Making something delicious for other people to eat brings a great sense of accomplishment. If you have kids and you can make food that they love (that is still healthy), then this feeling of accomplishment will put you in the clouds. You will also be able to set yourself challenges in the kitchen that are not unlike…
i often try to explain programming to a layperson with a cooking analogy. Programming is like cooking with a recipe. You've got your ingredients at the top (input data, variables etc). Then you've got the processing (slicing, cooking, stirring etc). Eventually you pull all the ingredients together for some final output (a dish).
INGREDIENTS onion, whole tomato, whole jalapeno
GOAL: make salsa
prepped_onion = chop(onion)
prepped_tomato = roast(whole_tomato)
prepped_jalapeno = roast(whole_jalapeno)
salsa = blend(prepped_onion, prepped_tomato, prepped_jalapeno)Re: Ask HN: Is it normal to fall out of love with coding?
#78It's a sign of burning out. I've felt the same way many times during my career. I started making websites when I was 15 (I'm 33 now) and moved to a management role. When I wasn't coding for the last few months, I realized I missed building stuff. I just quit my job this month and now looking for contract/freelance work. One thing I realized very late was I needed some kind of hobby outside writing code and spending t…
Disagree. I dislike coding at work, because it's boring infrastructure stuff I have to code. I am 26, I work 32 hours a week and work pressure is very low and there's just no way I'm burning out. A lot of coding is just boring, and if you have been programming for over a decade, you see through the fads that commercial companies hype.
Re: Ask HN: Is it normal to fall out of love with coding?
#79Sometimes what you need is change. I am sixty-five years old. I was a programmer for fifteen years, started a consulting company, then a software business. Was acqui-hired. Became VP Product Dev over 27 locations, 1200 developers, hundreds of products, then semi-retired for four years and worked on digital audio production. Got bored, did another startup, wrote code. Sold it and became CTO of a product division. Late…
Thank you for this wisdom. I am a little more than half your age (37), and I have had a similar path so far, started as IT jack of all trades, then neck deep in web dev and coding, databases, executive management, product management/development, customer solutions and then, to my surprise, back to web dev and coding.
I did this to get back to being hands on, and as a gateway job, and enjoyed it, but am also now starting to tire of that again.
I can see myself going through a similar cycle that you did. The only thing I find difficult is explaining it to recruiters when applying to jobs - they always ask, “why would you bounce around in such a way”!
It looks like perhaps you were able to avoid that problem by starting your own businesses and then getting acquihired, writing your book, and other pursuits which moved you back to a “traditional job”?
By the way, I love “junior programmer by 75”. I feel the same way, and not entirely that it’s a bad thing. Just reality, there is so much to know and learn.
Re: Ask HN: Is it normal to fall out of love with coding?
#80[deleted]