Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: How to rediscover the joy of programming?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 337 posts

Re: Ask HN: How to rediscover the joy of programming?

#61

Post by simplify »

elviejo wrote: post #2

Programming is 1,000 room hotel of which we live in only one. I recommend you study different programming paradigms because in them we can find really interesting approaches to solve problems. For me those have been: - functional programming (with Haskell) - logic programming (prolog) - Constraint Programming with the excellent Coursera class on minizinc. Those paradigms made programming fun again for me . PS: I also…

I second the nod to logic programming. I've been working on a board game engine in Prolog as a side project, and I'm having the most fun programming I've had in a very long time :)

Re: Ask HN: How to rediscover the joy of programming?

#62

Post by munificent »

tomg wrote: post #42
tfleming wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What was it about JavaScript that wanted you to leave programming? I'm just curious.

As someone considering leaving the web development industry after 12 years: JavaScript is a never ending grind. Callbacks, then Bluebird, then Promises, then a sync await. a new testing framework every six months. a new web framework every couple of years. aimless, massive changes to the language (classes in a prototyped language? Why not). JavaScript then coffeescript then three versions of typescript. too many UI l…

It's like you have to constantly keep learning, but nothing you learn really matters in any deep way. It's just new names and APIs for the same stuff, month after month.

Imagine if you were a woodworker making furniture. You make the same furniture every day and love your craft. But every month, someone shows up, takes all your hand tools, and replaces them all with a set that are mostly the same but slightly different and all have completely different names.

Re: Ask HN: How to rediscover the joy of programming?

#63

Post by yummypaint »

Find a project or loosely related group of projects that excites you but requires some programming to execute: for me it has recently been pinball machines, automated midi controlled instruments, and modular music systhesis with vcvrack.

Another example group might be drones, autopilot systems, and software defined radio.

Re: Ask HN: How to rediscover the joy of programming?

#64

Post by schemescape »

floathub wrote: post #28

Learn LISP/Scheme and lots of fundamental concepts you probably have a feel for, but in a far more profound way: 1. First watch the SICP series ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-J_xL4IGhJA&list=PLE18841CAB... ) 2. Then work through the book ( https://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/sicp/full-text/... ) If you really do the exercises (an hour here and an hour there), you can feel you brain getting wrapped around…

If you’re interested in the Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs book, I ported the first portion to HTML (with a built-in Scheme interpreter) here: http://jaredkrinke.github.io/learn-scheme/

Re: Ask HN: How to rediscover the joy of programming?

#65

Post by dbancajas »

dkulchenko wrote: post #14
sigwinch28 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did you start a monthly subscription box without programming? outsourcing? hiring?

I used Cratejoy to handle the e-commerce backend, so the extent of it was some minor HTML/CSS work. There's existing solutions for Shopify that do the same as well, so no programming needed. Later on (still running 5 years later), when I got back into coding again, I got rid of Cratejoy and wrote the backend from scratch in Ruby.

how is your subscription box business now? is it stronger due to COVID?

Re: Ask HN: How to rediscover the joy of programming?

#66

Post by jupiter90000 »

I feel very similar so probably don't have great advice, but as someone else mentioned it depends on your particular scenario. For me I have a day job at a company then my own company on the side I do a few hours of work a week for too. After dealing with all that work (much of it involves programming or related efforts), I have nearly zero energy to think about programming outside of that.

I used to have various side projects and programming passions but as soon as I think about them now my mind just numbs out. All the creative programming energy is going into other things.

So I kinda gave up on trying to hobby program or think of it as something I like to do but as work, and when not working try to do anything that is not involved with it basically. I still wonder if sometimes I could find another small business or job that wouldn't involve programming so I could do it as a hobby again but the money is too good to pass up so not sure what I'll end up doing. I feel like if I could retire I'd soon go back to hobby projects and enjoy it more again. Who knows.

Re: Ask HN: How to rediscover the joy of programming?

#67

Post by ronyfadel »

revx wrote: post #39

I'd like to plug the Recurse Center (recurse.com) - it's a "writer's retreat for programmers" and helped me find a community of people who really enjoy programming. I attended 7 years ago and it's still a part of my daily life. I also would plug !!Con (bangbangcon.com) and StarCon (starcon.io) as conferences specifically about the joy and excitement of computing. Those might be a good source of inspiration for you. (…

Is it hard to get into Recurse? Is the whole program costly? (I believe you'd need to live in NYC?)

Re: Ask HN: How to rediscover the joy of programming?

#68

Post by quickthrower2 »

Simple programs!

I find I get burned out by commercial code. So many hands have touched it, millions of lines, scant docs, hard to make sense of it, but ... deadlines, get this task done and that.

Create a simple program outside of work and connect with the joy again!

I am having fun writing a simple nodejs app which is using AWS service. Nothing groundbreaking but its fun to learn and tinker with. I have no expectation of getting good at AWS or NodeJS, just want to build something and get it working.

Re: Ask HN: How to rediscover the joy of programming?

#69

Post by avilay »

A lot of good advice here, adding my recipe for avoiding burnout (~15yrs into my career):

Delineate between not enjoying your job vs. not enjoying your profession. Sometimes getting a new job in a better work environment and especially with a better manager helps immensely.

Get a new job that is adjacent to software, like technical program management, sales engineer, developer evangelism, etc. Here you can still leverage your extensive programming experience but not have to code. For me - I quickly re-discovered my love for programming.

Treat your employer like your customer. This lets you side-step all the petty office politics, the rat race for the next promotion, etc. which are big contributors to stress-related burnout. Your customer is paying a fair market value for your services - the day that does not hold true, you part ways. No hard feelings.

Re: Ask HN: How to rediscover the joy of programming?

#70

Post by oreally »

Have you ever considered what's making you not enjoy programming anymore? Journalling your day-to-day might help.

Here's one example that I found that really screws with people not enjoying programming. If you have a career, chances are you're going through rules/bullshit(ie. code standards, needlessly large codebases) made up by other programmers within your organization and that's making you not enjoy programming as much - in contrast to when you were younger and only needed to get things working.

On the bright side, there are ways to handle it. While I don't recommend going YOLO and willfully breaking all the rules or even quitting without a plan, I do recommend trying to find some other outlet/hobby that you enjoy after work hours.

You could also try to contribute to people also trying to make programming less friction-ish. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=De0Am_QcZiQ&feature=emb_logo

Post reply on HN