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How can you not be romantic about programming? (2020)

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Re: How can you not be romantic about programming? (2020)

#51

Post by sombremesa »

picks_at_nits wrote: post #33

I am deeply, deeply romantic about programming. I consider it an act of self-actualization. But answering the question literally, I am not representative of everyone in the industry, and that's a good thing. It's easy to feel romantic about your vocation when you have a number of reasonable options for achieving modest financial security, and you thus had the privilege of choosing the one that most closely matched yo…

> For many, programming is the lowest-risk way to put a roof over their head and feed their family.

It seems that to some extent the romantics are actually indebted to this cohort for pushing forth the ideas of fair compensation and fighting for workers' rights, because people who are passionate about their work usually end up getting taken advantage of.

Re: How can you not be romantic about programming? (2020)

#52

Post by DC1350 »

rmason wrote: post #17

If you have multiple startups competing evenly in the same space why does one succeed and the others fail? The founders ability to execute is paramount. But of equal importance is that one product has a little bit of magic. Something that makes the user smile. If it was easy every startup would have it. You might say they all do the same task why spend extra time so the user has an incredible experience. Because in m…

> Something that makes the user smile.

This is not something that actually happens.

Re: How can you not be romantic about programming? (2020)

#53

Post by FrozenVoid »

the only things i find "romantic" is creative design in macros, improving algorithms and low-level bithacks, everything else is mostly boring and mundane code monkeying. Programming big projects where creativity and design space are stifled must feel suffocating and limited: people don't invent new stuff and do everything by the book - implementing something just for it to work, but not daring to break new territory.

Re: How can you not be romantic about programming? (2020)

#54

Post by pdimitar »

Responding to the title, it's easy: get jaded by constantly having to fix somebody else's broken stuff and as a bonus never get enough time to express your own creativity and implement your good ideas.

Rinse and repeat for ~10 years and you'll see how can you not be romantic about programming. (I am in the profession for 19 years.)

I am now looking for ways to retire early. I will hit 41 in a few short weeks and I am still the hard-working guy that has zero savings but that has been 100% my fault and I am not blaming anyone -- I have treated life as yet another lousy job that I can half-ass (reference to my younger years). I came to my senses, finally, about two years ago, after I received a series of cold showers during several interviewing campaigns and have seen how capricious the job market is and how completely RANDOM tech hiring is.

Since then I am working on investing in relations more than anything else, taking some pay cuts for supposed sustained income down the line (people who would call me for temporary contracts on a regular basis, people calling me to fix their stuff just for a few days and for generous one-time fees, people needing the occasional technical writing etc.) but if that doesn't work -- and it likely will not work because I don't seem to be in the right circles -- I'll just start applying exclusively to USA companies due to the bigger compensation and will just hoard money for a few years.

I'll also likely start 3-4 small IT businesses after I fix my health; my skills as a programmer and a sysadmin are quite broad and I can pull it off alone.

---

Back on topic, programming is romantic when you are not doing it as a paid job, plain and simple. There are people who absolutely love their programming work plus the compensation plus their team but if they are reading this they should probably start praying to whatever gods they believe in that it will last because for at least 80% of us it didn't.

I am looking forward to having more free time after I gather some savings. I still love programming but the commercial aspect is absolutely destroying it for me.

Re: How can you not be romantic about programming? (2020)

#55

Post by bitwise-and »

brmgb wrote: post #34

While I somewhat admire the author feelings, as a direct answer to the chosen title, I have to say I don't share them at all. I view programming with a mix of indifference and boredom and the sad few years I had to do it as a job are easily the less fulfilling of my life. If I had to sum up my feelings regarding programming, I would say it is: - a lot of uninteresting busy work; - intellectually mostly unchallenging.…

Maybe it was what you were working on, maybe it was the act of programming itself, maybe it was the company, etc. etc. etc., for the sake of your own happiness I'm glad you're not doing that anymore. I for one and becoming more and more fascinated by it, despite its (MANY) quirks & decisions that get made because of previous bad decisions. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Re: How can you not be romantic about programming? (2020)

#57

Post by grawprog »

Seeing as i'm not as jaded yet as many of the other commenters here towards programming, maybe I can give my views.

I understand what the author's getting at pretty simply, it's pretty awesome to write some words...lots and lots of words...and you create 'something'.

It's sort of the same romance that say would surround something like

A carpenter that builds homes from start to finish

Or a mechanic that builds super cars in their garage

I think it's that same thing

The lone programmer hacking away building something awesome

Unfortunately, like the 'romance' of most things, the reality is

That carpenter's working on a crew of 100 people building yet another cooking cutter townhouse

That mechanic works a day job at a shop and spends more time paying bills and dealing with customers

And...that programmer

They're part of a team debugging some server code somewhere that a bank or accounting firm relies on or something

Sometimes though, I find it helps just to stop and think of things romantically from time to time, even if you're disillusioned.

By the time I left my prior job, I was kind of fed up with it. But even then there was two ways I could look at it.

I could be

'A CNC programmer in a granite shop making countertops and fireplaces for rich people'

Or

'I turned mountains into high end furniture using large machines in a trade that stretches back to the farthest history of humanity.'

Looking at it the second way helped on those days you just really didn't want to be there.

Re: How can you not be romantic about programming? (2020)

#59

Post by picks_at_nits »

sombremesa wrote: post #51
picks_at_nits wrote: post #33

I am deeply, deeply romantic about programming. I consider it an act of self-actualization. But answering the question literally, I am not representative of everyone in the industry, and that's a good thing. It's easy to feel romantic about your vocation when you have a number of reasonable options for achieving modest financial security, and you thus had the privilege of choosing the one that most closely matched yo…

> For many, programming is the lowest-risk way to put a roof over their head and feed their family. It seems that to some extent the romantics are actually indebted to this cohort for pushing forth the ideas of fair compensation and fighting for workers' rights, because people who are passionate about their work usually end up getting taken advantage of.

My own writing on the subject of this industry falls into two pretty cleanly divided piles:

The writing about programming itself is "impractical" and "romantic," because that writing is for those who have an affinity with the "romance of programming."

The writing about getting a job, negotiating compensation, shipping products, hiring programmers, &c. is practical, because that writing is for everyone.

Re: How can you not be romantic about programming? (2020)

#60

Post by ljm »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #27
rufus_foreman wrote: post #4

"After a while, more and more, you’ll find yourself in moments of awe, stunned by the size and fragility of it all; the mountains of work and talent and creativity and foresight and intelligence and luck that went into it. And you’ll reach for the word “magic” because you won’t know how else to describe it and then you lean back and smile, wondering how someone could not." I guess I wish I felt like that about progra…

The longer I am in this profession (and it's been over 20 years) the less I see my peers as "dicks and idiots" but more as victims of the same broken game. I work with very smart people, to be honest. It's the technology and the employers and the culture of development that's the problem. Retiring sounds good right about now.

Peopleware, Mythical Man Month, Five Dysfunctions of a Team, and similar classic texts were all written decades ago.

It's been over forty years and many organisations haven't learned a damn thing from it. I don't blame developers for it, there are no dicks and idiots involved here.

Read one of those books now and it will still feel like an epiphany.

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