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

Ask HN: I just want to have fun programming again

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 219 posts

Re: Ask HN: I just want to have fun programming again

#191

Post by retrocryptid »

Everyone is different, I suppose, so ymmv.

I went back to coding stupid small games in a scheme-like Lisp on 8 and 16 bit cause.

I started out with Lisp in the 70s but followed the money to C, C++, Java and DotNet with side-trips into Smalltalk and Self. And a metric tonne of x86 16 bit assembly.

But I always had a fondness for Lisp and FORTH.

One thing I remember from the old days was (as Sussman pointed out) we used to build larger programs by composing smaller programs. Now we use monolithic blobs where you spend a lot of time writing tests to see how the API works because there's very little documentation (and it's a black box where a LOT of functionality is hidden behind a single API instead of smaller components you combine how you see fit. Look at any Microsoft Crypto API for an example.)

So my fun is now had on personal projects.

I have moved some professional projects over to Erlang and Elixr. Others use closure, and I get a similar feel. I feel like I'm in control. JavaScript used to give me that feeling, but my management chain insists we do things like import packages to test whether an object is null (and it turns out it does the comparison wrong.)

Your sense of "fun" will no doubt be different, but I guess my point is... the freedom to choose your development environment can provide a bit of happiness to your life. Not just what you work on.

Re: Ask HN: I just want to have fun programming again

#192

Post by jjk166 »

Might I recommend instead of looking for a way to make things easier, instead you look for a way to make them harder.

There's more than one way to skin a cat, and for a project with even minimal complexity there are going to be tons of perfectly legitimate choices for how to bring it to fruition. In theory this is great, it's so easy to find a tool that works for you, but it's also very easy to get into analysis paralysis. If that's something that really bogs you down and makes the experience unpleasant, then you need a way of easily reducing the number of options. If you set out from the beginning to make a challenge out of it and add some stupid requirement that you have to satisfy, that can do the trick. You're no longer looking for the optimal choice, just an acceptable option.

There are other benefits: a handicap makes doing boring routine things stimulating and forces you to think about problems in new ways. If you choose a handicap that forces you to use something you don't have a lot of experience in, then it's a great way to learn. You tend to develop a deeper understanding of the fundamental principles underlying what you're trying to do. You can also be a bit easier on yourself about the quality of the end product since hey, it's pretty amazing that you could get it to work at all.

Re: Ask HN: I just want to have fun programming again

#194

Post by p4l4g4 »

tmaly wrote: post #136
giobox wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deploying Home Assistant is largely how I taught myself Docker, Kubernetes etc. Its much easier to learn solving a "real" example. You can learn a ton just trying to do a production grade home assistant deployment - move on to SSL termination at the load balancer with letsencrypt, try different deployment strategies for upgrading the server with zero down time, write custom extensions... etc etc. I've now got a small…

I knew this guy that automated his home with Prolog. It was quite a cool project. I 100% agree with picking a project to learn.

How i love these quirky side project! Do you have a link to a repo? Would like to see his setup!

Re: Ask HN: I just want to have fun programming again

#196

Post by tmaly »

p4l4g4 wrote: post #194
tmaly wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I knew this guy that automated his home with Prolog. It was quite a cool project. I 100% agree with picking a project to learn.

How i love these quirky side project! Do you have a link to a repo? Would like to see his setup!

I do not think he publishes it. But I would not be surprised if he sees this comment on HN.

Re: Ask HN: I just want to have fun programming again

#197

Post by grep_name »

giobox wrote: post #134
scubbo wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big +1 on this. If you're OK with a broader definition of "programming" and have a bit of money to throw around, I've found tinkering with https://www.home-assistant.io/ to be very satisfying. I got more sense of accomplishment from scripting "text me when I leave the house if I forgot to set the alarm, and turn on the front porch lights when I arrive back if it's after sunset" than I did from months of corporate wor…

Deploying Home Assistant is largely how I taught myself Docker, Kubernetes etc. Its much easier to learn solving a "real" example. You can learn a ton just trying to do a production grade home assistant deployment - move on to SSL termination at the load balancer with letsencrypt, try different deployment strategies for upgrading the server with zero down time, write custom extensions... etc etc. I've now got a small…

Ha, I also got most of my initial experience the same way :) I use k8s at work now, am somewhat frustrated with it and would like to run a k8s cluster at home, but I have a hard time justifying it. I'm not sure if a pi k8s cluster would make sense for me either, although I do have enough pis laying around for a small-ish one. I've considered ordering a couple (more) r210 ii's and making a cluster, but don't know what the stack would be exactly.The beefiest machine in my home currently is an unraid server, and I run a small number of services in a docker-compose stack on a vps.

Do you find that there are functions that are unique to k8s for a selfhoster that demand a system with that kind of overhead?

Re: Ask HN: I just want to have fun programming again

#199

Post by eckza »

tasuki wrote: post #190
eckza wrote: post #19

https://elm-lang.org https://elmlang.slack.com Static FP lang targeting the web as a runtime environment. Wonderful people. The nicest compiler in the game. Tight dev loop. Good tooling. No JavaScript knowledge required. Join us.

₊1 for Elm. Easy, fun, reliable. And the Elm Slack is the most helpful Slack I've ever seen.

Elm Slack has literally made my career. Hats off to every last one of the regulars for their patience and kindness.
Post reply on HN