UX design?
That is, despite all the fuzz, not something you jump into from maintaining CRUD apps.
Ask HN: Not smart enough to a programmer, where to take my life from here?
61–70 of 173 posts
Re: Ask HN: Not smart enough to a programmer, where to take my life from here?
#62I may be off base here, but it sounds to me like you just aren't interested in the subjects. One of the biggest factors to learning is how much interest you have. There are tricks you can do to get yourself more interested, but it does take a fair amount of work and isn't always effective. But if you wonder why sometimes we can remember silly details or whole complicated plotlines from stories but can't remember a si…
> One of the biggest factors to learning is how much interest you have.
... and it's hard to be interested in something you aren't competent at.
Re: Ask HN: Not smart enough to a programmer, where to take my life from here?
#63I may be off base here, but it sounds to me like you just aren't interested in the subjects. One of the biggest factors to learning is how much interest you have. There are tricks you can do to get yourself more interested, but it does take a fair amount of work and isn't always effective. But if you wonder why sometimes we can remember silly details or whole complicated plotlines from stories but can't remember a si…
Yeah, I guess the real question here is "do you love programming?" If you do you can make it work, it's a matter of not giving up and instead tweaking your learning system, practicing more and better, etc. If you don't you need to find another area. Programming is a very demanding trade, and I don't think you can do it just for the paycheck, you need to have some degree of passion for it. If someone disagrees with me…
> Programming is a very demanding trade, and I don't think you can do it just for the paycheck, you need to have some degree of passion for it. If someone disagrees with me about this I'd love to hear different takes.
I don't have any different abstract or psychological take on it, I just know people who have programmed for 30 years who don't love it now, and some who never loved it and always wished they were doing something more interesting. They are also perfectly good programmers, who work because they get paid for it rather than some spiritual edification.
Re: Ask HN: Not smart enough to a programmer, where to take my life from here?
#64you say you started doing programming as a hobby which means it used to be fun, right?
you might want to isolate the aspects of what made it fun back in the days when it was a hobby and what makes it dreadful at the moment and find yourself something which include the first, but lacks the later.
personally i think the attractive side of being a developer is creating something. reading you're not interested in business side of tech (analyst, salesman, management) you might want to explore other crafts which maintain the creative part.
that could be anything really. i myself started out as a graphic designer before i got involved in programming which might be something you want to explore...
Re: Ask HN: Not smart enough to a programmer, where to take my life from here?
#65I am something you could consider smart; wrote first program as 6 years old, gave talks at conferences, worked on crypto-concesus algos, now I do research oriented consulting. Some points: - pattern recognition is basic brain function and everyone has it - you need PERFECT health to be smart; check testosterone, sleep, weight, nofap, exercise etc.. 90% people have brain fog for some stupid fixable reason - there is n…
> I am something you could consider smart
Oh boy.
> 90% people have brain fog for some stupid fixable reason
[citation needed]
> avoid relationship until your life is in order. Huge time sink and ruins concentration.
A healthy social/romantic life is never a time-sink, unless you're extremely short-sighted.
Re: Ask HN: Not smart enough to a programmer, where to take my life from here?
#66I feel bad that you are experiencing this problem. If "promoters" stopped putting out ridiculous "call to code" YouTube videos etc. you and many others will probably not be having this problem.
Re: Ask HN: Not smart enough to a programmer, where to take my life from here?
#67I may be off base here, but it sounds to me like you just aren't interested in the subjects. One of the biggest factors to learning is how much interest you have. There are tricks you can do to get yourself more interested, but it does take a fair amount of work and isn't always effective. But if you wonder why sometimes we can remember silly details or whole complicated plotlines from stories but can't remember a si…
Yeah, I guess the real question here is "do you love programming?" If you do you can make it work, it's a matter of not giving up and instead tweaking your learning system, practicing more and better, etc. If you don't you need to find another area. Programming is a very demanding trade, and I don't think you can do it just for the paycheck, you need to have some degree of passion for it. If someone disagrees with me…
I'll bite. I used to enjoy programming just for the fun of it. By that I mean the satisfaction of getting the machine to do what I wanted it to do (never mind the huge psychoanalysis of emotional neglect here). I would still write programs that interested me, but the satisfaction tended to come from making it work. Imagine making games but not really caring to play them.
I've moved past that. I still write software but now it's more a means to an end. It's best if I'm working on something I care about and code is just how to get there.
It's not all one or the other though. I started learning Rust and that's kinda cool on it's own because it's no so tedious as C++. Point is that my interest in writing code has shifted a lot and I still do it.
Re: Ask HN: Not smart enough to a programmer, where to take my life from here?
#68Do you feel passionate about any particular subject, trade, or issue at all, regardless of whether or not it's connected to tech? Reminds me of this famous scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wu2HhlTEHMc
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Re: Ask HN: Not smart enough to a programmer, where to take my life from here?
#69"Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid." - Einstein, maybe
Not Einstein: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/04/06/fish-climb/
Re: Ask HN: Not smart enough to a programmer, where to take my life from here?
#70It's possible, though I don't know you, that you're too smart to be a programmer. And maybe "programmer" is the problem. Be a _____ who can also code. Zed Shaw said it best in the final pages of learn python the hard way. Programming as a career is rarely fulfilling to anyone. But being a teacher/doctor/librarian/entrepreneur/warehouse worker/farmer/etc. that can code is a super power. I'm basically talking to myself…
> Programming as a career is rarely fulfilling to anyone.
I think this is unnecessarily controversial. "Rarely to anyone" needs evidence. Plenty of happy programmers around.
I get your (or Zed Shaw's?) point though. There's nothing wrong with wanting to be a programmer, but programming for the sake of programming is a fast way to get bored or to burn out. Programming is a tool. It doesn't hold inherent value without being applied to a particular problem. So find problems that you would like solved, or at least find out what sort of problems you enjoy solving.