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Coding as a Career Isn't Right for Me

bipolarco.de

41–50 of 124 posts

Re: Coding as a Career Isn't Right for Me

#41
He's essentially admitting two things:

1) I hate my job... but! 2) I do it because I need it

Ok. That's fine. Just shut-up if you need the job. No one needs to hear about your woes and whinings if you're conscionable about the contract you're entering in to.

It's downright childish if you don't reject/quit a job if you don't want it.

Re: Coding as a Career Isn't Right for Me

#42
post #27

You remind me of me. I'm 26. I'd much rather work on my own stuff than my company stuff. I have this plan after my current job to burn up some of my savings and spend a couple of years to build something I'm excited by. I've been paying off student debt. I think I'm okay with working a 10.30-6.30 job. The pay-check is what will grant me my freedom. Every week I work, I save 3 weeks of expenses. I've already enough sa…

Don't forget that once you get enough saved up, you can live off the interest alone (i.e., retire). So at your rate, 5 years gives you 15 years of expenses. At 7% return on investment, that money will never run out.

Re: Coding as a Career Isn't Right for Me

#43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's something wrong with how you evaluate your potential employers, then. I understand how one can make the mistake that working at any startup would mean that it is going to be an exciting job. If you want to be excited about what you are working on, the fact that a company is a startup or a huge company isn't important; the question is always, what are they making, and are you excited about that?

They're all making glorified crud apps, stuff that I could make solo. I'm not excited by it.

Well, you seem to work with web applications. So no wonder. In my opinion, in terms of fun, interest and challenge web programming ranks slightly above Cobol, for exactly the reasons you state.

You mentioned you wrote a game. Game programming might be something you like and not every place is a sweatshop, although you have to be discerning.

Embedded/low-level programming is cool too. I used to write router firmware, and I also worked on a sql engine for a time. Neither job had anything to do with "like" buttons or CRUD.

So maybe the issue boils down to equating "programming" with "web app".

Re: Coding as a Career Isn't Right for Me

#44

Wonder what this guy would say to the countless millions who toil away in factories, big box retail, and accounting offices. None of these people do this for the love of the job. They do it because it needs to be done and they get paid for it. I wouldn't be so critical of your feelings but you whine about how society didn't let you do what you want to do on your terms. Change your circumstances. No one is just given…

I like your post and think it's valid, but I would say that coding in high school/college doesn't prepare you for the real world at all.

In high school I was hacking on silly personal projects. In college I was solving cool algorithms, puzzles, and games. But in the real world most programming roles are pretty menial / not a super exciting domain / consist largely of process, code reviews, QA, debugging.

Re: Coding as a Career Isn't Right for Me

#45
post #27

You remind me of me. I'm 26. I'd much rather work on my own stuff than my company stuff. I have this plan after my current job to burn up some of my savings and spend a couple of years to build something I'm excited by. I've been paying off student debt. I think I'm okay with working a 10.30-6.30 job. The pay-check is what will grant me my freedom. Every week I work, I save 3 weeks of expenses. I've already enough sa…

Sometimes I think its test automation that should be automated :-)

Re: Coding as a Career Isn't Right for Me

#46
Work is called work because it isn't supposed to be fun. If your's is remotely tolerable, only requires your time from 9 to 5 and pays you enough to cover all your necessities and even some luxuries you are better off than 95% of the world. Life's a bitch, then you die. At least you make enough money to not have to do it past your 40s if you don't want to.

Re: Coding as a Career Isn't Right for Me

#47

$65k in student loans to learn programming? The author is clearly an idiot. Programming can be learned from home for next to nothing, because you have all the tools you need there. It's not like you're a surgeon and you're working with expensive/complex equipment.

Yeah, but getting a degree (so that people know you're any good) is a tad more expensive than "next to nothing." Perhaps not $65k, but not too far off (depending on where you go). If you choose a cheaper school, there can be issues with getting a job or getting the salary you want (as I've heard it said, anyway).

Just look at programming jobs ads. When it comes to degree requirements, ads can be divided into 4 cases:

1) No degree required (not mentioned).

2) Stated that you need either a degree or show some code you've created.

3) Stated that a degree is required. Here you could contact them, show them samples of your work, list all of your experiences and offer to do additional tests if you don't have a degree.

4) Stated that a degree is required and they will only hire you if you got a degree.

Re: Coding as a Career Isn't Right for Me

#48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I rather much agree with him. What the hell was the point of getting a supposedly in-demand degree, graduating top of my class, maintaining my skills at the top of the industry, if I was just going to get stuck in a corporate hell-hole? Programmers of the world, unite.

I was going to reply to the parent saying, "He's not saying he's entitled to anything! He just doesn't like his situation and wants to change it!".. and then I realized the author replied first, and indeed is asserting he's entitled to happiness? What was the point of any of that hard work? Maybe there was no point, maybe he/you made a mistake. From where do you derive entitlement? If you live in the United States yo…

Alright, fine, we don't deserve anything. We don't deserve to be treated like children. We don't deserve to have the majority of our productivity either stymied or taken from us and bastardized. We don't deserve to be told "do this for us and we'll take care of you" and that turns out to be nothing. Yeah, there's a lot we don't deserve.

I'm owed what I was promised. I was promised "pass these tests, you can get into any grad school or company you want." That didn't happen. I was promised, "finish this project, and you'll get a raise and to run the next one your way." That never happened. I was promised a lot of things, and because I don't have a rich daddy to threaten people with a lawsuit for breaking those promises, I get told it's my fault for expecting anything.

As I said before. Eff. That. Noise. Your rules suck. I choose my own.

Re: Coding as a Career Isn't Right for Me

#49

the entitlement is strong with this one

Indeed it is. Haven't I accrued debt, worked hard, and earned the right to be in a job I should be happy at? I deserve that. So do you and so does every body else.

Happiness is not a right. This kind of thinking will perpetuate your misery.

Re: Coding as a Career Isn't Right for Me

#50
post #30

Hey, kudos for thinking this: > And then I want to get away from coding for you and code for me. I don't like coding for you. I don't think any of us do. Too many people think of coding as only a career...thus, we shouldn't teach coding to non-comsci-majors because not everyone should be a programmer as a job. Programming is an intellectual and productive pursuit in it of itself, and there is a huge difference betwee…

That said, I've met a few developers where it's just their job. They aren't passionate about code they way I am- their passions lie elsewhere, and that's fine.

Being passionate about software development can help you be a better developer- but it's not a prerequisite by any means.

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