A crude analogy I use is "just because one enjoys sex doesn't mean they would enjoy being a prostitute". To get back to liking coding again I had to do something without deadlines or pressure of delivery and something I just enjoyed doing. That happened to be writing small utilities in F# in my free time.
Ask HN: Ever lost your love for coding? How did you get it back?
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Re: Ask HN: Ever lost your love for coding? How did you get it back?
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
Add to that - one is still writing CRUD apps that seem to run slower than ever even though the computers have become faster. That's why I feel more drawn to my guitar now than computer but then guitar will never make me any money so need to keep churning out CRUD apps.
yeah, i was just thinking today how slow and bloated the web feels. i know things have always been slow, maybe rose-tinted lenses and that but there shouldn't be lag on an input box when using a 2020 mbp with 64GB of ram. and the frustration of trying to stream a video on reddit whilst the ad seems to have no trouble loading and playing.
OP here - what I found fun about my Django projects was that I used very little javascript. Mainly bootstrap and a dash of htmx. Modern browsers are freaking fast at rendering html and with a light payload and proper CDN setup, it feels like a SPA with 1/10th the work.
Re: Ask HN: Ever lost your love for coding? How did you get it back?
#43I lost my love for coding after the Snowden revelations. The story of programming stopped being, "to make the world a better place," and became a means to a much more nefarious end. I don't have anything to do with the NSA or that type of work, but that made me realize that the programming trade was mainly used for less than altruistic purposes by most people employing them. This includes selling ads and all that gar…
The world contains a substantial amount of perversion. Just make sure that what you code for a public will hardly be possibly used for ugly purposes (you could probably club a seal with a teddy bear, but it would be difficult: try building teddy bears instead of clubs). But when you code your own projects, the right value of coding should be evident.
Re: Ask HN: Ever lost your love for coding? How did you get it back?
#44After 10 years at a FAANG (and 25 years of programming generally) I haven't lost my love of coding because I hardly get to do any at all. But I have definitely lost my tolerance for process, paper shuffling, politics etc.
I'd love a job again where there was a clear path forward and a bunch of code to write. But in a large org the interesting coding work is eaten up in a feeding frenzy and people like me who don't want to stick their necks out too far end up spending their time putzing around in issue trackers trying to justify their existence.
What I've learned is, generally, the higher the salary band, the more boring the work. And the harder it is to walk away from the $$.
Re: Ask HN: Ever lost your love for coding? How did you get it back?
#45For me it's about first feeling good personally. And to me that means working out and staying healthy.
Re: Ask HN: Ever lost your love for coding? How did you get it back?
#46This could be a symptom of burnout (or depression) which are slightly wider topics and so have more advice available if that seems to fit. For regaining joy in programming specifically, I'd say the same as I say to people trying to learn in the first place. Try to find a project that has some real world impact that you actually care about (even if it's trivial or frivolous to others) and use that as a focus to get yo…
It's notable how often, too, folk turn to craft analogies when talking about code. So many people in tech (including me) try to turn to craft/art as a way of 'escaping' the grind. It's often not the coding that gets people down but all the 'organisational' activity (or management or however you want to phrase that) that goes alongside.
Hehe so true.. I also started building wooden longboards in my limited spare time instead of building yet another cool Github project.
Another thing for me is that I actually can finish these projects opposed to many of my private software projects where I just lack the time (and maybe energy) to finish them.
I realized a few weeks ago that I am happier since exchanged coding in my spare time with wood crafting in my spare time.
Re: Ask HN: Ever lost your love for coding? How did you get it back?
#47I was thinking the same scrolling HN, then saw your post. After 15 years I'm no longer interested. I don't care about the web, css, javascript, react, testing....it's just an increasingly tedious and difficult headache to me. I have a creative urge, and a problem solving urge, but i feel maybe it can be better expressed through another medium. I just wish I had some way to unchain myself from this 9-6 5 days a week s…
Ever think about trying embedded development? It doesn't pay as well as web development. But it moves more slowly, it's not going anywhere, and it can be a stepping stone towards getting to work with your hands in a technical role. As a more general response to OP's question, you can always switch industries. We're lucky to work with code, because everything runs on it. Finance, agriculture, medicine, vehicles...movi…
> agriculture
This I did not know.
> vehicles
This I hoped would never happen (security and privacy) - but anyway. (It has been a problem for well over a full decade, I know.) Anyway, as said, there is some light side: providing features while defending as much as possible security and privacy is a stimulating goal. One would feel more comfortable, though, if that were an established, common, given, granted goal.
Re: Ask HN: Ever lost your love for coding? How did you get it back?
#48One thing I can recommend creating your own programming language. If you have no experience with doing this, I would recommend building a parser and interpreter in a language you are familiar with and enjoy.
There is a great guide on how to do this here:
https://craftinginterpreters.com/
You can introduce some exotic syntax, make it do some funny stuff, and just play with it.
Creating a programming language on your own can be very satisfying, and if you don't expect it to go anywhere you take the pressure off trying to get it right, and you can just play.
Re: Ask HN: Ever lost your love for coding? How did you get it back?
#49Ironically, by putting in less effort at work. I know this sounds awful and a lot of PMs would probably gasp at hearing this, but I started to exert myself less at work -- worried less about code reviews, stopped stressing over small mistakes, accepted that I'm not producing the highest quality code, stopped trying to go the 110% to impress my peers and higher-ups. Really, I stopped caring as much. Choosing software engineering as your profession carries with it the high probability that it will ruin your hobby of programming.
I found that I was able to refocus most of that energy to when I'm off work and can actually get my creative juices flowing on projects I care about and have control over.
Re: Ask HN: Ever lost your love for coding? How did you get it back?
#50Not at all a coder, but a painter. Ever now and then I loose the allure of my profusion. What usually brings it back is a change of medium (e.g. from oil painting to digital painting, or from large paintings to small ones). I guess that translates to a change in coding language in your game.
Not a change in language, but in problem space (which tends to lead to a change in language). If you're a .NET enterprise CRUD guy, try web. If you're web, try C++ application work. Try kernel stuff, try embedded. Branch out.
You can try a lot of thing with .NET these days.