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25 years of coding, and I'm just beginning

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Re: 25 years of coding, and I'm just beginning

#71

Post by ndnxhs »

readingnews wrote: post #5

No offense, but you claim you have been "officially coding for 25 years now". You state you are 36. Were you really, officially doing anything at 11 years of age. What does that mean? I was a solder tech at 13 years old. I NEVER throw that out there in any blog or write up, even though I was _literally_ getting a paycheck from a company. Does that make me an official solder tech? Hell no. When people ask how much exp…

Obviously it means they started programming at 11 which is not unheard of. Not sure why you are trying to gatekeep programming.

Re: 25 years of coding, and I'm just beginning

#72

Post by swaggyBoatswain »

gammateam wrote: post #36

> I only have websites for clients, which most are no longer up; or businesses I have worked for as an employee. This is the worst and contributed to me doing different things, for me it was apps whose API servers were no longer responding. It is very hard to keep your portfolio up to date, when you aren't able to show even the public facing side of it.

1. Make a video, showcasing results. If you need approval delete sensitive data first

2. Take lessons from work apply to opensource. You take your lessons learned with you everywhere

Re: 25 years of coding, and I'm just beginning

#73

Post by bigiain »

TomMckenny wrote: post #69
orev wrote: post #3

What every salary-person has to show for it: a life lived; bills paid; food on the table; health; a roof over your head; a body not ravaged and damaged by hard labor; the ability to relax and have some entertainment in the evening; a place to sleep; comfort; relative stability; the ability to make a living using mostly just your brain. Yes, perspective is important, and I’m not saying one should not strive to make mo…

Being grateful makes perfect sense. But being satisfied with just that sees a bit of a waste. Perhaps even a bit ungrateful. Should I be satisfied if my headstone says simply "I was comfortable"?

That's kinda assuming you want work to be the part of your life that satisfies you.

Many people would be perfectly happy with a headstone saying "I had a comfortable job, and raised a family I love" or "I had a comfortable job, and made my art in the evenings and weekends".

Re: 25 years of coding, and I'm just beginning

#74

Post by jonnycoder »

jacquesm wrote: post #31
bch wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think PG said[0] it well: Suppose you own a beat-up old car. Instead of sitting on your butt next summer, you could spend the time restoring your car to pristine condition. In doing so you create wealth. The world is-- and you specifically are-- one pristine old car the richer. And not just in some metaphorical way. If you sell your car, you'll get more for it. In restoring your old car you have made yourself riche…

I'm guessing Paul Graham has never restored a beat up car to pristine condition. Your pristine condition car that will fetch you less than the new parts you put in when you sell it at what the market will pay for it. Restoring beat up cars to new state is a losing game unless someone pays you to do the work, except for some rare collectibles, which I am assuming are not your personal beat up car. And even then chance…

I interpret it the opposite from you. Sure you probably won’t make a lucrative living restoring an old car but over time the value will go up. The lesson is more about putting in work that builds value, self actualization and doing something gratifying. I do this with land/property. Sure I could hire a dozer operator to clear it all but the time I’ve spent manually as well as renting a mini excavator for a small price has supplied tremendous gratification and perhaps added $50k in value by opening up a nice view of the mountains that nobody ever thought existed.

Re: 25 years of coding, and I'm just beginning

#75

Post by news_hacker »

TomMckenny wrote: post #69
orev wrote: post #3

What every salary-person has to show for it: a life lived; bills paid; food on the table; health; a roof over your head; a body not ravaged and damaged by hard labor; the ability to relax and have some entertainment in the evening; a place to sleep; comfort; relative stability; the ability to make a living using mostly just your brain. Yes, perspective is important, and I’m not saying one should not strive to make mo…

Being grateful makes perfect sense. But being satisfied with just that sees a bit of a waste. Perhaps even a bit ungrateful. Should I be satisfied if my headstone says simply "I was comfortable"?

What's wrong with being comfortable though? Why should one be dissatisfied with being satisfied? Is satisfaction ever OK? And if so, when? When can you know for sure that you've actualized your full potential? Is it even something that's knowable? This seems overly omniscient to me.

I see this fearful, regret-filled ethos driving a lot of my peers and the western culture at large and I worry about the mindset it instills in people. I know it's well-intentioned and comes from a perspective of the human potential being the highest form of sovereignty. A wasted life seems like the biggest crime. And comfortable has somehow come to become synonymous with wasted.

I'd argue for the cultivation of meaning as a replacement to this search for "finally good-enough" potential actualization, but that's me.

Re: 25 years of coding, and I'm just beginning

#76

Post by merlinsbrain »

unreal37 wrote: post #54

Fascinating comparison of comments. If you read the comments to the article, 100% of them are "same with me". If you read the comments in HN, 50% of them are "set your expectations correctly." I read this and I felt like I needed to talk with the guy. It doesn't matter if you "don't have anything to show" for 15 years of work. It doesn't matter. Where is it written that programmers must have a hand-coded website or a…

It matters to some people, the same way art matters to some people as a way to be proud of what they’ve done, and have something “tangible” to show for it. Programming can be an extremely creative endeavor, and not having something to hang on the wall can be a bit disconcerting for the kind of craftsman who wants to look upon their work / listen to their latest composition every day.

You may not need anything code related to feel fulfilled / happy / whatever in life, but being dismissive by projecting isn’t useful.

I do agree that “too much of a perfectionist” is a stretch. It could be lack of motivation or fear of failure, or something entirely different, I don’t think the meaning is lost here.

Re: 25 years of coding, and I'm just beginning

#77

Post by gammateam »

swaggyBoatswain wrote: post #72
gammateam wrote: post #36

> I only have websites for clients, which most are no longer up; or businesses I have worked for as an employee. This is the worst and contributed to me doing different things, for me it was apps whose API servers were no longer responding. It is very hard to keep your portfolio up to date, when you aren't able to show even the public facing side of it.

1. Make a video, showcasing results. If you need approval delete sensitive data first 2. Take lessons from work apply to opensource. You take your lessons learned with you everywhere

yep thats the way to do it.

Re: 25 years of coding, and I'm just beginning

#78

Post by merlinsbrain »

hirundo wrote: post #4

I recommend "The War of Art". For me it holds up to multiple readings and gives me a kick in the pants each time. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1319.The_War_of_Art

I read this based on some HN comments, I found it to be pretty motivational but not much else.

Was there anything else you gained from it that I may have skipped?

Re: 25 years of coding, and I'm just beginning

#79

Post by j45 »

The key is to be open to understanding yourself. Have people praised your intelligence in the past? That can be paralyzing over time. Or did they praise your effort?

I recommend giving a book called Mindset a read. It helped clarify behaviors of a fixed vs growth mindset, and how having talent still means working hard and putting themselves out there.

This book appears well researched and is the first audio book in a whole that has been able to hold my attention.

https://www.amazon.com/Mindset-Psychology-Carol-S-Dweck/dp/0...

Re: 25 years of coding, and I'm just beginning

#80

Post by themoat »

TomMckenny wrote: post #69
orev wrote: post #3

What every salary-person has to show for it: a life lived; bills paid; food on the table; health; a roof over your head; a body not ravaged and damaged by hard labor; the ability to relax and have some entertainment in the evening; a place to sleep; comfort; relative stability; the ability to make a living using mostly just your brain. Yes, perspective is important, and I’m not saying one should not strive to make mo…

Being grateful makes perfect sense. But being satisfied with just that sees a bit of a waste. Perhaps even a bit ungrateful. Should I be satisfied if my headstone says simply "I was comfortable"?

I've been thinking about a similar question for 4 or 5 years.

Should you be satisfied with being comfortable? If it's important for you to leave a legacy related to your hobbies or career field, then probably not. You have to be content with what you leave behind.

For me, I have reached a place where I would be at peace if I left a headstone that said, "Good father, good husband, kind person".

I'm not going to make meaningful changes in computer science, and I'm ok with that. Whether or not I make contributions to open source software won't give me more peace at the end of my life, so I don't pursue it. Is it ungrateful? Perhaps. But it's honest.

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